Political Visibility and the Early Adoption of Accrual Reporting by Commonwealth Government Departments

Abstract

This dissertation applies a utility maximisation approach to the adoption of accrual reporting in the financial statements of Commonwealth government departments. Theory developed to explain and predict accounting policy choices in the private sector was compared and contrasted with that developed to explain and predict accounting policy choices in the public sector. The structure underlying the provision of goods and services in the Commonwealth public sector was analysed to identify analogies between this structure and that underlying the assumptions in the above two branches of economic rationalist theory. This analysis identified strong similarities between the manager of a private sector firm and a departmental Secretary. Therefore this paper applied the framework developed to explain and predict the accounting policy choices made by private sector firm managers to the incentives of departmental Secretaries to adopt accrual reporting.