This research examines if priming can be used to increase non-expert readers’ access to key information in public sector annual comprehensive financial reports (ACFRs). Priming is grounded in the idea that exposure to a given concept activates brain activities, making text related to that concept more accessible to the individual. Using an experimental research approach the results of the experiment offer support for the hypothesis that prior exposure to primes grounded in financial performance concepts improve non-expert audiences’ access to ACFRs. These findings are important because they suggest a path forward for increasing the value of ACFRs as a public sector transparency mechanism.
AlessandroM.CardinaleLagomarsinoB.ScartasciniC.StrebJ.TorrealdayJ.TorrealJ. (2021). Transparency and trust in government. Evidence from a survey experiment. World Development, 138(February), 1–18.
2.
BisognoM.DonatellaP. (2022). Earnings management in public-sector organizations: A structured literature review. Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management, 34(6), 1–25.
3.
BoyneG.LawJ. (1991). Accountability and local authority annual reports: The Case of Welsh District Councils. Financial Accountability and Management, 7(3), 179–194.
4.
BraithwaiteV.LeviM. (2003). “Trust and Governance,” Volume 1 in Russell Sage Foundation series on trust. Russell Sage Foundation.
5.
ChartrandT. L.BarghJ. A. (1996). Automatic activation of impression formation and memorization goals: Nonconscious goal priming reproduces effects of explicit task instructions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(3), 464–478.
6.
CohenS.KaratzimasS. (2015). Tracing the future of reporting in the public sector: Introducing integrated popular reporting. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 28(6), 449–460.
7.
DinglerT.KernD.AngerbauerK.SchmidtA. (2017). Text priming - effects of text visualizations on readers prior to Reading. In BernhauptR.DalviG.JoshiA.BalkrishanD. K.O’NeillJ.WincklerM. (Eds.), Human-computer interaction (pp. 345–365). Springer International Publishing.
8.
GaffneyM. A. (1986). Consolidated versus fund-type accounting statements: The perspectives of constituents. Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, 5(3), 167–189.
GrimmelikhuijsenS.JilkeS.OlsenA. L.TummersL. (2017). Behavioral public administration: Combining insights from public administration and psychology. Public Administration Review, 77(1), 45–56.
13.
JensenM. C.MecklingW. H. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3(4), 305–360.
14.
JordanM. M.YusufJ. E.BermanM.GilchristC. (2017). Popular financial reports as fiscal transparency mechanisms: An assessment using the fiscal transparency index for the citizen user. International Journal of Public Administration, 40(8), 625–636.
15.
JusticeJ. B.MelitskiJ.SmithD. L. (2006). E-government as an instrument of fiscal accountability and responsiveness: Do the best practitioners employ the best practices?American Review of Public Administration, 36(3), 301–322.
16.
KopitsG.CraigJ. (1998). “Transparency in Government Operations.” In IMF Occasional Paper 158. Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund.
17.
LewisC. W.HildrethB. W. (2011). Budgeting: Politics and Power. Oxford University Press.
18.
MarvelJ. D. (2015). Unconscious bias in citizens’ evaluations of public sector performance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 26(1), 143–158.
19.
McGriffS. (2000). Instructional System Design (ISD): Using the ADDIE model. College of Education, Penn State University, State College.
20.
McNamaraT. P. (2005). Semantic priming: Perspectives from memory and word recognition. Psychology Press.
21.
MeyerD. E.SchvaneveldtR. W. (1971). Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: Evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 90(2), 227–234.
22.
O'ConnellL.YusufJ. E. (2011). An information model to present proposals to increase taxes: Two examples in the context of American values. International Journal of Public Administration, 34(3), 180–189.
23.
OECD. (2017a). Trust and Public Policy: How Better Governance Can Help Rebuild Public Trust, OECD Public Governance Reviews, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264268920-en
24.
Oliver KasdanD. (2020). Toward a theory of behavioral public administration. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 86(4), 605–621.
25.
OlsenA. L. (2015). Citizen (dis)satisfaction: An experimental equivalence framing study. Public Administration Review, 75(3), 469–478.
26.
PattonT. K.FreemanR. J. (2005). Governmental accounting standards come of age: Highlights from the first 20 years. Government Finance Review, 21(2), 16–20.
27.
PlummerE.HutchisonP. D.PattonT. K. (2007). GASB No. 34’s governmental financial reporting model: Evidence on its information relevance. Accounting Review, 82(1), 205–240.
28.
StalebrinkO. J. (2007). An investigation of discretionary accruals and surplus-deficit management: Evidence from Swedish municipalities. Financial Accountability and Management, 23(4), 441–458.
29.
StalebrinkO. J. (2019). Governmental accounting and the Md&A Section: An exploratory study of understandability. Public Administration Quarterly, 43(1), 121–142.
30.
StalebrinkO. J. (2022). State and local governmental accounting. In FarazmandA. (Ed.), Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance (pp. 12313–12316). Springer.
31.
ThalerR.SusteinC. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness. Yale University Press.
32.
TummersL.OlsenA.JilkeS., et al. (2016). Introduction to the virtual issue on behavioral public administration. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 3(1), 1–3.
33.
TverskyA.KahnemanD. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124–1131.
34.
YusufJ. (E.)JordanM. M. (2017). Accessibility of the management’s discussion and analysis to citizen users of Government Financial Reports. Public Budgeting & Finance, 37(4), 74–91.
