Iris Saliterer

University of Freiburg | Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg · Public and Nonprofit Management

The paper explores how members of parliament (MPs) address gender-related aspects in the budgeting process at the central level in Germany, a country that pursues gender equality as a global objective but has not implemented gender budgeting (GB) (yet). Nevertheless, from a budgeting perspective the German context is interesting, as parliament has...

This study examines individual resilience as a central mechanism between work design and work-related outcomes in a context characterized by high demands and acute or prolonged adversity: child and youth welfare during an ongoing pandemic. Expanding on a survey of 602 German professionals, structural equation modeling is applied to analyze (1) the...

This chapter looks at municipally owned corporations (MOCs) in Austria, a context where MOCs are popular vehicles for the provision of public services, but also for inter-municipal cooperation. MOCs provide a wide array of services (e.g. public utilities, financial services, infrastructure, social services, cultural services, and health and sanitar...

This paper develops an instrument to measure the brand personality of employers in the healthcare sector. Focus group interviews, literature and internet searches were used to generate an initial item pool. Based on three online surveys among 10 nursing staff, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and Rasch modeling were used for factor extr...

Police departments increasingly use social media for enhancing their relationships with citizens. However, little is known about how specific characteristics of police-initiated messages affect whether and to what extent citizens engage with the former. This study looks at 11 large police departments using Twitter in Germany. Based on a multimethod...

We test a model of panic buying behaviour. The model includes an affective and a cognitive effect channel to explain panic buying. The model is validated based on a sample of German consumers collected during the first phase of the Covid-19 crisis. The results show that panic buying is more strongly influenced by cognitive constructs (e.g. norms) t...

This study examines whether neighborhood ties (comprising neighborhood trust and neighborhood friendship), place attachment, and civic responsibility influence a person's decision to engage in neighborly civic activities. Three personality traits were added to the model as potential moderators: egoism, altruism, and fear of negative evaluation. Usi...

This study discusses the current state of the art and future directions of research on digitalization, accountability, and accounting in public services. Through a systematic literature review, we investigate 232 articles published between 1998 and the first quarter of 2020. These studies are analyzed looking at the implications of the increasing d...

Purpose–This paper aims to highlight the importance of (public) value(s) and publicness in accounting andaccountability research. It pinpoints a range of issues that scholars need to contemplate when reconsideringpublicness in accounting research and practice. Design/methodology/approach–The paper adopts an interdisciplinary literature review assoc...

Financial resilience describes the ability of local governments to anticipate, absorb and react to shocks affecting their finances and service delivery. Resilience is the result of interactions in-between environmental conditions (institutional, economic and social context) local governments operate in as well as internal capacities (i.e. anticipat...

Local government strategies in the face of shocks and crises. The role of anticipatory capacities and financial vulnerability This article, building on governmental financial resilience literature, and using data from a survey of over 600 local governments in Germany, Italy and the UK, looks at the role that external shocks, anticipatory capacities...

Set in the context of an extensive budgeting and accounting reform, this chapter offers insights into the new reporting tools’ relative advantage and usefulness from the perspective of public managers (directors general and heads of department in ministries and central government agencies) as well as from the perspective of politicians (federal leg...

The spate of public sector reforms which have taken place in the last decades has triggered the development of a new body of research around public sector accounting and performance measurement both in public administration as well as in the (public sector) accounting literature. However, studies in accounting and public administration have at time...

Die Einführung von performanceorientierten Steuerungsansätzen soll zu einer verbesserten Entscheidungsfindung beitragen und so insbesondere die Effizienz und Effektivität, aber auch die Transparenz der öffentlichen Leistungserbringung erhöhen. Dieser Beitrag gibt einen Einblick in die wesentlichen Grundlagen, Bezugsebenen und Herausforderungen eine...

The challenges of shrinking cities have rarely been addressed by information systems research. Using data on large-scale demolitions and criminal activity in Detroit as a showcase, we investigate the following research questions: How can IS and big data assist in providing public security in shrinking cities? How can IS and big data, in general, be...

This article looks at performance information use by legislators at the central level in a budgetary context. The multi‐method approach (interviews, quantitative and qualitative analysis of plenary speeches held during budget readings) allows drawing a broader picture of the use of performance information. The findings provide new insights into dif...

This article, building on governmental financial resilience literature, and using data from a survey of over 600 local governments in Germany, Italy and the UK, looks at the role that external shocks, anticipatory capacities and associated perceived vulnerabilities play in determining different organizational response strategies (i.e. ‘bouncing bac...

Year-end spend-downs have received a lot of attention in public policy and public administration, and a number of budgeting and accounting reforms have been made to tackle this issue. While carry-overs have been thought to be a remedy, their effect remains empirically under-investigated. This paper applies a mixed-method approach to provide empiric...

This study looks at purposeful and legitimizing types of performance information use in local governments. Drawing on a survey of Austrian mayors who are at the politico-administrative apex of local government, the paper shows that purposeful and legitimizing uses of performance information coexist, but they appear to be negatively associated. In e...

Understanding what characterizes individuals who choose to work for the public sector is critical to public management research and practice. This article explores the effect of Big Five personality traits, PSM, and work values on the attractiveness of public sector employment. The hierarchical model approach allows disentangling possible existing...

What does the impact of research on practice look like? Why is it important? How might it be achieved? What are the benefits to researchers in ‘speaking’ to practice? These are all questions that have been debated not only in accounting research forums, journals, conferences, and seminars, but also in the wider academic landscape. In this chapter,...

In this final chapter, our aim is to draw together the observations, reflections, and recommendations provided by contributors to this book. The challenge in locating research as a closer companion to practice is clear in each of the contributions provided. It is fair to say that the so-called research-practice gap is not only ubiquitous, but also...

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...

This chapter takes a holistic approach to the observations documented by our authors and considers the implications of these collective reflections in terms of actions or beliefs that may be attributable to a narrowing of the divide between academic research and its use in practice. In particular, we develop an interpretive framework that may help...

How prevalent is the research-practice gap?

This book considers how the practical and public policy relevance of research might be increased, and academics and practitioners can better engage to define research agendas and deliver findings relevant to accounting and accountability in the public services. To do so, an international comparative analysis of the research-practice gap in public s...

Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Glaubwürdigkeit von kommunalen Leistungsberichten aus Sicht der Bürger. Die erweiterte experimentelle Replikationsstudie liefert neue Erkenntnisse zur Glaubwürdigkeit von vier unterschiedlichen Berichtsquellen, und der Frage, inwieweit die Ausprägung von Glaubwürdigkeitsfaktoren wie Kompetenz und Ehr...

Public sector personnel management faces severe challenges. Different long-term challenges contribute to a rising competition over the future workforce. This has sparked stark academic interest and the debate on possible existing differences between (potential) public and private sector employees has been gaining new ground. Public service motivati...

Ausgehend vom Konzept des Gender Mainstreaming wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwiefern Gender Budgeting „ein Weg zur Geschlechtergerechtigkeit bei der Verteilung öffentlicher Mittel“ sein kann. Gender Budgeting ist ein finanzpolitisches Analyse- und Steuerungsinstrument zur Untersuchung und Sichtbarmachung der geschlechtsspezifischen Dimensionen der...

Traditionally, budgeting has been the process through which governments decide how much to spend on what, limiting expenditures to the revenues available and preventing overspending. Overtime, budgeting has increasingly been expected to perform different roles and functions, becoming an important political medium, a tool for providing impulses to t...

The recent economic and fiscal crisis provides an opportunity for learning lessons of general and practical relevance about how governments face shocks affecting their financial conditions. This article draws on the resilience concept to investigate the organizational capacities that are deployed and/or built by local governments (LGs) to respond t...

Governments are no strangers to dealing with crises. On the contrary, a central role of any government is to absorb, navigate and mitigate them. However, crises themselves are unpredictable and represent a significant challenge to governments at both the national and local level. Despite such uncertainty, studying how governments in different count...

Ambitious though it is to summarise the richness of experiences emerging from the country chapters in a few lines, in this concluding chapter we attempt a short synthesis and interpretation, searching for different approaches to resilience and the underlying contextual and organisational explanatory variables. In doing so, we summarise what we have...

The United States (U.S.) has been described as the root of the global financial crisis. The events of the financial, sovereign debt, and Euro crisis and the accompanying economic turmoil that have spread throughout most of the Western world have been traced back to the excessive consumer borrowing, sub-prime mortgage lending and ultimately the hous...

This study presents evidence on public innovation from the perspectives of politicians and public managers. Environmental antecedents are analysed with regard to their impact on innovation adoption. Data are drawn from a survey of over 600 mayors and managers in Austrian local government. Results show that they identify the same innovation types bu...

Mit der Richtlinie 2011/85/EU wurde die EU-Kommission beauftragt, die International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) auf ihre Anwendbarkeit in den EU-Mitgliedsstaaten hin zu prüfen. Diese Prüfung führte zu dem Ergebnis, dass sich die IPSAS zwar nicht zur direkten Übernahme, aber als primärer Referenzrahmen für die Entwicklung von Europäis...

Austria is a federal republic that consists of nine states (Länder) and 2,354 (in 2013) local governments, which are organized upon the principle of local self-administration. The combination of a federal principle and the principle of local self-administration accounts for the organizational complexity of Austrian public administration. Legislatio...

The discretionary use of performance information by different local government actors – analysing and comparing the predictive power of three factor sets In recent years, empirical research on performance information use has gained momentum, but quantitative studies, which include different actor groups, are less widespread. Building on prior resea...

In recent years, empirical research on performance information use has gained momentum, but quantitative studies, which include different actor groups, are less widespread. Building on prior research within this field, our study offers insights into various antecedents for performance information use – including individual, performance-measurement-...

Governance structures have changed fundamentally since the beginning of New Public Management inspired reforms. Particularly local public service delivery nowadays can be characterized as diversified and fragmented, leading to internal management and external accountability challenges for politicians as well as public managers. In this context the...

The expansion of competition within the Austrian higher education sector has accelerated the pressure on identifying and applying effective procedures on the management of intellectual capital (IC) - a key success criterion and of central interest for our knowledge-driven society - within academic facilities. Triggered by a general call for more ac...

Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden Gemeinden (und auch Unternehmen)62 aus einer erweiterten institutionellen Sicht und in diesem Sinne als offene, zielorientierte und soziale Systeme betrachtet (vgl. Ulrich 1970, S. 158ff.). Sie umfassen nach dieser Auffassung verschiedene Institutionen und Organisationen, welche sowohl untereinander als auch mit (über...

Die kommunalspezifischen Rahmenbedingungen haben eine wesentliche Auswirkung auf die Konzeption eines kommunalen Steuerungssystems. Für eine Annäherung an die Frage, ob und in welcher Form der Managementbegriff auch auf die ganzheitliche Steuerung von Städten und Gemeinden – und nicht nur auf einzelne Stadt- und Gemeindeverwaltungen – übertragen we...

Das primäre Erkenntnisinteresse dieser Arbeit war die Beantwortung der Frage, wie kommunale Steuerung effektiver gemacht werden kann bzw. welche Gestaltungsdimensionen bei der Konzipierung eines ganzheitlichen kommunalen Steuerungssystems berücksichtigt werden müssen, um die zukünftige Wettbewerbs- und Leistungsfähigkeit von Kommunen – zentrales Be...

In den letzten Jahren ist es zu zahlreichen partiellen Verbesserungen in Hinblick auf die kommunale Leistungsfähigkeit gekommen. Für die Bürger bedeutet dies kürzere Wartezeiten, umfassendere Informationen, verständlichere Formulare, mehr Leistungen „aus einer Hand“, Beschleunigung von Genehmigungsverfahren u.v.m.204 Zugleich sind ebenfalls Erfolge...

Das vorrangige Ziel vieler – in Österreich, Deutschland und der Schweiz initiierter – Reformprojekte war es, das – bislang durch Übersteuerung im Routinebereich geprägte – Verwaltungssystem durch betriebswirtschaftlich inspirierte und (großteils) im privaten Sektor erprobte Managementkonzepte und -verfahren zu ergänzen. Damit sollten Steuerungsdefi...

Mit Blick auf die vorangegangenen Diskussionen ist es nicht erstaunlich, dass es erhebliche Unterschiede bei der Erfolgsdefinition von privatem und öffentlichem Sektor gibt bzw. geben muss. Der zentralen Ziel-, Erfolgs- und damit Steuerungsgröße Gewinn oder anderen aussagekräftigeren finanzwirtschaftlichen Kennzahlen im privatwirtschaftlichen Berei...