The future of public sector accounting education: A structured literature review

ABSTRACT

Public sector accounting education (PSAE) has recently attracted increasing attention from both scholars and practitioners. Nonetheless, there is still an education/practice gap that undermines public servants’ ability to face the complexity of the current working environment. This paper reviews and critiques the PSAE literature, identifies the main practical issues affecting the field, and outlines how education providers can improve formal and non-formal curricula and training. Results reveal that the exploratory nature of a large part of the PSAE research and the lack of a practical perspective able to bridge the gap between PSAE and the requirements in practice of the current public sector context demonstrate the pressing need to develop the topic and how it is investigated. The present review is one of the first attempts to investigate PSAE with a focus on the practical approaches that could be used for the development of graduates and public servants’ accounting competencies.

KEYWORDS:

• Accounting curricula
• education
• education/practice gap
• public sector accounting
• structured literature review

Acknowledgments

The article is the outcome of the joint work of all authors. Paolo Fedele wrote the section ‘Introduction’; Rubens Pauluzzo wrote the sections ‘Theoretical background’, ‘Materials and method’, ‘Results’, ‘Discussion’, and ‘Conclusion’; Elisabetta Pericolo wrote the sub-sections ‘Defining the research questions’, ‘The literature review protocol’, ‘Determining the type of studies and carry out a comprehensive literature search’, ‘Measuring the literature impact’, ‘Developing a coding framework’, and ‘Coding the articles and ensuring reliability and validity’; Irina Dokalskaya wrote the sub-sections ‘Field and context’, ‘Design’, and ‘Issues and solutions’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rubens Pauluzzo

Rubens Pauluzzo, Ph.D., is senior assistant professor in business administration at the Department of Economics and Statistics of the University of Udine. He conducts research in accounting education, performance and health care management, and integrated reporting. His publications appeared in Journal of Cleaner Production, Public Money and Management, Journal of Management and Governance, and Knowledge Management Research & Practice.

Paolo Fedele

Paolo Fedele, Ph.D., is associate professor of accounting and management at the University of Udine’s Department of Economics and Statistics. His research interests are public management reforms, performance management and interactive governance. His recent publications appeared in Public Management Review, Public Money and Management, Knowledge Management Research & Practice and Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management.

Elisabetta Pericolo

Elisabetta Pericolo is a doctoral student of accounting and management at the University of Udine. Her research concerns public accounting and management with a focus on innovation in health and care institutions.

Irina Dokalskaya

Irina Dokalskaya, Ph.D., is a researcher at the University of Udine’s Department of Economics and Statistics. Her research focuses on performance management and integrated reporting. Additional research interests refer to budgetary system of transition economies and health financing.