Enrico Bracci, Mouhcine Tallaki and Vincenzo Riso
This paper aims to contribute to the management control systems (MCS) changes in public-private partnerships (PPSs) by developing a conceptual archetype explaining the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to the management control systems (MCS) changes in public-private partnerships (PPSs) by developing a conceptual archetype explaining the relationship between trust and MCSs in PPPs, and highlighting how this relationship may evolve over time.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a longitudinal case study methodology focusing on a hospital built and operated under a project finance deal. The methods adopted include semistructured interviews, direct observation and internal documentation analysis. We conducted 15 semistructured interviews from 2019 to 2021. In analyzing different documents and interviews, we triangulated data to ensure solid interpretation.
Findings
The case shows how trust can take different configurations depending on the type of MCS used. The results highlight how different patterns of MCSs, about trust, can be combined to govern PPPs. The case also shows the temporal dynamics of how MCS and trust evolve at different organizational levels and how bureaucratic control matched with contractual trust and trust-based control matched with competence trust can coexist at different times and organizational levels.
Practical implications
Managers involved in PPPs will be aware of the role of different types of trust in shaping and managing the relationship between partners at different organizational levels. Furthermore, the findings could help policymakers to adopt more informed decisions and to promote practice-based trust at various organizational levels of PPPs.
Originality/value
The paper proposes a management control archetype based on bureaucracy- and trust-based patterns concerning the level of programmability of tasks, as well as defined risks.
Details
Keywords
Enrico Bracci and Mouhcine Tallaki
Inspite of the attention resilience receives in relation to public policy and public management, very few studies have analysed the internal mechanics of public sector…
Abstract
Purpose
Inspite of the attention resilience receives in relation to public policy and public management, very few studies have analysed the internal mechanics of public sector organisations to see what is producing their resilience. Considering management control systems (MCSs) as the drivers of organisational change, this paper aims to explore their role as determinants of resilience in the public sector. The paper attempts to open the black box of organisational functioning focusing on one complex component.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper adopted a qualitative approach for this longitudinal case study. This paper used a mix of primary and secondary sources in terms of direct observation, semi-structured interviews and internal document analysis. This paper used a framework drawing on Barbera et al. (2017) and management control’s constraining and facilitating concepts to explore how anticipatory and coping capacities of resilience are supported and reinforced by MCSs.
Findings
Findings suggest that MCSs support adaptive behaviour and assist decision-making by providing knowledge and ready-to-use answers to cope with external shocks. However, this is found in case of the adoption of facilitating MCSs, which empower managers and employees and are based on stewardship roles. In such a context, MCSs played an essential role in shaping anticipatory and coping capacities. At the same time, financial shocks fostered the investment in MCSs, cyclically strengthening or developing new anticipatory and coping capacities.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first attempting to identify how facilitating MCSs, as a driver of organisational change, can make an organisation more resilient. It shows how resilience capacities are generated and strengthened via MCSs.
Details
Keywords
Claudio Columbano, Lucia Biondi and Enrico Bracci
This paper aims to contribute to the debate over the desirability of introducing an accrual-based accounting system in the public sector by examining whether accrual-based…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to the debate over the desirability of introducing an accrual-based accounting system in the public sector by examining whether accrual-based accounting information is superior to cash-based information in the context of public sector entities.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper applies a quantitative research method to assess the degree of smoothness and relevance of the accrual components of income recorded by 302 entities of the Italian National Health Service (INHS) over the period 2014–2020.
Findings
The analysis reveals that net income is smoother than cash flows as a summary measure of economic results and that accounting for accruals improves the predictability of future cash flows. However, the authors' novel disaggregation of accrual accounts reveals that those accounts that contribute the most to making income smoother than cash flows – noncurrent assets and liabilities – are also those that contribute the least to predicting future cash flows.
Originality/value
The disaggregation of accrual accounts allows to identify the sources of the informational benefits of accrual accounting, and to document the existence of an informational “trade-off” between smoothness and relevance in the context of public sector entities.
Details
Keywords
This study aims to fill the research gap regarding the usability of group reporting information in the central government. It answers the question of how the consolidated…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to fill the research gap regarding the usability of group reporting information in the central government. It answers the question of how the consolidated information should be formed to benefit the real needs of governmental information users.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical research is based on a survey and interviews among key internal preparers and users in the central government sector in the case country, Finland.
Findings
Results show that the private sector approach regarding consolidation is not appropriately transferable to the central government sector. The key stakeholders identified several economic and financial reporting needs that exceed what formal Consolidated Financial Statement (CFS) can offer. Consolidation is needed but not according to the extensive full control approach, but rather following the budgetary approach consolidating units of the legal person of the government, and further using the partial control approach for consolidating by discretion essential special purpose SOEs.
Research limitations/implications
Respondents and interviewees represented governmental internal organisations, free experts, auditors and financial managers from the group entities. Politicians and citizens were not directly represented.
Practical implications
Research gives applicable insights into central governments planning and developing group reporting for information needs in a favourable cost-benefit ratio. Findings benefit the development of EU's EPSAS (European Public Sector Accounting Standards) project which is still incomplete.
Social implications
Research recommends governments to make a thorough analysis before deciding on a new financial reporting system. A critical analysis prevents governments to waste money and resources on a reporting system not fulfilling the real needs of information users.
Originality/value
The value of this research is that the private sector approach in consolidation was not taken as granted. This study investigated critically and empirically the real need for consolidated information serving steering and overseeing purposes of the government's group entities.
Details
Keywords
Monia Castellini, Caterina Ferrario and Vincenzo Riso
Since the 1980s, New public management has fostered the introduction of managerial approaches similar to those of the private sector in public administrations. Recently, the…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the 1980s, New public management has fostered the introduction of managerial approaches similar to those of the private sector in public administrations. Recently, the advantages of performing risk management in the public sector have been recognized; however, to the best of our knowledge, research on risk management in public administrations is underdeveloped, and there is a need to understand how risk management is performed. This paper addresses these issues and investigates whether and how risk management is performed in Italian public administration.
Design/methodology/approach
This study focused on a sample of 503 Italian municipalities and used a mixed research method. Through a qualitative content analysis of documents published on municipalities’ websites, data and information were collected and elaborated using quantitative indicators.
Findings
The main results are that a high percentage of large Italian municipalities perform risk management and comply with theoretical provisions on risk management, sometimes displaying isomorphic behavior in risk management practices.
Originality/value
This study provides a new perspective on risk management in Italian municipalities, contributes to filling a gap in the literature and suggests a theoretical perspective on municipalities’ approaches when introducing new managerial practices.