Financial Accountability & Management is a leading international academic journal, publishing new thinking and research in accountability, accounting, performance management, and financial and resource management in the public and non-profit sectors and public services. The journal welcomes papers focused on both governmental and other non-profit organizations and services. We welcome contributions from management and administrative sciences, accounting and finance, public management and administration, economics, sociology and political science.

Journal Metrics

  • 7CiteScore
  • 2.6Journal Impact Factor
  • 19%Acceptance rate
  • 20 days Submission to first decision
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Perrin Prize for Best Paper

The annual Perrin Prize for the best paper in the 2024 volume of FAM goes to joint winners: Lee D Parker for Public university research engagement contradictions in a commercialising higher education world, and Ching Chau for Power dynamics in Australian public sector accounting reform: A Machiavellian interpretation.

(More info on the Prize here)

FAAM Virtual Issue

Virtual Issue on standard-setting processes in the public realm: A precursor to the Special Issue on this topic in Financial Accountability & Management

To read the virtual issue, please click here.

Making Sense of Public Sector Reforms: Accounting for an Extraordinary Scholarly Journey. Irvine Lapsley's FAM Selected Publications Virtual Issue

Edited by Ileana Steccolini

Public sector accounting and accountability scholarship has witnessed huge developments in the last three decades, paralleling the dramatic changes undergone by the public sector worldwide. Irvine has been among the first to understand the enormous potential of looking at the ways in which the public sector context shapes accounting, and, in turn, how accounting shapes the public context where it operates.

This virtual issue contains (only) a small selection among the multiple papers produced by Irvine. Irvine’s work spans papers published in a plurality of journals, edited books and special issues. Yet, in this virtual issue we focus on the papers he published in FAM, the journal that, under his editorship, has become the international fundamental forum for scholars to debate, discuss and advance public sector accounting and accountability issues.

To read the full issue, and Irvine's selected papers, please click here.

Calls for Papers

Exploring standard-setting process in the public realm: Taking a holistic view (Workshop call and related Special Issue)

Recent decades have witnessed an intensified discussion around standard-setting in the public realm. This Special Issue seeks to engage a global community to explore standard-setting processes in the public sector by different countries, cultures, and political systems. We seek studies that adopt a holistic perspective and address not only the accrual accounting movement but also auditing, budgeting and sustainability, as well as broad changes affecting public sector accounting, such as digitalization processes.

Full details of the call are available here.

Submission to virtual workshop (if desired) by 15 January 2025
Deadline for final paper submissions: 30 April 2025

Changing modes of coordination: Accounting implications of vertical public service reforms

The aim of this special issue is to gather different scholarly perspectives on key questions related to changing modes of coordination between public sector organizations, and their implications for public sector accounting, audit, budgeting, and financial management practices and processes. We are very interested in articles that focus on advancing our theoretical and empirical understanding of these crucial, yet under-researched themes. Full details of the call are available here.

Submission to workshop (if desired) by 28 February 2025
Deadline for final paper submissions: 31 October 2025

Articles

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open access

Evaluating Investment in Space Programs: A Case for Theoretical Pluralism

Basil P. Tucker, Hank C. Alewine, 
  •  11 July 2025
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open access

The Challenges of Managing the Third Sector: An Exploration of Emerging Themes

Audrey S. Paterson, Noel Hyndman, Marc Jegers, 
  •  10 July 2025
REVIEW ARTICLE
Open access

Revisiting the Hybridization Thesis: A Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

Sofia Hellqvist, Monika Kurkkio, 
  •  23 June 2025
EDITORIAL

The Recovery of Public Sector Accounting as a Site of Possibility: Publicness and Localized‐Led Development

Danture Wickramasinghe, Pawan Adhikari, Ileana Steccolini, Kelum Jayasinghe, 
  •  23 June 2025
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Exploring Local Government Auditor Management Letter Practices: Linking Transparency and Accountability

Julia Y. Davidyan, Tammy R. Waymire, 
  •  18 June 2025
More articles

The following is a list of the most cited articles based on citations published in the last three years, according to CrossRef.

full access

Performance Management in the Public Sector: The Ultimate Challenge

Michela Arnaboldi, Irvine Lapsley, Ileana Steccolini, 
  •  1-22
  •  6 January 2015
Open access

International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs): A systematic literature review and future research agenda

Lisa Schmidthuber, Dennis Hilgers, Sebastian Hofmann, 
  •  119-142
  •  24 June 2020
full access

Contemporary University Strategising: The Financial Imperative

Lee D. Parker, 
  •  1-25
  •  7 January 2013
Open access

Accountability and Transparency in English Local Government: Moving from ‘Matching Parts’ to ‘Awkward Couple’?

Laurence Ferry, Peter Eckersley, Zamzulaila Zakaria, 
  •  345-361
  •  3 July 2015
full access

New Public Management: The Story Continues

Noel Hyndman, Irvine Lapsley, 
  •  385-408
  •  3 October 2016
More articles

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