New development: The challenges of public sector accounting education in business schools

IMPACT

Accrual-based accounting has been a tough challenge for the public sector in several jurisdictions. Similarly, teaching public sector accounting in higher education institutions has been difficult, given the dominance of business accounting. This article discusses where public sector accounting education is taking place and presents design alternatives for knowledge production and diffusion that challenge business schools practice. The article will be a resource for stakeholders working on government accounting reforms in many countries.

ABSTRACT

This article investigates where leading scholars and accounting regulators expect public sector accounting to be taught. Usually, accounting programmes occur within business schools; therefore, current social structures (action logics, beliefs, staff incentives, and graduates’ expectations) do not favour disciplines that are not focused on the private sector. Although this problem seems obvious, it has been left out of the public sector accounting education literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Accrual accounting
• accounting education
• accounting reforms
• Brazil
• business schools
• IPSAS
• public sector accounting education

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Public Money & Management’s guest editors and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and assistance. We would also like to thank the academics for sharing their experiences with us and the members of the research group ‘Public Sector Accounting & Governance in Brazil’ for their previous peer reviews and contributions.