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A local government accounting system should provide decision support for those who manage government finances & those who use financial information, & should assist in the development & deployment of long-range strategic plans. A national survey of 368 local government accountants suggests that the primary work activities of accounting offices continue to be traditional ones of measuring & recording financial data, although internal consulting & decision support have become more prevalent. The growing importance of local government accountants in the organizational hierarchy suggests that they must continue to assume their primary technical role as custodians of financial records as well as develop the tools & techniques of contemporary public management. A more robust understanding of accountants as public managers can only be appreciated within the context of specific organizational settings & strategic reform efforts. 8 Tables, 14 References. Adapted from the source document.

This study contrasts expected utility theory in the form of modern portfolio theory (MPT) with a descriptive psychological analysis in the form of prospect theory. For local government investment managers, the assumptions underlying MPT are violated in the manner predicted by prospect theory. Findings confirm the notion that local government investment managers are risk‐averse when facing an investment gain and risk‐seeking when facing an investment loss. Although a number of researchers have appealed to prospect theory to explain firm and industry risk patterns, the utility of prospect theory in public sector organizations is questioned. This study finds that irrespective of their personal disposition toward risk, local government chief investment officers defer to a compelling public interest when making investment decisions for their organization.

The spending preferences of local government budget analysts are based on individual decision modes; how individuals attend to, encode, and process information. While academicians and practitioners tend to assume that a budget analyst's disposition to act leads to specific spending preferences, that assumption is rarely tested empirically. This study draws on two theoretical constructs derived from social psychology, rationality (objectivism), and emotions (empathy). Leary and his colleagues demonstrate that objectivism predisposes one toward rational decision making in a variety of settings, while Eisenberg and her colleagues show that highly empathic individuals are predisposed toward helping and prosocial behavior. Results of this study suggests that empathic budget analysts, those scoring higher on the empathy scale, have distinctly different spending preferences than those budget analysts scoring higher on the objectivism scale; empathic budget analysts are disposed toward humanitarian criteria in decision making while objective budget analysts are disposed toward quantifiable cost‐benefit considerations.

In an effort to bridge the gap between budget theorists and practitioners, this book approaches local government budgeting as the internal resource allocation process of a highly differentiated organization that operates in a very political environment, and whose boundaries are particulary permeable during the formal budget process. Written by academics with extensive practical experience in local government budgeting and finance, this text will be equally useful to practitioners, scholars, and students.||Theory building in public budgeting has been dominated by political science and economics

This study centers on a mailed survey of Ohio local government finance officers that recorded a 43% response rate. It seeks to determine the extent to which the represented jurisdictions have adopted innovative administrative management tools and techniques, to identify possible determinants of adoption, and to explore potential outcomes of adoption. The authors conducted a longitudinal analysis to provide for the identification of potential outcomes. they found that Ohio local governments have been less innovative than jurisdictions surveyed in national surveys and that smaller local governments in Ohio tend to be more innovative than larger governments. The authors were unable to identify determinants of adoption or to construct a model of adoption. The article concludes that the adoption of administrative innovations appears to be an idiosyncratic process. Adoption does not appear to lead to greater satisfaction with the quality of the services provided by the respondent's jurisdiction or with the overall efficiency of the service delivery system. However, the adoption of administrative innovations appears to be positively related to fund balances in future years—that is, innovation appears to pay off.

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to use a case‐based approach to develop an improved understanding of the conditions under which municipal purchasing departments can be meaningfully involved in acquisition processes for consulting services.Design/methodology/approachData were collected at five Canadian municipalities and involved a detailed examination of ten cases where the supply function demonstrated meaningful involvement in the acquisition process.FindingsFindings, along with organizational behavior literature on trust, were used to develop a conceptual model and tentative measurement scales that may be used to test the validity of the theory developed.Originality/valueThis work addresses the problem of low public sector purchasing department involvement in these important purchase decisions and some significant gaps in the public procurement literature.

The gender gap in contemporary American politics refers to differences in political attitudes & behavior between men & women that may be traced back to the 1980 presidential election & the Reagan presidency. For nearly two decades, men have displayed consistently more conservative & pro-Republican preferences than have women. Although the gender gap has been well-documented & recognized by practitioners & scholars alike, explanations of why women have been less supportive of the conservative agenda in the Reagan & post-Reagan years have not been explained satisfactorily. In this exploratory study, we suggest that the gender-based political divisions observed in American politics have their origins in exogenous dispositions that men & women bring with them to the political environment. Specifically, women are more predisposed than men to display empathy toward distressed others in society. Differences in dispositions toward empathy are stimulated in the political arena when the agendas of candidates emphasize issues that motivate empathic predispositions. Under such circumstances, women are more inclined than men to express support for liberal policy preferences, &, thus, empathy is a concept that may help us to better understand the nature of the political gender gap. 7 Tables, 1 Figure, 3 Appendixes, 32 References. Adapted from the source document.