Accounting and the Public Sector - Who Measures What and Why Literature review

Accounting and the Public Sector - Who Measures What and Why - Literature review Example There has been a shift in the emphasis of the control from process and input to output control. The performance orientation is one of the major elements in the new public management concepts and the explicit standards for the performance measurement are seen to support this diffusion of new concepts. This study aims towards conducting a literature review of accountability in public sector. Catasu ´s and Gro ¨nlund (2005) have conducted research on the accountability and measurement on the Swedish Armed Forces. There is a scale down observed in the Swedish public sectors and they are aiming to create a resemblance with the other European nations. New ideologies and organizational forms are replacing the welfare state, which emphasizes on the probity, process and managerial accountability. This dismantling of the division between the private and public allows the private sector discourses to be informed to the public administrative practices. â€Å"Reinvent† is the recent ef fort taken by the government in emphasizing the role played by measurement system in enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the governmental operations. However, the fundamental question still remains there, that is, whether the notion of accountability and performance management, which is followed in the private sector, is applicable to the public sector. This indicates towards the fundamental differences that exist between the public and the private sector. In recent year’s advanced development system and performance enhancement methodologies were implemented in the public sector, which showed higher degree of accountability. Therefore, the main aim of the research was to conduct an analysis of the changing accountability by evaluating the changes in the measurements. Thus, the study focused at the relationship between accountability and measurement by highlighting on the measurement. Another study regarding the unintended or intended outcome of performance measureme nt in the public sector was conducted by Adcroft and Willis (2005). In this context the study highlights on the regimes of performance management that fits to the purpose of the public sector and the intended outcomes for the public services and the workers of the public sector of the performance measurement system. The key issues that are answered by the research is that content or the text of performance management in the public sector with examples specific to the higher education and healthcare; the intended outcome and the limitation of the performance management system. While most of the literatures have emphasized on the introduction of accounting system in the public sector organization of the developed countries that would lead to organizational and cultural exploration, the research scholars Ballas and Tsoukas (2004) has raised the question regarding why the accounting system are not used in public bureaucracies, which should have implemented much before. In order to find the answer of this question, the study has focused on the absence of accounting and lack of systematic measurement in a public bureaucracy. The study has explored and explained the absence of developed accounting system in the Greek National Health System and compared with the Greek political system. The paradigm of the new public management is based on the central belief that the public service organizations should not only be accountable to the fiduciary matters but should be accountable to the objectives and the efficiencies too. A cluster of administrative