THE IMPACT OF ACCRUAL ACCOUNTING ON PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT. AN EXPLORATORY STUDY FOR ROMANIA

This research is intended to supplement comparative national studies, which represent a challenge to accounting history for the last decades, explaining the Romanian public accounting practices in their local and time-specific context, taking into question the case of the entities owned by the government. In essence, the findings show the materialization of accrual accounting benefits for Romania as an emerging economy in terms of all independent variables used in the study: fixed assets, liabilities, revenues and costs. The article also analyzes the gradual evolution of finding the advantages of the Romanian accounting system’s transition from a cash basis to an accrual basis in the two analyzed stages, the transition and post reform periods. It proves thus the correlationbetween the pace of regulatory changes and their application in practice, indirectly confirming the orientation of the Romanian standard-setters towards IPSAS and accrual accounting. Moreover, this research is an argument for the importance of accounting and of the economic analysis, which the study can support through proper financial reporting.