کیفیت اطلاعات حسابداری و تصمیم گیری سودمندی گزارشگری مالی دولتی Accounting information quality and decision-usefulness of governmental financial reporting: Moving from cash to modified cash

1. Introduction During the past decades, the concept of New Public Financial Management (NPFM) serves the quest to make the public sector more efficient and effective through the use of financial management techniques. In this realm, central governments internationally try to modernize their accounting systems (Lapsley et al., 2009). These accounting reforms respond to the requests for accountability, transparency and decision-usefulness of the information provided by the public sector raised by numerous users (Kober et al., 2010). The calls for improvement in the quality and usefulness of accounting data have been intensified as a result of the recent global financial crisis. The individual reforms in governmental accounting systems might eventually succeed or fail, but the reform processes remain an ongoing phenomenon (van der Hoek, 2005) in the quest for modernizing the public sector. Although the level of success in implementing accounting reforms in the public sector undoubtedly varies, the achievement of the objectives of governmental financial reporting could be used as a benchmark for assessment purposes. The conceptual frameworks developed by the four most quoted accounting standard setting bodies [i.e. the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) in the USA, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA), the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB)] largely coincide on the objectives of financial reporting; they unanimously agree on the need for financial statements providing useful information to users. The usefulness of accounting information is, however, subject to the accounting basis on which it is reported because the latter appears to affect decision-making (Bergmann, 2012), although the recent trend indicates a generalized move to accrual accounting. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing debate as to whether accrual accounting is indeed the solution to the public sector accounting riddle (Carlin, 2005). On one hand, there are several supra-national agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and Organization for Economics Cooperation and Development (OECD) recommending a move to accrual (Paulsson, 2006; Ellwood and Newberry, 2007). On the other hand, there are many who support the opposite view that the application of accrual accounting by governments that are not ready, in terms of culture and technical ability, to understand its implications could lead to the exact opposite results, such as loss of financial control and difficulties in coping with a more complicated system (Hepworth, 2003; Wynne, 2007). By following the international trend and at the same time by reacting to the turbulent financial environment with the pressing demand for high-quality and useful governmental financial information, the Greek Central Government proceeded in reforming its financial reporting systems. In 2011, the modified-cash basis of accounting superseded the cash basis, as an interim step before moving to accrual accounting (Ministry of Finance, 2009; PwC, 2014). As will be argued later, Greece reacted to both mimetic and coercive isomorphic pressures that resulted in this decision.