Purpose

The International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) have driven the modernisation of public systems of financial information. The extent and pace of their implementation remain uneven. The goal of this study was to measure whether and how much governmental accounting standards converge towards IPSAS' true and fair approach.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical context of the 26 Swiss cantons was used to apply a simplified maturity model. Under two successive reforms (maturity stages), each canton's accounting standards was assessed and scored. The derived maturity levels indicate how close—or far—each canton has stood from a state of full IPSAS compliance (full maturity), at each stage of the process.

Findings

As Swiss cantons have a certain degree of autonomy in setting their own accounting standards, the evolving paths they followed when implementing IPSAS were heterogeneous. The maturity level attained by each canton within each stage thus varies. However, the results show that the two successive reforms had an overall favourable impact on Swiss cantonal accounting standards compliance with IPSAS, and fairly improved the faithfulness of reported financial information.

Originality/value

This research contributes to the international literature on public accounting standards and provides new insights for the assessment of convergence with IPSAS.

中文翻译：

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迈向具有成熟度模型的 IPSAS 之路：瑞士案例研究

目的

国际公共部门会计准则（IPSAS）推动了公共财务信息系统的现代化。其实施的程度和速度仍然不平衡。这项研究的目的是衡量政府会计准则是否以及在多大程度上趋同于 IPSAS 的真实和公平方法。

设计/方法/方法

瑞士 26 个州的经验背景用于应用简化的成熟度模型。在连续两次改革（成熟阶段）下，每个州的会计准则都进行了评估和评分。衍生的成熟度等级表明，在流程的每个阶段，每个州离完全符合 IPSAS 的状态（完全成熟）有多近或多远。

发现

由于瑞士各州在制定自己的会计标准方面拥有一定程度的自主权，因此它们在实施 IPSAS 时所遵循的发展路径各不相同。因此，每个州在每个阶段达到的成熟度水平各不相同。但是，结果表明，连续两次改革对瑞士各州会计准则遵守IPSAS产生了总体有利影响，并较好地提高了报告财务信息的真实性。

原创性/价值

这项研究为公共会计准则的国际文献做出了贡献，并为评估与 IPSAS 的趋同性提供了新的见解。