Creation Of Institutional Mechanisms Research Articles

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE PROCESS OF CONVERGENCE TO INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS APPLIED TO THE PUBLIC SECTOR IN BRAZIL AND PORTUGAL

The New Institutional Sociology advocates that internal structures and procedures, including accounting, are influenced by external elements, thus organizations and accounting are led to incorporate socially institutionalized practices and procedures. In this sense, we can link the process of convergence to international accounting standards as the incorporation of socially institutionalized practices and procedures. Therefore, researching the challenges that countries have faced helps others to understand the obstacles that the convergence process imposes. Thus, the objective of this research is to verify which were the challenges that influenced the process of convergence to international accounting standards applied to the public sector in Brazil and Portugal. In Brazil, the challenges begin with encouraging greater participation of academia in the subject, from a critical point of view, accompanied by full disclosure, followed by greater adherence of Brazilian standards to international standards, aided by the disclosure of all assets and liabilities on an accrual basis, in addition to withstanding pressures in the political and cultural fields. In Portugal, the challenges begin with encouraging the training of Portuguese accountants who will have to deal with accounting based on principles, followed by the creation of institutional mechanisms that support pressures in the political and cultural fields, investing in the harmonization of local legislation so as to achieve greater comparability, accelerating the use of the SNC-AP in all Portuguese bodies and promoting the necessary accounting adjustments that inform the real value of the assets of the entities involved in the process.

Dimensão social do MERCOSUL: enfoque na realidade paraguaia por meio do Fundo de Convergência Estrutural do MERCOSUL

O MERCOSUL teve início em 1991 como uma estratégia política para elevar o comércio entre os países da região e ganhar espaço no cenário internacional. O processo de integração regional registrou avanços para além dos aspectos econômicos e passou a incluir debate e deliberações na área social. A partir de 2000 identifica-se o estabelecimento de uma agenda social para o MERCOSUL e a criação de mecanismos institucionais voltados para sua operacionalização. A agenda social do MERCOSUL pode ser compreendida como um conjunto de ações, programas e instituições que se constituem no âmbito da integração regional com o objetivo de redução das assimetrias e das desigualdades sociais nos países do bloco. Entre as medidas adotadas pelo Conselho do Mercado Comum – CMC, destacamos a criação do Fundo de Convergência Estrutural do MERCOSUL - FOCEM. A pesquisa tem como objetivo verificar como está o andamento do FOCEM e destacar suas ações na realidade do Paraguai. Como objetivo geral buscamos descrever a instituição do FOCEM e seu processo de operacionalização. O estudo é de natureza descritiva e exploratória, com coleta de dados por meio da pesquisa bibliográfica, documental e entrevistas semiestruturadas. O trabalho apresenta uma análise do funcionamento do FOCEM no contexto da integração regional, apresentando os limites e possibilidades dessa instituição. O estudo revela o esforço do FOCEM em criar ações estratégicas com vista a garantir coesão social e reduzir assimetrias entre os Estados Partes, mas ainda apresenta-se com fatores reduzidos de institucionalidade e de apoio político.

Flying in Clear Skies: Technical Arguments Influencing ANAC Regulations

Regulatory agencies possess the particularity of being controlled by non-elected politicians whose power is derived from delegations made by incumbent powers. There exists, however, a concern with the creation of institutional mechanisms that permit public participation, thus guaranteeing greater democratization and social control of the regulatory process. One of these participatory mechanisms is the public hearing, which was not given much attention by Brazilian literature on lobbying and interest groups. This article seeks to contribute to fill this gap, focusing on the impact of interest groups acting upon the National Civil Aviation Agency, ANAC. Analyzing comments sent to the public hearings, we identified the commentators and the intensity of their participation, the impact of their efforts as measured by the rate of comment incorporation, and we explained why some comments are incorporated and others are not. We organized an original data base of the comments made at all ANAC public hearings between 2007 and May 2012. We analyzed 518 comments concerning 48 regulations. To test participant influence, we classified the comments by degree of technicality, economic or legal argument, authorship, and request for regulation. To understand the incorporation process, we used regression models through which we presented evidence that a comment’s incorporation is directly related to its degree of technicality. Technical comments, which effectively subsidize the resolution, have a higher chance of being incorporated. Even more than corporate power or its force of participation, the technical quality proved to be the main factor for comment incorporation.