Public Service Accounting and Accountability Group (PSAAG) Workshop
November 7-8, 2022
Digitalization in the public sector:
Opportunities and challenges for accounting and accountability
The PSAAG special interest group of the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM) brings together academics and practitioners interested in and discussing day-to-day problems and issues in public service accounting and accountability (https://accountingandaccountabilityirspm.wordpress.com/).
This group, in addition to meeting at the annual IRSPM conference, which normally takes place in April, also organises a separate annual workshop, usually happening in the Autumn.
This year, the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC) was elected as the host of the annual international PSAAG workshop, which will take place on 7 and 8 November 2022 (Monday and Tuesday).
The topic to be discussed concerns digitalization and its effects on public sector accounting and accountability. Accordingly, the workshop intends to address opportunities and challenges faced by accounting professionals, as well as by public managers, and policy-makers at large, in an era of digital transformation in the public sector, requiring dealing with positive, but also pernicious consequences. The discussion intends to particularly concentrate on how accounting and accountability can help to deal with these opportunities and challenges or, on the contrary, neglect them. Three parallel groups of discussion are planned, addressing respectively the data producers, the data users and the data reporting perspectives.
Reputed keynote speakers and academics and professionals from various European and non-European countries are expected to participate, enriching the discussions with different international viewpoints. Given the limited number of participants, the workshop allows greater proximity and interaction in the exchange of ideas and experiences.
Digitalization is a topic in the current agenda, for politicians, managers and accounting professionals, in both public sector and business organizations. FEUC and the Centre for Business and Economics Research (CeBER) of the University of Coimbra, have also been considering digitalization-related matters in teaching and researching fields. Therefore, the 2022 PSAAG workshop theme is very relevant and appropriate to the current interests and existing competences in FEUC in general and CeBER in particular. It will be an important occasion for FEUC to receive and gather with important international experts in the field, opening opportunities for future joint research projects and publications.