A Global View of the Research-Practice Gap in a Public Sector Context

Abstract

In this chapter, we present the views and reflections of academics in 21 countries about the research-practice gap in a public sector context as it applies within their countries. Authors of these accounts have varied backgrounds, experience, and interests. However, a common theme uniting them is their interest in public sector accounting research and, in particular, the practical relevance of accounting research. The commentaries form the basis for a comparative global analysis of the research-practice nexus as it applies in the public sector accounting context.

Appendices

Rebecca McCaffry

Public Sector Research, CIMA

Gillian Fawcett

Head of International, CIPFA

Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)

3.1.1 An International Analysis of the Research-Practice Gap on Accounting in the Public Services

3.1.1.1 ACCA View of What Affects the Research-Practice Gap

The relationship between academic research , polic y making, and impact on various professions has always been important in driving original and innovative thinking. The accounting profession in the public sector is no different.

ACCA produces a number of global thought leadership insights every year, and our team of internal experts is supplemented with experts from the profession, practice, and academia. This mix ensures our insights balance the needs of our members with pure academic research that seeks to push boundaries. Academics are involved in various ways at ACCA, primarily through our global forum network—including the global forum for the public sector.

ACCA often commissions academics to conduct research or to assess any internal research conducted as a ‘critical friend’ before wider publication. ACCA also has a strong research function completing many surveys of its members and trainees—with a global reach extending over 180 countries, 200,000 members, and nearly half a million students—which offers a rich and diverse data source.

From ACCA’s experience in operating between practitioner s and academics, we are able to perceive a few key drivers of the research-practice gap. First, many professional accountants working in the public sector do not have access to the academic content that is published in their field. Academic journals and published work are primarily accessed through universit y credentials and are not easily accessed by public sector practitioner s, who will be required to make a business case to spend public funds on accessing academic content. Furthermore, for public sector practitioner s that are able to access certain academic material, it can be difficult for them to apply the conceptual thinking and academic writing to their day-to-day work.

The time horizons for the publication of academic research often do not align with the needs of professional accountants in the public sector. Clearly, it takes time to conduct insightful research, and this may not fit easily with the polic y making agenda. Once research has been conducted, it needs to undergo the rigour of peer review and publication in appropriate academic journals, all of which contribute to delaying the availability of the work to relevant practitioner s. This is further exacerbated by the fact that most practitioner s are focussed on the short-term, operational needs of their organization and will find it difficult to engage with academic output that can have comparatively longer completion.

Finally, the resources and viewpoints of academics and practitioner s diverge. Though a simplification, typically, academics are concept rich and data poor—while practitioner s in the public sector often have access to substantial datasets, but are concept and idea poor. In many ways, these differences speak to the significant opportunities that exist for academics and practitioner s that are willing to commit to bridging the research-practice gap.

3.1.1.2 The Role of Institutions in Widening/Narrowing the Gap

Practitioner s need to be honest with their limitations and only present findings that they can properly interpret. The risk of misrepresentation of research results also extends to practitioners that are looking to support a particular political imperative.

There are also issues of capability and capacity. Governments may not have the capacity or capability (e.g. knowledge of different qualitative and quantitative methodological techniques) to ensure results and interpretations are based on appropriate methodologies. Current civil service reform programmes are looking to external polic y think tanks and other academic commentators as core to government’s polic y reform agenda, which has typically been the domain of policy leads in the civil service.

3.1.1.3 The Roles of Academics in Widening/Narrowing the Gap

Polic y making does not easily fit into the production time of most academic work, although the rigour that the research undergoes adds to the value of the published insights. Second, academic articles are (often mistakenly) seen as inaccessible by practitioner s as they are required to be written in a certain way for an academic audience, and may need translating into a different tone for polic y makers and others to digest. For academics to help narrow the gap, they should consider—as part of their research projects—producing timely results that are accessible to a wider, more practical, audience.

3.1.1.4 Examples of Good Practice

There are many examples where academics have had a significant impact on government polic y and practice. For instance, Sir Andrew Likiermann was instrumental in the UK central government’s move to implement accruals accounting. This has continued to evolve and is brought together into one of the world’s largest (and arguably the most comprehensive) whole of government accounts (WGA) consolidation.

Many public sector organizations are data rich and could benefit from the academic rigour and insight that can be applied to these datasets. The UK Government’s work in consolidating public data on data.gov.uk has created a platform for academics to engage with detailed public sector datasets. At the same time, the exercise of consolidating public data has promoted Government officials to bring more data into the public domain, with a coalition government commitment to ‘open (data) by default’.

Finally, there are cases of effective collaboration in Government bodies that employ academics on their boards or committees. For example, the Financial Reporting Advisory Board comprises an independent chair and members, as well as academics, preparers, and representatives from the preparer communities, the NAO, and HM Treasury.

Clearly there are challenges to overcome to further improve linkages between academic and practitioner communities. Despite these challenges, academia will continue to have an important role in the development of thought leadership, and their analytic rigour adds value to implementing best practices for public sector accountants.

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)

Rebecca McCaffry

Public Sector Research, CIMA

3.1.1 Specific Features That Affect the Research-Practice Gap from CIMA’s Perspective

As a representative of professional accounting institutes, CIMA has a role to play as conduit for academic research. Regular engagement with academics helps ensure that our syllabus is relevant for business. In addition, this engagement helps promote management accounting, which is important for sustaining its continuing relevance to employers and educational institutions.

As representatives of accountants in business, we have a particular interest in business-focused research, a market dominated by consultants, whose industry is worth around £6bn in the UK alone. From a practitioner perspective, consultants are perceived as adding solutions, understanding, and predictions to the problem at hand. Academics, however, are perceived as adding complexity. In addition, academics often avoid making recommendations, resulting in work that lacks practical impact.

CIMA’s academic programme is designed to promote and develop the science of management accountancy as stipulated in our Royal Charter. We have formal mechanisms of engaging with academic researchers, through sponsorship of academic conferences around the world and funding academic research topics of interest to CIMA members through our grants scheme. In addition, we co-sponsor the Impact on Practice award, presented annually at the AAA, for academic work judged to have the greatest potential impact on management accounting practice.

We are pleased that an increasing number of CIMA members and other professional accountants have joined academia and believe those willing and able to balance practitioner understanding with academic rigour will have a significant role to play in developing accessible, insightful, and impactful academic research in all sectors.

3.1.2 The Role of Institutions in Widening/Narrowing the Gap

As a professional accountancy institute, CIMA aims to ensure its syllabus and assessments help bridge the gap between education and employment, and our syllabus reviews are where we see fruitful interaction between business (as employers of management accountants) and academia. During this extended process, we ask employers to identify their business challenges; the performance they require to meet those challenges; and finally, the skills and competencies they require people to perform, to help organizations meet those business challenges. CIMA then works with academics and educators, to help translate those practical competencies into educational learning outcomes. They are then placed into appropriate academic levels and linked to levels of the CIMA syllabus. We also work with academics, as well as practitioner s and psychometricians, in developing rigorous, robust, and appropriate assessments. In working with academics and their partners in industry, we can share insights to help frame the next generation of professional accountants.

Through our accreditation programme, we work with over 1,300 universit ies across 110 countries, engaging with academics from a range of specialisms, who often come from a background in industry. We accredit some 5,000 accounting, finance, and business programmes to provide a faster track for their graduates to CGMA status. The increased range of students joining leads to a diverse and multitalented membership base.

As part of our wider research programme, we aim to build a bridge between academia and practice to ensure research is more relevant to practitioner s. The challenge is to find topics and research methods that fit the criteria of both sides, balancing academic rigour with demands of the wider audience.

3.1.3 The Roles of Academics in Widening/Narrowing the Gap

CIMA wants academic research to achieve its A* journal ambition and recognizes increasing pressure on academics from vice-chancellors to achieve this level of publication. Funding and editorship issues mean that most academic research is aimed at high-grade journals, and this often necessitates a ‘traditional’ approach and presentation that vastly differ from the way the majority of today’s practitioner s consume information. The big question is how to balance academic rigour with mass-market appeal, without ‘dumbing down’. A new method of dissemination needs to emerge in which abstracts and conclusions are translated into accessible, impactful information.

While there is a great deal of relevant experimental research, the way it is presented often renders it unattractive to practice. Practitioner s find heavily theoretical work and language difficult to engage with, preferring ‘real life’ case study examples covering a range of topics. Currently, we find much academic research focuses on behavioural studies and incentives, ignoring topics such as strategic planning, budgeting, decision-making, cost accounting, and cost estimation. Yet we hear from our government and public sector stakeholders that these are the areas that need to be addressed.

Academic research has the rigour and independence to make a difference to this sector, but at present its lack of, and unwillingness to address, accessibility is creating barriers to impact. CIMA believes that adopting a more integrated and inclusive approach, which addresses the needs of all audiences, would address this issue.

3.1.4 Examples of Good Practice

CIMA awards research grants based on academic rigour, quality, originality, and practical benefit to our members. Recent work relating to the public sector and non-profits includes:

• Impact assessment in a non-government organization (2017)

  • Demands for funding accountability require professionalized impact assessment. The report suggests an organization-wide approach to demonstrate value externally and improve internal decision-making.

• Management control systems in public networks (2016)

  • Public collaborative networks can help address challenges in public service delivery. Packages of control mechanisms play an important role in building collaboration and supporting goal achievement.

• Governmental financial resilience under austerity: the case of English local authorities (2015)

  • Post 2008, the language of resilience became fundamental to success. Over a 10-year period, two main approaches to financial resilience are identified.

• Financial performance of SOEs in emerging economies (2012)

  • Examines the factors that have contributed to the poor financial performance of SOEs, identifies shortcomings in financial management systems, and suggests measures for improvement.

• Assessing the effectiveness of NHS budgeting (2011)

  • Examines the complex nature of budgetary and associated financial systems, providing a checklist for effectiveness of budgeting systems.

• Costing in the National Health Service: from reporting to managing (2010).

  • Highlights potential benefits and pitfalls of costing tools, developing the evidence base by making clear the reasons underlying their effectiveness.

Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA)

Gillian Fawcett

Head of International, CIPFA

3.1.1 Specific Features That Affect the Research-Practice Gap from CIPFA’s Perspective

It was recently announced in the press that a prominent academic would spearhead a revitalized London Finance Commission to identify a wide-ranging suite of devolution opportunities including powers to use taxation generated locally. This is one of a number of examples where academics and practitioner communities come together to collaborate and innovate in key public policy areas, in this case city devolution.

Over the years, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA ), the professional accountancy body for finance professionals working within the public sector across the globe, has collaborated with academia in a number of ways to shape polic y, share insights, and develop practice in relation to public financial management. As far back as the 1980s, CIPFA has developed effective and sustainable working relationships with academia to explore the evolution of public management and the application of accounting concepts and techniques. These collaborations, supported by evidence-based research and exchange of ideas and information, have helped shape the accounting practices for public finances that are applied today.

The Public Money and Management (PMM) journal is a good example of a CIPFA-sponsored international, academic, and professional journal covering public sector finance, polic y, and management. Academics and practitioner s alike review articles jointly to ensure credibility, relevance, and impact. For over 30 years, it has published articles on new and emerging areas; for example, in a recent edition, it sought articles on sustainability reporting in the public sector. This is an area where there is little academic research opposed to the wealth of research on sustainability reporting in the corporate sector.

3.1.2 The Role of Institutions in Widening/Narrowing the Gap

In relation to the professional accountancy world more broadly, there have been many collaborations between universit ies and the profession in topical research areas across a broad range of public financial management subjects, such as implementation of PPPs, effectiveness of parliamentary financial scrutiny, and so on. They have helped inform polic y debate and at times led to a change in policy. Other high-profile bodies such as Financial Reporting Advisory Board (FRAB) in the UK, which oversees financial reporting developments across government, also benefit from academic input and insights and have an academic on the Board.

3.1.3 The Roles of Academics in Widening/Narrowing the Gap

The relationship between academics and the accountancy profession is evolving and collaborating in new and innovative ways. Most recently, parliamentary select committees in England have welcomed having two independent advisors to support their inquiries from both the practitioner and academic communities. The former bringing practical knowledge and experience about application and implementation of polic y, and the latter bringing expertise and evidenced-based research relating to the policy area under discussion. For example, following the abolition of the Audit Commission, the House of Commons Select Committee on Communities and Local Government held an inquiry into the future of local government audit, which was supported by Ron Hodges and myself. The benefits of such a dual approach were that parliamentarians were better briefed and informed on issues affecting the local government audit landscape, as well as having access and knowledge to research and current academic thinking on public audit. Both sets of skills complemented one another and supported committee members in having a more robust inquiry. This was the first time that a parliamentary select committee had made joint appointments, and because of its success, the model was implemented by a number of other House of Commons Select Committees.

3.1.4 Examples of Good Practice

However, there have been academic and practice gaps. These have manifested themselves in different ways. For example, in development of EPSAS, the academic voice has been less prominent. Academia’s response to a Eurostat public consultation on the governance of EPSAS was negligible. Out of 203 respondents, 194 were from EU countries with the remainder from public bodies and associations. The development of EPSAS standards is an area where you would perhaps expect the academic community to have a view and guide accounting standards developments. Also, there are areas where you would expect to find evidenced-based research on issues such as who are the users of financial reports and how are they being used, but surprisingly little international research has been carried out. This is an example of one area that would benefit from further research so practitioner s can get a better understanding of user needs and begin to stimulate the demand side for information.

There is little doubt that stronger links between practitioner s and academia will help in the development of public financial management, and in particular in new and emerging areas such as integrated reporting, finding solutions for financial resilience, and so on. By bringing academic rigour and practical experience together, we can have more effective polic y making on public financial management well into the future.