Abstract
Over recent years, the meaning of accountability has evolved and has reshaped what public sector institutions are expected to account for and how. Consequently, a large number of initiatives have emerged promoting non-financial reporting. In this context, public universities have started to experiment with sustainability reporting initiatives, but these efforts are still limited and challenged by the parallel development of multiple forms of reporting, which include integrated reporting (IR). IR has been interpreted as a further step in the reporting journey, suitable for representing the creation of public value and addressing accountability pressures. The current research aims at understanding if and how IR constitutes a feasible next step for improving the reporting practices of public universities. For this purpose, the research carries out a content analysis of social or sustainability reports written by a number of Italian public universities to find out which of the key elements of IR have already been included in such reports. Results show that some of those elements are already included, but often in a fragmented and non-homogeneous way. The findings pave the way for further considerations on how the potential adoption of IR may strengthen the value of social and sustainability reporting by integrating the information reported in different documents, fostering toward a bureaucracy that is more sustainable and providing more opportunities of innovation in reports on public sector organizations’ accountability.
Highlights
Public sector organizations can be considered to be subject to higher accountability expectations than the private sector because they are legitimated through public contracts [1]
The underlying assumption is that integrated reporting (IR) could incorporate social/sustainability reporting into financial reporting, thereby improving the social/sustainability reporting itself [23] and providing more opportunities to report on public sector organizations’ accountability [12]
IR could incorporate sustainability reporting into financial reporting, enhancing the connectivity of all factors that affect the organization’s ability to create value [55] and improving sustainability reporting itself [23]
Summary
Public sector organizations can be considered to be subject to higher accountability expectations than the private sector because they are legitimated through public contracts [1]. Public value management has emerged as a new approach to government, going beyond the emphasis on efficiency and effectiveness brought about by NPM and focusing on the key mission of public sector organizations and ultimate goal of their activities, namely the creation of public value [2] In this context, public sector organizations are expected to become able to account for the value they create. The current research focuses on the reporting tools adopted by public sector organizations to understand their efforts to address accountability pressures [6]. The last section draws conclusions and implications of the research
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