قالب بندی حکومت عمومی در مالزی: تجدید نظرات بدیعی از طریق حسابداری تعهدی Framing public governance in Malaysia: Rhetorical appeals through accrual accounting

1. Introduction Public corruption, experienced by many developing countries, has been arguably exacerbated by weak governmental accounting practices (Cohen, Guillamon, Lapsley, & Robbins, 2015). The criticisms of governmental accounting stem from its failure to address the needs of users. For instance, the disconnection from macro-economic management (Premchand, 1995), its inadequacy to detect fraudulent activities, and in concealing corruption scandals (Neu, Everett, Rahaman, & Martinez, 2013). As a response, to help enable better governance practices to facilitate anti-corruption, many governments in developing countries are implementing accrual accounting (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2013). This accords with advice from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) who issued an international framework for public governance. This set out the importance of accrual accounting in the public sector, and argued that better financial reporting is critical to reduce levels of public corruption (see Ace, 2014; IFAC/CIPFA, 2014). More widely, there has been coverage by international media on the role of accounting in the context of corruption (Lehman & Thorne, 2015). Prior research has noted the technical nature of accrual accounting for sound financial management in public sector organisations (Christiaens & Rommel, 2008; Ellwood & Newberry, 2007; Groot & Budding, 2008; Hyndman & Connolly, 2011; Lapsley, Mussari, & Paulsson, 2009; Saleh & Pendlebury, 2006) especially concerning its ‘perceived’ benefits for decision usefulness and accountability (Bergmann, 2012; Laughlin, 2012). However, accounting arguably has a broader governance potential (Ferry and Ahrens, 2017; Ferry, Eckersley, & Zakaria, 2015). Indeed, ‘Accounting Forum’ has called for more research into governance and anti-corruption and how calculative practices such as accounting can be significant beyond their logic of a technical potential (Ahmad Khair, Haniffa, & Abdul Karim, 2015; Lehman & Thorne, 2015). Accrual accounting can play a key role in improving the governance of public sector organisations (IFAC/CIFPA, 2014) and in maintaining their integrity (Doig & McIvor, 2003; Espejo, Bula, & Zarama, 2001). However, if accounting is analysed merely at a logic level of its technical potential, it would miss the rhetorical appeals to credibility and emotion that engender a broader governance and socio-economic potential (Ahrens & Ferry, 2015, 2016; Broadbent & Laughlin, 2002). This paper addresses the rhetorical appeal of accrual accounting beyond its technical logic, and considers its credibility and emotional potential for governance and anti-corruption through the case of Malaysia. This is pertinent at a time of serious corruption allegations in Malaysia up to Prime Ministerial level and public anti-corruption (and by implication anti-governmental) protests. Further, whilst there has been a history of neo-liberal reforms in the public sector it has been questioned whether the Malaysian populace has actually benefitted (Ahmad Khair et al., 2015). Such a case is particularly illustrative for the international community, not least due to the globalization of developing nations, such as Malaysia, evidenced through increasing international trade levels and inward and outward investment.