Digital transformations in public sector accounting, auditing and accountability: palliative or panacea?

Abstract

Purpose This article introduces the Special Issue “Digital transformations in public sector accounting, auditing and accountability: palliative or panacea?” and examines how emerging technologies are reshaping public sector governance. It explores whether digitalisation functions as a palliative – providing temporary remedies to long-standing public sector inefficiencies – or as a panacea – offering sustainable solutions to enhance accountability, transparency and value creation. Design/methodology/approach The Special Issue brings together 11 empirical and comparative studies from diverse institutional and national contexts. Collectively, these papers address five key themes: impacts on public service delivery and values; drivers of adoption and implementation; ethical, social and governance challenges; integration and interoperability with existing systems; and citizen engagement and democracy. A thematic synthesis and comparative mapping of contributions reveal emerging insights and persistent research gaps. Findings The contributions provide robust evidence on adoption dynamics, governance and accountability challenges and the importance of technological integration. However, they expose significant silences surrounding ethics, democracy, platformisation and digital twins. The overall assessment is ambivalent: digitalisation is neither wholly enabling nor constraining, but contingent upon context, governance structures and institutional readiness. While the studies document how digitalisation destabilises traditional accountability arrangements, they also reveal limited theorisation of new accountability forms or strategies to mitigate emerging risks. Originality/value This Special Issue offers one of the most comprehensive empirical examinations to date of digital transformation within public sector accounting, auditing and accountability. It highlights both the promises and perils of digitalisation, proposing a research agenda that moves beyond adoption and efficiency concerns toward the deeper normative questions of ethics, democracy and public value. The editorial calls for scholars and practitioners to critically reimagine accountability in a digitally mediated public sector.