The adoption of accrual accounting in the public sector: a case within italian universities

The paper focuses on the adoption of accrual accounting in Italian public universities, which became compulsory under the Legislative Decree No. 18/2012, starting from 2015. In line with what referred by previous literature about the introduction of accrual accounting in the public sector in general (Guthrie, 1998; Van Der Hoek, 2005; Carlin, 2005; Christensen, 2007; Christiaens and Rommel, 2008; Lapsley et al., 2009; Arnaboldi and Lapsley, 2009; Bento et al., 2013; Hassan, 2015), the on-going implementation of the accounting reform in Italian Higher Education system highlights some problematic issues, which call for more in-depth analysis (Guthrie, 1998; Carlin, 2005). Through a case study developed adopting an interventionist approach, the research aims to draw on some unresolved questions, emerging in the current phase of change, and pave the way for further research. This method was chosen because “accounting research, conceived as applied research, should provide useful insights to practitioners, managers and other actors in organizations”, thus being a “legitimate means for bridging the research-practice gap, through producing theoretical and practical research outputs” (Dumay and Baar, 2017, p. 281). The findings of the study outline some arguments about advantages and drawbacks of the introduction of accrual accounting in Italian public universities, whose implications are currently under development, so that different practical solutions are likely to affect them. The paper offers a depiction of “the state of the art” in such shifting from cash to accrual accounting, debating on specific features and arguing about the foreseeable evolution of the accounting system in the investigated context.