Identification stakeholders of public sector financial reporting and their information needs

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant, Department of Accounting, Payamee Noor University, Iran.

2 Assistant, Department of Accounting, Sanati Shahrood University, Semnan, Iran.

Abstract

Accountability is the cornerstone of Public sector financial reporting. Responsibility requires          governments to be accountable to their stakeholders because stakeholders have the right to know and to receive facts as public statements and through public discussions with them and representatives. In this regard, the promotion of accountability requires identifying stakeholders and providing their information needs. The main objective of this research is to identify stakeholders of public sector financial reporting and their information needs. In this research, first two questionnaires containing questions on identifying the stakeholders and their information needs were prepared and selected by a sample of research including professors and Ph.D. students in accounting. Then, the responses were analyzed by appropriate statistical tests (including Cronbach's reliability test, binomial test, one-sample t-test, and Friedman test). Research findings show that taxpayers, the House of Representatives and the Presidential Office are among the most important stakeholders of public sector financial reporting and their information needs, which are commonly accepted by the public sector accounting literature, both in empirical research and in normative approaches. Also, the most important information needs of stakeholders is information about the comparison of realized incomes with predicted revenues,  information about the government's stewardship in the maintenance and proper use of assets, and information on the comparison of costs against approved costs.
 

Keywords

References

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History

  • Receive Date: 09 September 2018
  • Revise Date: 05 November 2019
  • Accept Date: 05 November 2020

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