Editorial: Excellence and relevance rooted in policy and practice

After 10 years as editor of Public Money & Management (PMM), Andrew Massey has stepped down; he becomes PMM’s editor in chief emeritus (see his editorial in PMM’s Vol. 43, No. 8). Andreas Bergmann, deputy editor since January 2017, is now editor in chief and Karen Johnston is deputy editor. Importantly, Lord Bichard continues as chair of PMM’s international editorial board. The past 10 years has seen massive changes in the world of journal publishing but PMM has grown in that decade into a major international journal embracing technological advances in terms of handling submissions and sharing our content, and taking advantage of the new business models by offering hybrid publishing. The journal has strong links with professional and academic organizations, as well as expert support and commitment from our publisher Routledge. For researchers, PMM has a competitive acceptance rate and, despite the difficulties of occupying two disciplinary areas (explained by Professors Bergmann and Johnston in their editorial below), it is well ranked. For our practitioner audience, we present research in a way that can be easily understood. PMM is copyedited inhouse and we work with authors to ensure real impact for their lessons for global practice both before and, importantly, after publication. PMM has a strong forward programme of highly relevant ‘themes’, which we can now publish quickly as PMM ‘collections’ and then in issues, for example in 2024 and 2025 on local government corporatization; whole of government accounting; accounting for emergencies; management consulting in the public sector; and data science. PMM’s success is also down to an active editorial board, to our authors and reviewers. PMM will continue to embrace industry and technological developments to bring as much real information to those responsible for delivering relevant public services efficiently and cost-effectively.

Michaela Lavender (Managing Editor)

PMM was founded in 1981 by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), a British professional accountancy body dedicated to public finance, whose predecessor organization was the Corporate Treasurers and Accountants Institute (https://www.cipfa.org/about-cipfa) with origins in the late 19^th century. Both CIPFA and PMM have since evolved way beyond the UK. Because of these professional roots PMM, unlike other journals, has two target groups—academics as well as professionals or, more broadly, practitioners. Arguably, the discussion about academic impact has made it more fashionable in recent years to think about practical relevancy, but PMM has had this in its DNA from the very beginning. In particular, PMM’s debate and new development articles are often written by public sector practitioners or mixed author teams. But also the annual ‘PMM Live!’ event in the House of Lords in London brings together academics and practitioners. Whenever possible, one of the two reviewers who examines submissions to PMM is somebody from practice. This helps PMM’s authors to make their manuscripts more relevant and understandable for our practitioner audience, and thereby to achieve a greater impact.

PMM therefore has a long history of publishing real world issues. Over its 43-year history, PMM has aimed to be ‘an independent journal publishing articles that contribute new knowledge as a basis for policy or management improvements, or which reflect on evidence from public service management and finance’. The editors and deputy editors have been a stellar cast of academics and practitioners including Michael Connolly, Sue Richards, Colin Talbot, Francis Terry, Sandra Nutley, Andrew Gray, Jane Broadbent, Andrew Massey and Sheila Ellwood and numerous respected theme guest editors in their respective fields of scholarship and practice. The editors and international editorial board have provided the backbone to the functioning and operationalization of the journal, and steered its strategic direction to where it continues to be a journal respected for its quality of practice-relevant research.

Broadbent (2011), when taking over as PMM editor, stated that PMM would continue to bridge practice and research by publishing academic excellence and ensuring the journal’s relevancy to academics and practitioners. She went on to state that:

The aim for all working in or with an interest in the sector must be to ensure that the best public services possible are delivered for the money available and that requires academics, practitioners and policy-makers to work together. Acting as a forum for debate between these groups must be a key purpose of PMM.

This will continue to be the ethos of the journal. Although journal ‘quality’ is measured through metrics like impact factors, the real impact of PMM is its ability publish relevant, timely research for academia and, importantly, for the public management community.

PMM’s five-year Impact Factor (IF) is now 2.4, which is more of an academic metric based on citations per period divided by the number of citable items for that period. It should be noted that, in the past 10 years, the journal’s IF has risen from 0.53 to 2.4. Also commendable is the increasing international outreach and contribution to the journal. While PMM continues to publish research based on the UK experience, increasingly there are submissions and publications from across Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and the Global South. Articles often have authors in multiple countries taking a comparative focus. As well, to be accepted by PMM, articles need to have lessons for practice and academia outside the case study country. As Massey (2014) noted, in his first editorial for PMM, the journal provides ‘a unique combination of real practical value, rigorous academic thought and international reach’. Furthermore, the diversity of PMM is reflected in its editorial board, authors and contributors, as well as methodologies. As Massey (2023), reflecting on the past 10 years of PMM, noted ‘We have also continued this approach and sought to ensure there is a diversity of work published; diversity in terms of the representation of the different backgrounds, experiences and approaches of scholars and practitioners, but also diversity of case studies and research’.

The relevancy of the journal is also evident in the debate and new development contributions. Practitioners need to be informed of contemporary and emergent issues, which cannot necessarily wait for the completion of a research project for results to be disseminated or wait for research according to academic calendars. PMM therefore provides accessible and topical contributions of emergent research and debates to enliven academic and practitioner thought and discussion of public policies and practice.

Embracing public sector management and finance

The breadth and diversity of topics in PMM is captured in a frequency and intensity analysis of the tables of contents for the past 10 years (see Figure 1). The topics cover a range of issues generally within government, governance, the public sector, public service, public management, and many articles in the field of public finance in a broader sense, for instance in accounting, budgeting, sustainability reporting and risk.

Figure 1. Analysis of PMM’s tables of contents—10 years.

Public management: continuities and discontinuities

Massey (2023) noted that there have been continuities in public management scholarship such as New Public Management and ‘and all its successor fads and fashions’. Although PMM will continue publishing articles grounded in the analysis of public management, PMM is interested in new knowledge that contributes to our (scholarly and practitioner) understandings of public management. Knowledge that seeks to address complex public sector issues and wicked policy problems. As Massey (2023) notes, how does public management deal ‘with genuine emergencies that threaten social cohesion and public safety, such as the financial crash and Covid 19, all have remarkably similar approaches and fail to deliver much beyond more austerity and inflation, both of which are in and of themselves often wicked issues’.

Thus, as we move into a new era of PMM, we will publish research that provides the scholarly and practitioner communities with new knowledge of innovative and better practices of dealing with complex societal issues from a diversity of methodologies, disciplinary perspectives, authors and global contributions. PMM will continue to publish this type of research excellence but, in terms of discontinuities, we seek to publish new knowledge, innovations, knowledge that challenges extant paradigms, punctuating existing equilibriums with new knowledge relevant to public management in scholarship and practice.

The public finance and accounting discipline

Faithful to its roots, PMM has also always been a journal publishing articles on public finance in a broader sense and public sector accounting more specifically. As a matter of fact, the two topical areas are not mutually exclusive, since public finance is a vital part of government and public sector accounting provides essential information which is relevant for accountability and decision-making purposes in public policy. In recent years, PMM has frequently published articles on public finance or public sector accounting, using theoretical bases which stem from sociology or political science, such as the new institutional theory. Such interdisciplinary research demonstrates that the two topical perspectives of PMM are close and that such an approach often provides valuable insights for the different disciplines involved.

However, an academic discipline can only be a strong and relevant partner for other disciplines if it has an autochthonous basis. This means contributing to interdisciplinary research by asking relevant questions, which are then put into the interdisciplinary context and researched using a generally accepted methodology. Nevertheless, the disciplinary basis also needs to be developed. There must not be a disciplinary standstill because of the popularity of interdisciplinary research. The disciplinary basis is also critical for academic and professional teaching and learning. Many scholars publishing interdisciplinary articles actually teach disciplinary subjects, such as accounting, on a daily basis. And their courses benefit significantly from up-to-date disciplinary research, arguably even more than from interdisciplinary work, which can often only be used marginally due to the design of the curriculum.

Unfortunately, such disciplinary research in public finance and accounting has become increasingly scarce, not only in PMM, but in many scholarly journals. And this is not because of a lack of disciplinary issues that are worthwhile doing research on. Three of of the most important are briefly discussed in this editorial in order to provide some inspiration for future research and publications. But this list is obviously not exhaustive.

Sustainability and climate change are arguably the most important global challenges for humanity. They clearly have a strong impact on government finances and relevant information about sustainability and climate change, such as the advances in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), therefore needs to be linked to financial reporting. Yet, this is largely an unexplored territory, with little conceptual thinking, let alone practical experience from the disciplinary accounting perspective. Therefore, both scholars and professionals are invited to contribute to this development in the area of general purpose financial reporting and, in particular, in respect of the inclusion of information about sustainability and climate change. PMM started publishing on this topic both from a scholarly and a professional perspective as early as 2008—for example see Guthrie and Farneti (2008), and Lewis (2008). In recent years, this development has gained global momentum. With the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) starting to develop a standard on climate-related disclosures (IPSASB, 2023), this development has definitely reached the public sector. However, the articles published, while highly relevant, remain relatively few in number—this is while the topic is developing very quickly, without waiting for the scholars and professionals to make their contributions. PMM is committed to publishing work rapidly on this highly relevant topic.

Just ranking below the risks associated with sustainability and climate change, the most important economic risk, according to the World Economic Forum (2023), is debt. This is yet another topic which fits very well with the mission of PMM. However, in recent years, only about one article per year on public debt has been published in PMM. There is definitely room for more, in particular since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) identifies debt transparency, i.e. the presentation of information about debt, as a key issue (IMF, 2023). Financial transparency obviously is one of the most important objectives of public sector accounting, i.e. the issue identified by the IMF is right at the core of disciplinary research in accounting. Importantly, it is public sector accounting information which is used to prepare the government finance statistics (GFS) as well the debt statistics, which are often used to assess debt levels.

But there are other relevant accounting topics, which are even less researched. It is really hard to explain to students, but also to managers who do not have an accounting background, why, for instance, a meteorological service can recognize a self-made weather station in its accounts, but not a self-made intangible such as a climate model or algorithm. Surprisingly, only every three or four years are accounting issues related to intangible assets discussed in PMM articles. Arguably, the issues with intangible assets look rather technical, at least at first glance, but in an increasingly digital world, intangible assets are a very relevant part of the economy. Deficiencies in financial reporting about them can affect accountability and decision-making in a very significant way.

Accountability theory is, without a doubt, an important theoretical basis for such disciplinary research. But it is not sufficient to address the issues in depth. Research on finance and accounting issues requires considering theories from economics or finance, which are typically quite different from theories rooted in sociology. In particular, when measurement of economic phenomena is the issue, the theoretical basis has to be located in finance theory. In the case of sustainability and climate change, theories from science disciplines might also need to be considered. Neither greenhouse gas emissions, nor government debt, nor intangibles, can be measured using the theories traditionally used in public management or sociology. And the issue of measurement cannot be avoided if such phenomena are to be recognized properly in financial reports and statistics.

More accounting and finance articles will also help to further increase the academic impact of PMM, which is measured along disciplinary categories in the traditional rankings. In the Scimago Journal Ranking (SJR), PMM waited until 2021 to be admitted to the accounting and finance categories, respectively. According to SJR, PMM is currently ranked in the second quartile for both disciplines, while it is—also since 2021—in the first quartile of sociology and political science. This shows that the first quartile is achievable and is an objective for the accounting and finance disciplines. However, a higher ranking requires more disciplinary articles to be published. Arguably, accounting and finance offer the most room to increase the overall scholarly impact of PMM.

A sharper image of PMM’s traditional mission

Bottom line, the new editorial team has no plans to change PMM’s mission. Massey (2019), when writing about the financial crisis and reforms, used the term ‘egregore’ as a tool for understanding change. PMM will continue to be at the forefront of publishing research excellence with real practical value for understanding change and the dynamics of the public policy and management environment. Some of the research published will be interdisciplinary while, for good reasons, some work will focus on the disciplines. Finally, without denying its British origin, PMM has become a truly international journal over the last decade and will continue to shape the global debate.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andreas Bergmann

Andreas Bergmann is a Full Professor of Public Finance and has been Director Public Sector at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences since 2002. He was Chair of the IPSASB from 2010 until 2015, after serving the board as a public member since 2006. He has been Chair of the Academic Advisory Group of the IPSASB since 2019. He is also a member of various expert groups of the OECD, the European Commission and the Swiss government. Since January 2017 he has served as deputy editor of Public Money & Management, responsible for the finance stream of this journal. In January 2023 he became editor in chief, in addition to his topical responsibility. He holds a diploma from Lancaster University, UK, and a master's degree and a PhD from the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland.

Karen Johnston

Karen Johnston is Professor of Organizational Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Her research interests include public administration, public management, public governance, human resource management and gender studies. Karen has published highly-regarded books, chapters and journals articles, and serves on editorial boards of highly-ranked journals. She served on the executive boards of European Group for Public Administration and the International Research Society for Public Management. She has held numerous leadership positions, most notable was leading the Research Excellence Framework (REF) Business and Management submissions for REF2014 and REF2021 and Associate Dean for Research at her respective institutions. Karen’s research has received a number of awards, including the prestigious Julia H. Henderson Award and Fellowship award by the Academy of Social Sciences.