The use of public sector reports by public managers - some early evidence from Croatia

Abstract

This paper analyses the use of prescribed financial reports and budget execution reports from internal users’ point of view. Internal users such as public managers are often faced with dual reporting systems, reporting on budgets and reporting using financial reports. In previous research different factors have been found to affect the use of reports in public sector. Some authors called for more research in the context of public sector and the investigation of public sector reports use drivers. This paper attempts to answer the call to fill this gap by investigating if factors such as user’s current position and personal characteristics are associated with the use of financial reports with or in preference to budget execution reports. Public managers in Croatia were contacted from February to April 2022 and surveyed. Findings in this paper show that public managers often use reports that provide information about financial performance rather than the balance sheet and that their preference is to use reports mostly prepared on cash basis. In addition, public managers prefer to use budget execution reports rather than financial reports. These results also show that some managers’ personal characteristics are associated with the use of public sector reports. As public sector managers are important internal users of financial reports, it is important to understand if and how they use financial reports. Understanding what the key drivers and influences are in their use of such reports and whether some further changes are required are equally important to standards setters.