Financial Reporting Quality and Online Disclosure Practices in Spanish Governmental Agencies

Good governance in the public sector implies high accountability levels. Accountability is a multidimensional concept that includes the quantity and reliability of disclosures as well as rendering accounts to the citizenry. Nowadays, good governance, accountability, and financial performance are key for the long-term sustainability of autonomous public sector organizations. The objective of this paper is to study how key governance features relate to the quantity and quality of the information disclosed. In particular, how the governing body, financial performance and organizational features relate to online transparency and financial reporting quality, as well as how these two accountability dimensions are related. To fulfill this objective, we have used the Structural Equation Modeling, Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM) approach. The focus of our analyses is on Spanish central government agencies. The size of, and a greater presence of independent members in, the governing body are explanatory factors behind the quality of the financial reports. Our findings also show that the quality of the financial information is also affected by the pressure that Eurostat requirements -deficit limits- puts on public sector entities, which leads to the use of smoothing practices. Online disclosure practices are not explained by the features of the governing body, but by the size of the agencies and their financial results. The better the financial reporting quality, the higher the online disclosure levels.