Abstract
Performance measurement in public sector organisations has engendered concern of both practitioners and academia. In an emerging economy like Nigeria, technological breakthroughs like the fourth industrial revolution as a mechanism for enhanced performance has further excited concerns for performance measurement. Literature acknowledged that a proper measurement of performance is the base for improving the quality of public goods and services. As such, this study seeks to examine the prospects of performance measurement in the era of IR 4.0 using an exploratory multiple case study research design. Interview method to gather primary data on the phenomenon of IR 4.0 and performance measurement across ten Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) situated in the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria was adopted. Interview results show that though there were persons designated as management accountants, the management accounting function is performed through the accounting department. The study also observed that the internet, digitisation, broadband, and human-computer interface as aspects of IR 4.0 recorded “good” scores. However, Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is an essential attribute of IR 4.0, had inconsistent ratings. This can be attributed to the low level of awareness of the phenomenon of IR 4.0 its numerous facets which can be deployed, such that performance of typical public sector organisations ranked or measured on vale satisfaction of beneficiaries rather than target figures and annual employee appraisal. A strong political will of administrators of the sampled MDA was identified as an essential factor for fully adopting what IR 4.0 has to offer.
Highlights
Management accounting is a field of the accounting philosophy concerned with providing the information needed for decision making within a business organisation (Drury, 1994)
Though the definition provided by the American Accounting Association improves upon the British definition by introducing the concept of performance, the two definitions suggest that management accounting function is a support function
Prior literature informed some countries of the world have vigorously sought after replicating private sector management accounting functions in their public sector organisations using terms like New Public Management (Hood, 1995, Cosimato, Torre & Troisi, 2015, Caicedo et al, 2018)
Summary
Management accounting is a field of the accounting philosophy concerned with providing the information needed for decision making within a business organisation (Drury, 1994). In Nigeria, the function of the public sector is performed at three levels; federal, state, and local government; through ministries, departments, and agencies (MDA) This sector of the economy has been known to suffer from its inability to match the input with output, a very fundamental principle of financial accounting for evaluating performance in private sector organisations. According to Xu, David and Kim (2018), fourth industrial revolution (IR 4.0) is a term coined by Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, which describes a world where individuals move between digital domains and offline reality with the use of connected technology to facilitate and manage their lives Though this phenomenon sought to enhance the productivity of manufacturing businesses (Boer, Diaz & Leurent, 2018), it has gradually found its way into public sector functions (Badimo, 2018). To investigate the level of willingness to transit to IR 4.0 with regards to performance measurement in selected government agencies
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