Academic literature on the topic 'Accrual accounting - Italy'

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how accounting is used to disguise and carry out money laundering activities in specific socio-economic and political contexts and whether discretionary accruals can provide evidence of such illicit practices performed through legally registered Mafia firms (LMFs). Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a sample of 224 Italian firms identified as LMFs, due to having been confiscated by judicial authorities because of their owners being accused of Mafia-type association. Using a multivariate regression model, specifically developed discretionary accrual proxies for LMFs are compared with those of a population of lawful firms (LWFs). Findings The results reveal that in the pre-confiscation years, LMFs manage aggregate, revenue and expense accruals more than LWFs do, in order to smooth earnings and disguise/carry out money laundering. In contrast, in the post-confiscation years, there is no significant difference in the level of accrual management between LMFs and LWFs, as a consequence of the effective intervention of legal administrators. Originality/value This study adopts discretionary revenue and expense accrual proxies that provide additional insight into the simultaneous manipulation of revenues and expenses, linked to money laundering, which may not be fully detected by traditional aggregate accrual models. Furthermore, it suggests that the incentive for LMFs to manage accruals may be fostered by the irrelevance of their financial statements to trades with stakeholders. Finally, this paper may provide regulators with financial accounting signals which could be included in risk assessment models aiming to detect money laundering activities within firms.

In this work, we examine whether earnings management affects the debt maturity structure of Italian non-SMEs. We employ accruals quality as a proxy for earnings management. We measure the accrual quality as the absolute value of residual reflects the accruals that are not related to cash flow realized in the current, following or previous year. We measure the debt maturity in two ways. First, we consider it as a dummy variable that takes the value equal to 1 if some of the debt is long-term (exceeding one year), and 0 otherwise. Second, we compute the debt maturity as the ratio of long-term debt to total debt. We employ a quantitative approach, carrying out several regressions (probit, logit, and tobit) analyses to investigate the effect earnings management on debt maturity structure, using financial statement data of 1,001 Italian non-SMEs sampled over the period 2011-2017. This paper provides theoretical and practical findings that support the literature on earnings management. First, the study confirms that accrual quality can use as a proxy of earnings management by the academic community. Then the findings show that earnings management is negatively associated with the possibility to access to long-term debt, and with a proportion of long-term debt in total debt. This evidence may support the managers when they have to plan the financial structure, the lenders and the creditors in their decision-making processes, and the policymakers when they have to set programs aimed to make easier the access to external financial resources.

Adequate accounting information is the foundation of an efficient public sector. As of 2010, the accounting aspect of business relationships between public enterprises and municipalities in Slovenia had to be redefined due to the abandonment of ‘assets under management’ reporting. The regulation recommending municipalities to hand over infrastructure to public enterprises in the form of an operating lease has resulted in the need for different accounting information on the part of the municipalities. Regarding the water sector of municipalities in Austria and Italy, the need for more comprehensive accounting information exists as well. Due to the application of New Public Management concepts, many countries have adopted or committed to adopt some variant of accrual accounting also for the public sector. The large-scale adoption of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (the IPSASs) would significantly enhance the international public sector comparability. KEYWORDS: • accrual basis accounting • cash basis accounting • municipality • public enterprise • Slovenia • Italy • Austria

This paper aims to assess whether financial reporting quality affect the access of Italian Non-SME firms to financial debt. In order to measure the financial reporting quality, we assume as proxy the accrual quality. We carried out a regression analysis, using financial statement data of firms sampled. The results reveal a positive association between financial reporting quality and the access to bank and financial institution debt. In addition, our findings also show no association between financial debt maturity and the accounting quality of firms.

ABSTRACT The 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century were particularly important for the development of accounting theory. Various accounting historians have emphasized the key role of Italian scholars during this period (Amaduzzi 2001; Bariola 1897; Ceccherelli 1915; Luchini 1898; Melis 1950). One of the most important of these scholars was Fabio Besta. This paper presents both a biography of Fabio Besta and a discussion of his contributions to accounting thought. There are two primary motivations for this paper; namely (1) to contribute to the biographical strand of accounting history research, and (2) to develop a better understanding of the history of public sector/state accounting. Besta is acknowledged as one of the most important Italian scholars of the accounting discipline. His work, focusing on public administration, is remarkable for its clarity and depth, and it is of particular interest today for researchers of business and management, especially with regard to those aspects that differentiate private sector from public administration. Over a century after his death, Besta's work continues to be of great interest. In fact, the debate concerning accounting methods in the public sector has not yet been completely resolved, with the process of change from cash-based to accrual-based accounting still taking place in many countries.

In May and June 2018, the Italian financial crisis (public debt) got back to the news when the new political government was going to be formed. Part of the literature claims that the public sector needed to be more "business-like" and that in order to do so, the adoption of "better", in this case "accrual", accounting was crucial. New Zealand is the pioneer country for accrual-based government accounting. More than ten years ago, when the adoption of IFRS was mandatory, New Zealand standard setters preserved sector neutrality in the financial reporting standards. Thanks to a systematic literature review, the paper investigates the evidence of NZ accounting sector neutrality model, with the purpose to assess if importing NZ public sector accounting model would be efficient for allowing a higher level of transparency in other countries such as Italy. The methodology is to define the economic literature relevant to the topic, considering the year of publication and the citation rate. Recently, standard setters in NZ decided to adopt a sector specific standard setting approach with multiple tiers for each sector. The for-profit sector will continue to follow IFRS but reporting standards for the public sector will be based on International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). Amongst the former contributes, no systematic research overview on public sector accounting has been created based on the NZ model. This article fills this void by providing a systematic literature review of 258 publications that examines five key aspects of the literature on the benchmark accounting model.

Abstract The idea for this special issue was to contribute to the international literature on public sector accounting from a Latin-American perspective, exploring which forces influence Public Sector Accounting and Finance (PSA&F) artifacts and concepts in Latin America, and how they occur. There is evidence that later influences from countries such as Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and New Zealand played a role in PSA&F developments in Latin-America. However, the roots and the associated effects (e.g., recent innovations, resistances, decoupling) of PSA&F are still unanswered questions. Such ‘recent innovations’ on public financial management processes include but are not limited to accrual accounting, convergence towards IPSAS, risk assessment, auditing, and budgeting. This special issue contains four articles capturing different perspectives of influences and mechanisms of PSA&F in the region.

According to the European University Association, nowadays financial sustainability is one of the key challenges for Higher Education Institutions. The financial sustainability of public universities is threatened by cutbacks in public funding and by society’s growing demand for improvements to the volume and quality of services provided. A recent reform in Italy has determined that universities are required to move to accrual accounting, starting from the assumption that this system responds more effectively to issues relating to financial stability control. This paper evaluates whether the new financial reporting system is better placed to represent the universities’ conditions of financial sustainability. Moreover, specific measures have been developed to investigate which financial strategies, if any, have been adopted in Italian universities to react to the new competitive context. Working in collaboration with practitioners from the HE sector, the research team developed a framework based on specific financial ratios to assess the financial sustainability of these institutions and to analyse their financial strategies. The findings reveal that, notwithstanding some common features, there are significant variations between Italian universities and they are addressing the new challenges with a range of different approaches.

Abstract The idea for this special issue was to contribute to the international literature on public sector accounting from a Latin-American perspective, exploring which forces influence Public Sector Accounting and Finance (PSA&F) artifacts and concepts in Latin America, and how they occur. There is evidence that later influences from countries such as Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and New Zealand played a role in PSA&F developments in Latin-America. However, the roots and the associated effects (e.g., recent innovations, resistances, decoupling) of PSA&F are still unanswered questions. Such ‘recent innovations’ on public financial management processes include but are not limited to accrual accounting, convergence towards IPSAS, risk assessment, auditing, and budgeting. This special issue contains four articles capturing different perspectives of influences and mechanisms of PSA&F in the region.

Recent accounting-related scandals have underscored the prevalence of earnings management in financial markets. This article provides empirical evidence on the motivations for earnings management in publicly listed family companies, highlighting the differences from public nonfamily firms. Basing our predictions on an analysis of the salient characteristics of family firms in both an agency and a stewardship framework, we hypothesize that family firms are less sensitive to income-smoothing motivations than are nonfamily firms, while they are similarly motivated to manage earnings for debt-covenant and leverage-related reasons. We test our hypotheses by looking at a specific accrual, R&D cost capitalization, where statistical tests confirm our hypothesized relationships.

2012 - 2013
In recent decades the dissemination and the adoption of New Public Management (NPM) ideas has been significant within the new public sector (Hood 1991, 1995). The New Public Management is a model that privileges “quantification”, often by adopting managerial instruments from the business sector. The main points of NPM could be summarized as a replication of private sector practices focus on quantification, especially in accounting (Olson , et al., 1998). One such key innovation is the adoption of accrual accounting from business enterprise. The debates about the adoption of accrual accounting and financial reporting techniques by the public sector have been widespread over the last decade. Accrual-based system are not necessarily consistent with Public entities. Many scholars have discussed the (in)appropriateness of accrual-based accounting systems, as an alternative to cash-based or obligation-based systems (Pollit & Bouckaert, 2004; Broadbent & Guthrie, 2008). Conversely, some note that cash-based accounting does not allow the government to obtain all necessary information regarding liabilities and potential benefits related to investments (Christensen & Parker, 2010). Thus, the study of accrual accounting by governments is challenging for researches. In the literature on accrual accounting in the public sector, it is possible to distinguish at least two big opposite main streams, the first of these reflect questions as “why the adoption is desirable”. The study underlines the benefit and useful of information in terms of managerial effectiveness to move to accrual accounting (Hyndman & Connolly, 2011; Ryan, 1998); proponents of public sector reform depict bundles of techniques as politically neutral mechanisms for enhancing strategic decision making and for improved efficiency in evaluating performance and service costs (Guthrie, 1998). Most accrual accounting studies are ex-post studies; however, recently, the debate about accrual accounting has shifted recently onto implementation issue (Caccia & Steccolini, 2006; Lapsley & Wright, 2004; Broadbent & Guthrie, 2008). Thus, the second one ponders questions pertaining to the “complexity” in the translation of the accrual based methodologies adopted by private sector organizations into public sector agencies. This research is located in this stream. A literature review on NPM reveals that accrual accounting is depicted as self-evident in New Public Management literature (Lapsley, et al., 2009 ). However is problematic its implementations. After several years of this reform the unresolved question is: what is accrual accounting means in practice for government? For the majority of cases, our current knowledge is based on ex post studies, that is why we focus on the emergence of a system to enrich our understanding of what accrual accounting means in practice for government. This research analyzes the initial stage of development of an accrual accounting system. The research site is Italy, a country where a process of reform is underway across the whole government (Legislative Decree n. 118/2011). This research focus on the specific context of regional government also offers distinctive evidence because it has been neglected by the extant national (Caperchione, 2008) and international (Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008; Jagalla et al., 2011) literature. This research is largely informed by the social construction of science studies, whose most eminent scholar is Latour (Latour, 1979, 2013). Indeed, in science and technology studies there is a body of social studies that focuses on the creation of scientific facts and examines how the scientist interact to produce accepted technologies: the “social construction of technology” (SCOT). This research analyzes the initial stage of development of an accrual accounting system as the emergence of new technologies (Latour, 1987). Policy documents are the text by which government reform takes place. Adopting this framework, (policy as a blueprint) the analysis of relevant policy documents facilitates the capture of the meaning of accrual accounting and enhances understanding of how the process of reform takes place. Before analyzing the shaping of accrual accounting in the public sector, it is necessary to understand the meaning of accounting and to focus our attention on the analysis of two key elements behind a government process of reform: the first one is the policy documents by which the reform is disclosed; the second one is the networking of institutional actors behind the text and controversies between key institutional players, the policy makers. In this research the social-constructionism approach is adopted. The study setting for this research is the regional level of government (Campania region) where a trial period is underway. This work aims to participate in the debate on the effects of the decision to adopt accrual accounting in government, particularly in regional bodies. Campania is a region in the South of Italy where accrual accounting has not yet been implemented. Thus, the experimental introduction of accrual accounting in regional government offers an exceptional opportunity to study the manner by which such systems are enacted, constructed, fabricated (Preston, et al., 1992). The data for this study was collected in several ways: compiling and analyzing law and key policy documents, monitoring dedicated institutional websites. The discussions which took place through video- conversations in a region in the trial are analyzed. The main result of this research is: the adoption of accrual accounting is seen as self-evident by NPM advocates (Lapsley, et al., 2009 ). However, the evidence collected to date reveals an absence of a well- defined template for the implementation of accrual accounting in government. In particular problematic aspects in some technical issues: the interpretation and fabrications related to the shaping of the standard; the identification of administrative phenomena on an accrual basis, the introduction of new procedures to carry out the process, adaption of the structure for managing new information flows. This study contributes to understand the complexity of apparently neutral tools involved in a Public Sector reform. This research reveals the emergence of an accrual accounting system that relates to technical, managerial, and political influence. Accrual accounting implementation in central government has been studied in many countries with similar findings of difficulties in detecting effective systems in use. More recent studies of accrual accounting in Australia highlight the significant role of management consultants as interpreters of what accrual accounting is, or should be, the authors talked about a phantom image of accrual accounting” (Christensen and Parker, 2010). A recent study reveals that the reform in UK established accounting practice was reshaped by the adopters of accrual accounting, but the subsequent practices were still very different from private sector practice. The policy outcome is defined as “accounting mutations” (Lapsley, 2012). This work aims to participate in the debate on the effects of the decision to adopt accrual accounting in government, particularly in regional bodies. In the past, this perspective has been deployed in studies of accounting in action (Miller & O’Leary, 1990; Robson, 1992; Preston et al., 1992). [edited by author]
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