Public companies’ transparency in Ukraine: key regulatory requirements

Environmental responsibility mechanism in the public sector of the economy has an important sense in UN Sustainability Development Goals achievement, as well as in ensuring the competitiveness of the state-owned companies and the state as a whole. Sustainability concept, concept of “smart cities and smart communities” and the implementation of public administration reform, the necessity to increase the transparency of state-owned companies and the responsibility of municipalities to communities determine the reasonability and urgency in environmental responsibility mechanism development. Systematization and comparative analysis of world and national experience of environmental responsibility mechanism development in the public sector of the economy were made. The author’s approach to the structuring of the mechanism of environmental responsibility in the public sector was developed. Public policy peculiarities implementation in the field of environmental responsibility were investigated considering the levels of regulation of such liability: in state-owned companies as models for other sectors of the economy; in public authorities and municipalities.

This study was conducted to determine the factors and their influence on accrual accounting reform in the public sector in Vietnam. Combining qualitative and quantitative research methods based on empirical surveys of 268 accountants, controllers, and auditors working in state agencies such as the Department of Finance, state treasuries and agencies receiving revenues from the state budget in 2019. This study shows that six factors influence the reform of the accounting system in the public sector in Vietnam to accrual-based: accounting staff – especially their expertise, competence, and work experience; training and support of the consulting experts; costs of the accounting reform; level of information technology application; funding and assistance from international organizations; legal environment.
At the same time, the accrual-based accounting reform will have a positive impact on improving the transparency and efficiency of public sector operations in Vietnam. Among the factors affecting accounting reform, the legal environment factor is the most influential determinant, followed by the contingent of accountants. The study’s limitation is that the new experimental investigation is only conducted with a small sample size and in a short period. However, the research results are also a useful reference for those who are interested in the context that Vietnam is preparing to have strong reforms in accounting in the public sector in the coming time.

Public interest entities and public companies as their representatives should be an example in implementing of sustainable development initiatives (sustainable development goals of the United Nations, development strategy «Europe-2020», «Sustainable Development Strategy»Ukraine-2020») in the light of Association agreement. Main challenges for Ukrainian public companies are non-financial information disclosure and assurance of both financial and non-financial reporting through statutory audit. Key prospects of public companies accounting system reform were outlined in this regard. This research may contribute to the existing literature in regard of identifying key areas of improving financial and non-financial information PIEs disclosure as well as its independent verification through statutory audit. This improvement should incorporate European experience and provision of Directive 2014/95 / EU, Directive 2013/34 / EU, Directive 2014/56 / EU and Regulation (EU) no. 537/2014. Among the promising areas of research, introduction of integrated reporting for Ukrainian PIEs is worth noting.