Purpose

This paper studies the usability of LG financial statements as perceived by local councillors. By drawing on a comparative view of two countries with different periods of accrual accounting use in the public sector, the authors investigate how local councillors assess the usability of LG financial statements in order to question accounting reform success. Determinants that influence the usability assessment are explored.

Design/methodology/approach

Exploratory design: data were collected from questionnaires with 24 local councillors from five Finnish local governments (LGs) and 30 local councillors from six German LGs. An adjusted variant of the system usability scale was analysed with descriptive statistics and non-parametric group comparisons.

Findings

In both countries, the usability assessment of financial statements seems to be positive, indicating a successful reform process. In Finland, where the accrual government accounting reform has had a longer time to settle in, councillors seem to assess usability only partially better than German councillors. Several determinants of the usability assessment were detected, such as size and debt level of the LG as well as local councillors' gender, political orientation and education. Generally, councillors need more assistance and training in using financial statements.

Originality/value

The study is the first to conduct a quantitative assessment of the usability of LG financial statements as perceived by councillors. The system usability scale was adjusted to a public sector reporting context. The paper adopts a transnational comparative approach.

中文翻译：

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地方议员感知地方政府 (LG) 财务报表的可用性：芬兰和德国的比较研究

目的

本文研究了地方议员认为的 LG 财务报表的可用性。通过比较两个国家在公共部门使用权责发生制会计的不同时期，作者调查了地方议员如何评估 LG 财务报表的可用性，以质疑会计改革是否成功。探讨了影响可用性评估的决定因素。

设计/方法/方法

探索性设计：数据来自对来自五个芬兰地方政府 (LG) 的 24 名地方议员和来自六个德国地方政府 (LG) 的 30 名地方议员的问卷调查。使用描述性统计和非参数组比较分析了系统可用性量表的调整变体。

发现

在这两个国家，财务报表的可用性评估似乎都是正面的，表明改革进程成功。在芬兰，权责发生制政府会计改革需要更长的时间才能适应，议员们似乎只比德国议员更好地评估可用性的一部分。检测到可用性评估的几个决定因素，例如地方政府的规模和债务水平以及地方议员的性别、政治取向和教育。一般来说，议员在使用财务报表方面需要更多的帮助和培训。

原创性/价值

该研究首次对议员认为的 LG 财务报表的可用性进行了定量评估。系统可用性量表根据公共部门报告环境进行了调整。本文采用跨国比较方法。