Examining The Influence of Environmental Dynamics on International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) Execution in Nigeria

This study focussed on analysing the influence of environmental dynamics (political system, economic structure and cultural predisposition) on the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria. Primary data were elicited from 1500 public sector respondents within the South – South geographical region of Nigeria. Further data analysis was carried out via factor analysis, ANOVA and regression analysis. Findings from the study revealed that economic structure positively influenced the execution of IPSAS within the Nigerian public entities while political system and cultural predisposition were not significant in influencing IPSAS execution, furthermore, that cost of implementation, personnel training with regards to IPSAS awareness and knowledge, significantly influenced IPSAS execution in Nigeria. Consequently, it is recommended that (a) that the federal government should commit significant budgetary allocations and equally ensure adequate virement of such allocated funds for the effective and faith full execution of IPSAS across the Federal and Sub- national government .also (b) government should institute an effective regulatory agency to exercise oversight over its Ministries Departments and Agencies to ensure strict compliance with the IPSAS implementation guidelines while sanctioning non-compliance.


Introduction
The ever growing desire for transparent and accountable management of a nation's wealth cannot be over emphasised, Political office holders who hold such assets in trust for the citizens are expected to display utmost good faith in ensuring the efficient and effective management of these resources, additionally, it behoves a stewardship responsibility on them to prepare financial reports that are not only useful but reliable as well. In a bid to deliver on this mandate, several nations has instituted various financial reforms with the principal objective of ensuring enhanced evaluation, reporting, recognition and disclosure benchmarks for the administration of public sector funds. (Ademola et al., 2020;Oyewobu & Salawu, 2019;Aduwo, 2019;Orits et al., 2021 ) International Public Sector Accounting Standards (hereinafter referred to as IPSAS) is currently the global best practise in government accounting necessitated by the desire for enhanced fiscal transparency (Christiaens, et al., 2013;Ebiaghan, 2020). The public sector includes governments and all publicly controlled, funded and owned enterprises and allied agencies which renders public welfare, goods or services, its major interest is in the receipts, safekeeping and allocation of public funds. IPSAS serves guidelines for the presentation and preparation of public sector financial Statements. According to Ogbuagu & Onuora (2019) IPSAS represents high quality universal financial reporting standards applicable to public sector entities issued by International Public Sector Accounting Standard Board (IPSASB). The desire to develop an harmonized accounting standards has been the main motivation for IPSAS. Business concerns around the globe are gravitating towards International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), governments are gravitating towards IPSAS as the standards promotes full disclosure, all-inclusive reporting and account comparability which enhances accountability, mitigating incidences of corruption and improve service delivery to the citizenry (Aduwo, 2019,53;Nkwagu et al., 2016,68;Okoughenu & Domma, 2016,18). IPSAS principally intends to enrich the transparent fiscal reporting by providing an effective medium of evaluating the process of resource allocation by the government . Although, IPSAS has been adopted and is being faithfully implemented by several industrialised countries, however, the adoption and execution level in the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) countries is relatively poor (IFAC, 2017). In terms of execution, Nigeria is still lagging behind as the federal and sub-national government projected full implementation of cash IPSAS by 2014 and accrual IPSASs by 2016 but was unsuccessful in actualise the set goal which is quite paradoxical as she has adopted and currently implementing IFRS in its private enterprises but execution of IPSAS is protracted. Numerous studies discovered bottle-necks like huge implementation overhead and dearth of experienced manpower as the reasons for the unsuccessful implementation (Tikk, 2010;IPSASB, 2012;Omolehinwa, & Naiyeju, 2015;Udeh & Sopekan, 2015;Atuilik et al., 2016,680). Despite numerous workshops conducted to inform the populace and equip practitioners on the modus oparandi of IPSAS, its implementation remains elusive. Unfortunately, the persistent delay in implementing IPSAS frustrates the realization of the associated benefits like economic diversification coupled with cordial bilateral rapport with foreign countries. Consequently, it becomes necessary to critically examine the environmental dynamics influencing the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria.

Rationale for the Study
Despite the potential merits of IPSAS adoption and implementation, several nations hasn't yet adopted it, conversely, implementation is in abeyance in countries where it has been adopted, Although IPSAS was adopted in 2010 in Nigeria, the pace of implementation is still sluggish which is indicative of non-compliance with IFAC public sector reform road map . This challenge of delayed implementation portends dire economic consequences for international trade. Furthermore, researchers are divided in their opinions with regards to IPSAS adoption and execution in Nigeria; some hold the view that it is the way to go (Acho, 2014;Ijeoma & Oghoghomeh, 2014;Ademolaetal, 2020;Ijeoma, 2014;Nkwaguetal, 2016;Babatunde, 2017;Aduwo, 2019). Conversely others advises restraint on the execution of IPSAS (Chan, 2008;Omolehinwa & Naiyeju, 2015) equally some other researchers examined how IPSAS implementation will enhance credibility and reliability of fiscal reporting Nwagu, Okoye, Onuora and Nkwagu (2016); Ohaka, Dagogo and Lenakpeg -Op (2016); After an in depth analysis of the extant literature on IPSAS adoption and implementation, the researcher observed an interesting knowledge gap in the literature to the effect that the execution of IPSAS globally requires that public enterprises prepare and present their financial reports using either cash or accrual bases of accounting without considering the existential environmental dynamics prevailing in the country; for example the political system, economic structure and socio-cultural predispositions, hence local practitioners perceive IPSAS as an authoritarian neo-colonial imposition which does not consider the intrinsic environmental values of their host countries. Ideally, it is expected that the execution of IPSAS should satiate the competing needs and aspirations of society and should adequately reflect the socio-cultural, political legal and economic conditions within which it operates. But sadly this is not the case, this inherent defect suggests that IPSAS as an harmonized global accounting standard within a world of diverse cultural differences may not fully achieve it's intended goals as preconceived and hence will experience implementation glitches. Therefore, in the light of the foregoing this research intends to analyse the influence of environmental dynamics (political system, economic structure and cultural predisposition) on the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria. Specifically this study will address the following research objectives ➢ To ascertain the influence of political system on the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria ➢ To examine the influence of economic structure on the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria ➢ To ascertain the influence of cultural perceptions on the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria As a follow up to the Introductory segment of this paper, the residual sections of the paper are organized thus : Section 2 explores the existing IPSAS literature coupled with the conceptual clarifications, while Section 3, discusses the research methodology and conceptual model depicting the nexus between environmental dynamics and IPSAS execution in Nigeria, In Section 4 the findings from the study were comprehensively discussed while Section 5, concludes the paper

Conceptual Clarifications
Meaning: IPSAS represents financial reporting standards specifically released for government owned and operated entities. Whose issuing authority is the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB). IPSAS are akin to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) which applies solely to private sector entities. IPSAS precisely addresses financial reporting issues which were not addressed in IFRS. These standards were majorly formulated to assist public sector entities in the preparation of relevant and reliable financial reports (Brown, 2013). Opined that IPSAS when timely implemented significantly improved the reporting quality of financial statements in government owned entities in the same vein. Opaniyi (2016) and Ebiaghan 2020 asserts that IPSAS are indispensable when formulating qualitative financial reports. Hence, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) endorsed the accrual financial reporting bases in order to guarantee comparability, reliability and boost consistency of financial reports in government owned entities (Udeh & Sopekan, 2015). Reliability entails the attribute of being convincing or dependable. Ebiaghan (2020); Ofoegbu (2014) opined that the execution of IPSAS improves the reliability of financial statements owing to the belief that financial statements' based on IPSAS conform with double entry principle. Hence, IPSAS takes into cognizance global best practices in the presentation and preparation of financial statements. Additionally, it instils citizens confidence in the accounting system and propels foreign direct investments.

Ipsas Accounting Implementation Road Map in Nigeria
The all-important desire for accountability in public administration has prompted the initiation of reforms cutting across all segments of the political economy of Nigeria (Ofoegbu 2014). Accountability is demonstrated through enhanced human and financial management based on transparent reporting and budgeting, (Izedomi & Ibadin, 2013;Ofoegbu, 2014). The country initiated various financial, economic and institutional reforms in 2003. These reforms sought to run government transactions like what obtains in the private sector aimed by guaranteeing accountability in financial reporting and service delivery. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and other donor agencies insisted on the faithful implementation of the New Public Management (NPM) program as a pre-condition for assistance, this warranted the institution of a committee in 1984 to harmonise the mode of presentation of public sector financial statements. The major recommendations of the committee were adopted and implemented, but no standard reporting formats were adopted (Ademola et al., 2017). The extant financial reporting practice was based on laws and regulations (e.g. Audit Ordinance, 1956 No 38 and Finance [Control and Management] Act 1958 N0 33) which were at variance with IPSAS cash basis of accounting. To correct this defect, the federal executive council (FEC) made the pronouncement for the adoption of IPSAS on 3 rd September, 2011 which was anticipated to take off in 2013. However an implementation roadmap for the adoption of cash basis IPSAS was fixed for 2014 while accrual basis for 2016.and an implementation sub-committee was instituted to fine tune the modalities for successful take -off, notably this committee has been organizing sensitization workshop, road-shows and seminars nationwide (FAAC, 2012)

Implementation Bottle-Necks Militating Against IPSAS in Nigeria
Despite spirited efforts made so far in adopting and implementing IPSAS in the Nigeria public sectors very little effort have been made owing to intractable challenges bedevilling the country for instance, the public sector in Nigeria is pigeonholed by personnel that exhibits strong reluctance to accepting change mostly with regards to financial matters due to their corrupt tendencies. Likewise, the huge implementation costs that will be incurred in training personnel, drafting updated accounting handbook, software installation programme both at the Federal, and sub-national government. Specifically, Ogbuagu & Onuora (2019); Ademola et al (2020) identified the challenges facing IPSAS Adoption and implementation as follows: (a) Resistance: quite a number of government ministries, departments and agencies are subtly resisting IPSAS implementation because it will most likely unearth several forms of financial malfeasance inherent within the public sector, thus it is perceived as a threat (b) Ostensible complications: the application of harmonized accounting methods and policies cutting across government and culture in the public sector poses a major challenge, bearing in mind that some jargons applied in IPSAS may not find local applicability in the local financial reporting system being practised. Such discrepancies will have to be reconciled through proper GAAP analysis.
(c) High Implementation cost: in a bid to implement IPSAS, it is necessary to draft accounting manual ` incorporating IPSAS terminologies, equally, the necessity for training workshops and seminars for finance officers in the public sector on IPSAS application these activities involves huge budgetary overheads which may not be timely appropriated.

Theoretical Framework
This research is anchored on the stakeholders' theory. Which is Incumbent on the proposition that values are necessarily essential mechanisms of businesses. This places a demand on managers to clearly demonstrate the value they create in relation to the expectations of stakeholders with a view to achieving laid down objectives (Freeman et al., 2004). As proposed by his theory, relevant stakeholders regularly scrutinize financial statements to ascertain its efficiency. Hence public sector accountants upholds the informed opinion that IPSAS execution is appropriate to guarantee effective performance appraisal, efficiency and accountability. This theory is particularly significant to public entities because numerous stakeholders expresses a fixed and somewhat absolute commitment to an economically viable government.

Empirical Review
A plethora of studies conducted internationally and locally on IPSAS adoption and execution exists in the literature and efforts will be made at this juncture to review some of them; Alshujairi (2014) carried out a study on enhancing financial reporting within the Iraqi public sector and subsequently applied a model theoretically to assess the public sector reforms propounded by Luder 1992 findings implies that the application of the model permits local accounting bodies to incorporate a structure that theorizes complex internal and external variables, deploying accounting amendments thereby hindering the faithful implementation of reforms in Iraq. It was equally observed that the Iraqi public enterprises currently prepares cash-basis accounts instead of accrual-based financial reports . He concluded by noting the strident requests from foreign credit organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to adopt IPSAS in order to principally enhance accountability in public administration with a view to ensuring financial sustainability. In the same vein, Al-Zubi 2015 examined the extent of application of IPSAS by the Jordanian public sector, using the SPSS package and other statistical tools, the study revealed that the Jordanian public sector is partially applying IPSAS thus they recommended wide -scale applicability of these standards in conjunction with competent authorities and heighten the efficiency of monitoring in order to keep abreast with the IPSAS updates. Cohen et al (2014) studied the appropriateness of diverse bases of accounting in availing reliable data to support decisions regarding privatization of public entities. Precisely, a comparative analysis is carried out between the newly adopted Greek Governmental Accounting Standards (GGAS) that is in tandem with a modified cash basis and accrual-based IPSAS as it relates to public entities. The findings reveals that although GGAS is influenced in diverse ways by IFRS and consequently exhibit connections with IPSAS, there is no sufficient information pertinent to decisions regarding privatization under the distinctive conditions regulating public property in Greece. However, IPSAS seems to avail more information. In Nigeria, Nkwagu et al (2016) investigated public sector accountability using IPSASs concentrating specially on public servants in the Eastern region. Adopting survey design, data were collected through questionnaires administered on 314 respondents the data were analysed using one-way ANOVA model. Research findings reveal that the adoption of IPSAS boosts public sector transparency. It equally indicates that adoption of IPSASs enables optimal implementation of approved budgets and checkmates likely incidences of sleaze within public entities. Ademola et al 2020 appraised the connection between the adoption of IPSAS and financial reporting quality in South Western Nigeria. Specifically, by analysing the effect of IPSAS adoption on credibility and comparability of financial statements. Using Primary data elicited via questionnaires'the study reveals that IPSAS adoption positively influenced financial reporting quality, Also it was discovered that IPSAS implementation is not significantly influenced by, cultural, institutional commitment, legal, sociological, political and environmental factors. They recommended significant budgetary allocation towards the full adoption and implementation of IPSAS in Nigeria. This was further corroborated by Aduwo 2019

Research Methodology
This study adopted Cross-sectional survey design and Structured questionnaire applied in eliciting data from the sampled population. Cutting across 2000 respondents from all the six states in the South-south geographical region of Nigeria comprising Public Sector Accountants , Auditors in the Ministries Departments and Agencies(MDAs) of the selected states with at least five (5) years of work experience were purposively sampled for the study, The explicit model for this research is: The statistical models for hypotheses IPSAS Implet.=β0+β1Pol+εt eq.2 IPSAS Implet.=β0+β1Eco+εt eq3 IPSAS Implet.=β0+β1Cul+εt eq.4 Where:β1>0;r2>0 β1 measures the effect of IPSAS execution on Pol= Political system Eco=Economic structure Cul=Cultural disposition εt = error term β0 = regression coefficient

Results and Discussions
Data collected were coded into SPSS Version 20.0 The statistical analysis comprised factor analysis and multiple regression analysis. Additionally, the utilization of principle component analysis techniques was deemed suitable to mitigate likely challenges of multicollinearity between the variables. A pilot test was undertaken to ascertain the suitability of the data for factor analysis and results were assessed through multiple criteria, comprising interpretability, eigenvalues and internal consistency, as suggested by Hair et al. (2010,35). Results suggests that three factors can be mined from IPSAS implementation. The outcome of the pilot analysis is shown in Table 1 below:

Descriptive Statistics
The descriptive statistics shown in below in Table (2) indicate a positive outlook towards the items. While the standard deviation (SD) values oscillated from 0.931 to 1.003, these values reveal a contracted dispersion around the mean. Also, the mean values of aggregate items were higher than the midpoint (4) and fluctuated from 5.05 to 5.46. However, upon cursory evaluation the data were deemed normally distributed.  Table 3 below indicates that three principal elements can be gleaned from the questionnaire constructed. Which contains (19) items as shown in Table (3) below. "Political Dynamics" constitutes the number one factor representing a variance of 20.468% ranging from 0.61 to 0.81. "Economic Dynamics" constitutes the second factor accounting for (19.174%) can be identified as factor while "Cultural dynamics" accounting for (15.775%) constitutes the third factor. The aggregation of these three identified factors represents 76.398% variance of the entire questionnaire items as indicated in table 1 above  A cursory glance at Table 4:indicates that R square and the adjusted R square are .139 and .032. which suggests that 13.9% variation observed in IPSAS Execution was described by the Political system prevalent in the country. However, Table 5 reveals that Political system not statistically significant to influence IPSAS execution given that the probability value obtained (p-value), that is 0.283, is greater than 0.05 (P> 0.05). which was corroborated in Table 6 where the coefficient of IPSAS execution indicated a negative (T, -1.138) influence in IPSAS execution among accounting practitioners Hence, applying the 'Df' statistics in Table 5 , F-table value is 5.32. we accept the null hypothesis which implies that Political system does not significantly influence IPSAS execution in Nigeria.

Hypothesis Two
Ho2: The economic structure does not significantly influence the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria.  Source:SPSS 20.0 Output Table 7indicates that R square and the adjusted R square are .596 and .633. This suggests that 59.6% variation experienced in IPSAS execution was described by the economic structure however, it was detected from Table 8 that economic structure is statistically significant to influence the execution of IPSAS. Given that the p-value is 0.002 which is less than 0.05, we accept the alternate hypothesis. This implies that economic structure exhibits a significant relationship with IPSAS execution in Nigeria.

Hypothesis Three
HO3: There is no significant relationship between cultural predisposition and the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria.  Table 11 that cultural predisposition is not statistically significant to predict IPSAS Execution. Utilising the 'Df' statistics in Table 11 F-table value is 5.32. we accept the null hypothesis which implies that there is no significant relationship between cultural predisposition and the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria.

Conclusions and Recommendations
This research was aimed at analysing the impact of environmental dynamics (political system, economic structure and cultural predisposition) on the execution of IPSAS in Nigeria. Specifically, it appraised the influence of political, economic and cultural dynamics on IPSAS execution in Nigeria Primary data elicited from 1500 respondents in the Nigerian public sector were analysed using factor analysis, ANOVA and regression analysis. Research findings implies that economic structure wielded significant influence on IPSAS execution while political and cultural predisposition were not significant in influencing IPSAS execution this finding was corroborated by Ademola et al (2020); Oyewobu & Salawu (2019); Ogbuagu & Onuora (2019) Equally, the study further revealed that cost of implementation, personnel training with regards to IPSAS awareness and knowledge, significantly influenced IPSAS execution in Nigeria. Incumbent on these findings, it is recommended that (a) that the federal government should commit significant budgetary allocations and equally ensure adequate virement of such allocated funds for the effective and faith full implementation of IPSAS across the Federal and Sub-national government . (b) government should institute an effective regulatory agency to exercise oversight over its ministries departments and agencies to ensure strict compliance with the IPSAS implementation guidelines while sanctioning non-compliance.