Opportunity of robust research in Accounting: a literary analysis on performance indicators in the management of municipal governments

Abstract

The study investigates gaps of potential research in accounting, about performance evaluation (PE) in public management, and analyze how the performance evaluation system (PES) contributes to the effectiveness of such management. The research was motivated by the dissemination of a set of PE recommendations for public management by the United Nations Commission (UNC) and ratified by the System of National Accounts (SNA) in 1993 and in 1995 by the European System of National Accounts (ESNA) and the Commission of the European Union (CEU). As well as the discussions in events and periodicals of public accounting on the subject in question. The method applied to achieve the objectives of this study was the search for key words in the Spell, Scopus and Web of Science databases from 1993 to 2016. The results reveal little or no research on PE with the application of performance indicators (PIs) in public management, and that diagnoses by PIs can contribute to the decision-making process by the public manager in budget execution and assist the oversight bodies in assessing the effectiveness of government. The study suggests potential opportunities for empirical research on PE in public management with the application of management techniques developed by management accounting practices, internal process reengineering, costs, budget and total quality.