Framing public governance in Malaysia: Rhetorical appeals through accrual accounting

Laurence Ferry, Zamzulaila Zakaria, Zarina Zakaria and Richard Slack

Accounting forum, 2018, vol. 42, issue 2, 170-183

Abstract: In government, the challenges of governance and anti-corruption are exacerbated by accounting not being fit for purpose. In developing countries, many governments adopt accrual accounting as a panacea. Drawing on Goffman's frame analysis, and rhetorical appeals to logic, credibility and emotion, this paper examines the adoption of accrual accounting in Malaysia. It was found accrual accounting has potential for keying governance and anti-corruption. However, rhetorical appeals that attempt to legitimate neo-liberalism and engender public support in the name of progress were hindered by perceptions of endemic corruption and relatively weak democratic institutions of ‘good’ governance common to developing countries.

Keywords: Framing; Rhetoric; Accrual accounting; Governance; Corruption; New public management (NPM); Malaysia; Developing countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0155998217301163
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:accfor:v:42:y:2018:i:2:p:170-183

DOI: 10.1016/j.accfor.2017.07.002

Access Statistics for this article

Accounting forum is currently edited by Glen Lehman

More articles in Accounting forum from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().