The enabling role of institutional entrepreneurs in the adoption of IPSAS within a transitional economy: The case of Estonia

In the light of neoinstitutional theory and by adopting case study research methodology, this article explains the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards for modernizing public sector accounting in Estonia. This article reveals that the smooth—yet gradual—adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards‐compliant accounting systems was enabled by the involvement of powerful actors (i.e., institutional entrepreneurs) with foreign and/or business backgrounds. In addition, the change in public sector accounting in Estonia was facilitated by the developments in its international positioning, characterized by the transition from a Soviet communist to a market economy and subsequent European Union membership and by the absence of past accounting practices, which could potentially hinder the change.     

Visualizing Estonia

The concept of "Estonia" is constituted in different sign systems. Each such sign system models and communicates various aspects of "Estonia", adding simultaneously its medium specific signs to the concept. The dominating visual representations circulating internationally about Estonia are photo albums, postcards, films, web pages and other iconic items. Photo albums in particular are constituted by the orthoscopic parameters of painting and the innocent notion of ‘picturesque’. In Estonia these albums present hardly anything else than architecture and weirdly empty environment. The reason for this might be a long-term impact of ideology of the past that still tends to constitute an idealist kaleidoscopic overview of the country with no social dimension and its problems as a part of it. The modest level of visual literacy is obviously another reason of the endencies of representation that we observe in this research. The scenes offered in the visual façade menu mostly come from the past that refersto the vitality of the "national" model of culture in Estonia. Hence we haveCorrection Form file:///C:/Workdir/PROG/recfolder/111113/STY39736/Correction for So... 1 of 2 11/11/2013 3:39 PM the concept of a city/state as first of all an open-air museum. The status of "visual Estonia" would be more interesting with inclusion of first: heterotopic environment in the visual representations; second: shifing the "orthoscopic parametres" of representations; and third: diversifying scopic positions.     

BUDGETING IN A TIME OF AUSTERITY: THE CASE OF THE ESTONIAN CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

Resulting from the global economic crisis, high budget deficits and debt burden characterise many economies looking for an exit strategy from current fiscal unbalances. The government of Estonia, having pursued a conservative fiscal policy for over a decade, reacted to the economic recession with radical budget adjustments, the latter constituting approximately 9% of gross domestic product in 2009. Consequently, Estonia took its chance and qualified for the euro in 2011. This study examines the behaviour of the Estonian central government and the basis of its budget decisions when planning drastic cost reductions through the theoretical lens of cutback management. The foremost results reveal that the crisis pushed the government to establish a different institutional framework that facilitated fast and effective decision‐making during the budget process. The savings proposals came from the Ministry of Finance; however, running a cash‐basis line‐item budgeting system in practice, the centre possessed only limited performance data for developing the proposals. Consequently, the long‐term impacts of the budget adjustments had not been assessed and are as yet unknown. A further conclusion is that the current budgeting framework should be revised and replaced step by step with a more advanced approach. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.