Editorial

Public financial management is more than budgeting and accounting!

Most public financial management (PFM) textbooks give the impression that it’s all about budgeting—perhaps with accounting as the icing on the cake. Fair enough, budgeting and accounting are key functions of PFM and deserve due attention by academic scholars and practitioners alike. Of course Public Money & Management has been publishing relevant contributions to both budgeting and accounting since it was launched 40 years ago and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. However, PFM goes beyond budgeting and accounting and includes other functions, such as internal audit, procurement and risk management. This February 2020 issue of PMM includes some contributions to these, often neglected, areas. These contributions identify key relationships with the more mainstream functions because they are critical for the successful implementation of budgeting and accounting concepts.

Journal metrics

A complete different, but nonetheless extremely important, issue is addressed by Jan van Helden and Daniela Argento in their new development article on ‘Our hate–love relationship with publication metrics’ ( DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2019.1682353). They take a look at journals and publication metrics—a topic of increasing relevance for the academics among us. A hybrid journal, such as PMM, targeting scholars and practitioners alike, has a sort of an ‘automatic impact’ because it is read by practitioners (in our case this readership includes 15,000 CIPFA members and students who have free access to the journal) and, if we look at the numerous non-academic citations of PMM, also by the wider civil society. However, this societal impact is not reflected in traditional publications metrics. Hybrid journals usually score lower in such traditional publication metrics only considering academic citations, because of their practice-oriented focus. Fortunately, thanks to our authors, PMM has substantially increased its academic impact factor over the past few years, but it remains very difficult to reach the levels that purely academic journals can easily achieve. But as van Helden and Argento show, there is also another, perhaps even more relevant, approach addressing this issue: journal lists. They are widely used by universities for faculty search and selection, as well as for accreditation purposes. And they are usually, at least to some degree, faculty driven. Therefore, it is part of our own responsibility to include hybrid journals, such as PMM, in these lists.

CIGAR

As I announced in my editorial in PMM’s November 2019 edition, we look forward to an exciting collaboration with CIGAR this year (see call for papers below).

Call for papers

The CIGAR Network’s Annual Issue of Public Money & Management (PMM)

Since it was established in 1987, the CIGAR (Comparative International Governmental Accounting Research) network has been encouraging scholars and practitioners to study and compare the governmental accounting systems of different countries. The research of the CIGAR network encompasses all governmental entities (at the transnational, national, regional and local levels), covering budgeting, financial accounting, financial reporting, auditing, financial management, management accounting and performance evaluation. Despite this continuity, themes, focus areas, and research methods vary over time, so CIGAR’s annual events always offer something new, at the edge of the discipline. See http://www.cigar-network.net

PMM has offered CIGAR the opportunity to guest edit a special annual issue of the journal (for each of the next three years starting in 2021: PMM’s 41^st volume). This CIGAR annual issue will not have a specific theme—the aim is to present relevant empirical and theoretical research in public sector accounting. The annual issue will showcase CIGAR’s valuable papers and, by doing so, increase their contribution to practice and to academia.

CIGAR is now inviting all scholars who participate in CIGAR events, or who have a significant interest in CIGAR’s research agenda, to submit papers for consideration of publication in the first CIGAR annual issue.

There will be no limitations of subjects; however, priority will be given to papers which have been (or will be) presented at CIGAR events, and that are therefore in line with CIGAR’s current activity. Thus, they will probably deal with some of following issues:

• Critical analysis of the most recent developments in public sector accounting and auditing.

• Accounting for sustainability and intergenerational equity.

• Suggestions for improving reporting systems, in order to offer more focused and more easily available information to citizens and other stakeholders.

• Analysis of alternative forms of reporting for public sector entities, such as popular reporting, integrated reporting, and sustainability reporting.

• Impact of digital transformation on the control and accountability of public sector entities.

• Use and usefulness of accounting information.

• International harmonization and the role of international (or regional) standards and the role of IPSASB therein.

• The role of public sector entities in promoting plans and action for the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

• Management accounting and performance measurement in public sector entities.

Contributions that focus on other themes, which are capturing the attention of single researchers or of research teams, are also welcome. Similarly, different methodological approaches may be used.

CIGAR editorial team

PMM editorial board member, Eugenio Caperchione is taking the editorial lead for CIGAR.

Submission instructions

The CIGAR annual issue will include, as with all PMM issues:

• An editorial.

• Three/four 1000-word debate articles.

• Main papers (maximum 8000 words).

• Two or three new development articles (maximum 2500–3000 words).

Papers for consideration should be submitted by 31 March 2020 through PMM’s ScholarOne electronic submission system: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpmm20/current

During the submission process, authors will need to select the CIGAR special issue and the submission will then be handled directly by CIGAR’s editorial team.

Papers will be blind refereed by two reviewers: usually a practitioner and an academic. Papers and articles submitted to PMM for review must not be under consideration by any other publication.

Eugenio Caperchione and the associate editors are willing to answer questions from prospective authors before submission. Send your questions to: [email protected]