All in the Mind: Citizen Satisfaction and Financial Performance in the Victorian Local Government System
| Autor: | Brian Dollery, Carolyn-Dung Thi Thanh Tran |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
050208 finance
Financial performance Public accounting business.industry media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences Citizen satisfaction Accounting 050201 accounting Negative association Balance (accounting) State (polity) Order (exchange) Local government 0502 economics and business business media_common |
| Zdroj: | Australian Accounting Review. 31:51-64 |
| ISSN: | 1835-2561 1035-6908 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/auar.12317 |
| Popis: | While a significant body of literature exists on local government efficiency, much less is known about its effectiveness, especially financial performance and resident satisfaction. To address this gap in the empirical literature, the present paper uses system‐wide official annual data on resident satisfaction in the Victorian state local government system in Australia to investigate the relationship between annual net operating results and overall citizen satisfaction. In addition, in order to garner a deeper understanding of this relationship, we evaluated the assumption in the ‘near‐to‐zero balance’ public accounting literature that local residents prefer an insignificant annual balance in operating performance compared to substantial annual losses or surpluses. We found that there is a significant negative association between overall satisfaction and its components and financial performance for Victorian local government as a whole. However, this association is largely restricted to rural councils with surpluses. By contrast, we find no relationship between satisfaction and near‐to‐zero balances. We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for both the public accounting literature and local government policymaking. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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