Governmental accounting reforms at a time of crisis: the Italian governmental accounting harmonization

Purpose: Acknowledging fiscal crises as critical junctures for policy makers, this paper investigates how the recent fiscal crisis has affected the paradigmatic approach to the design of an ongoing governmental accounting (GA) reform. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyses the Italian GA harmonization as a peculiar instance of an ongoing GA reform at the crisis outbreak. A longitudinal narrative analysis of official documents is complemented with semi-structured interviews with key policy makers and participant observations. Findings: The fiscal crisis is found to play an indirect role in the Italian GA reform, which, promoting centralization of competencies in the fields of GA, determines the intensification of the approach adopted before the crisis outbreak. Research limitations/implications: This paper extends the knowledge on the nature of post-crisis reforms by highlighting how fiscal crises can work as catalysts for paradigmatic approaches to ongoing GA reforms. This paper analyses the designing of a GA reform, whereas the long-term adaptations and outcomes of the reform are not taken into consideration. Practical implications: The tight link between GA and financial management issues featuring the current paradigmatic approaches to reforms suggests the need to design GA reforms consistently with fiscal and financial management policies. Originality/value: Whereas the extant literature on the nature of post-crisis reforms analyses the latter as responses to the former, this paper enlarges the knowledge on the topic by focusing on a peculiar instance of a GA reform that was ongoing at the crisis outbreak.