Public Budgeting in Search for an Identity: State of the Art and Future Challenges provides a state-of-the-art reflection on current trends in international public budgeting, representing an important pillar in the accumulation of knowledge on public sector budgeting processes, contents, evolutions and critical issues. Budgeting is central in public sector organizations. It performs a complex variety of functions, being the arena where multiple actors, cultures and professional identities interact, making it an extremely fascinating field and topic of investigation. There is a significant need and scope for exploring budgeting processes in the public sector today, as a consequence of the managerial waves of reforms that have taken place over the last few decades and the implementation of austerity programmes – as well as in light of current trends, including emerging challenges related to community care and wellbeing, rising inequality, people flows, climate change, pandemics, and the persistence of democratic deficits. The chapters in this volume address critical issues on this broad topic, offering new perspectives on current evolutions in public budgeting, including, among others, participatory budgeting, performance budgeting, the budgetary slack resources and the need to ensure balance between budget control and flexibility. These contributions show that public budgeting can, and must remain, the subject of enduring interest in our studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Public Management Review.

This book considers how the practical and public policy relevance of research might be increased, and academics and practitioners can better engage to define research agendas and deliver findings relevant to accounting and accountability in the public services. To do so, an international comparative analysis of the research-practice gap in public sector accounting has been undertaken. This involved academic perspectives from over twenty countries, and practitioner perspectives from leading international professional accounting bodies actively involved in the public services arena. It was found that research is valued for informing practice, but engaging at a high level of policy engagement has been primarily by a small group of experienced researchers. For other researchers the impact accomplished may not always be valued highly in the academic community relative to other, more scholarly, activities. The book therefore looks at how engagement and impact between academics and practitioners can be increased.

This volume provides a unique insight into the ways local governments have maintained financial resilience in the face of the significant challenges posed by the era of austerity. Taking an international perspective, it provides an enlightening and practical analysis of the different capacities and responses that local governments deploy to cope with financial shocks.Moving beyond traditional approaches dealing with financial stress, the financial resilience perspective reveals a wider range of organisational responses and enables consideration of the dynamic role played by internal and external contextual factors. The international case study approach allows for a comparative analysis of financial resilience in the context of different administrative and policy environments. By providing a unifying view of financial resilience, the importance of building resilience into organisational financial management is demonstrated, uncovering the relative effectiveness of different resilience building approaches. This edited volume is a valuable source for practitioners and academics, as well as students of public policy, public management and financial management.

This volume provides a unique insight into the ways local governments have maintained financial resilience in the face of the significant challenges posed by the era of austerity. Taking an international perspective, it provides an enlightening and practical analysis of the different capacities and responses that local governments deploy to cope with financial shocks.Moving beyond traditional approaches dealing with financial stress, the financial resilience perspective reveals a wider range of organisational responses and enables consideration of the dynamic role played by internal and external contextual factors. The international case study approach allows for a comparative analysis of financial resilience in the context of different administrative and policy environments. By providing a unifying view of financial resilience, the importance of building resilience into organisational financial management is demonstrated, uncovering the relative effectiveness of different resilience building approaches. This edited volume is a valuable source for practitioners and academics, as well as students of public policy, public management and financial management.

Public Budgeting in Search for an Identity: State of the Art and Future Challenges provides a state-of-the-art reflection on current trends in international public budgeting, representing an important pillar in the accumulation of knowledge on public sector budgeting processes, contents, evolutions and critical issues. Budgeting is central in public sector organizations. It performs a complex variety of functions, being the arena where multiple actors, cultures and professional identities interact, making it an extremely fascinating field and topic of investigation. There is a significant need and scope for exploring budgeting processes in the public sector today, as a consequence of the managerial waves of reforms that have taken place over the last few decades and the implementation of austerity programmes - as well as in light of current trends, including emerging challenges related to community care and wellbeing, rising inequality, people flows, climate change, pandemics, and the persistence of democratic deficits. The chapters in this volume address critical issues on this broad topic, offering new perspectives on current evolutions in public budgeting, including, among others, participatory budgeting, performance budgeting, the budgetary slack resources and the need to ensure balance between budget control and flexibility. These contributions show that public budgeting can, and must remain, the subject of enduring interest in our studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Public Management Review.