Zeszyty Teoretyczne Rachunkowości (Nov 2015)
The Evolution of Governmental Accounting in the Phases of a State Regime Reshaping from Capitalism to Socialism and from Socialism to Capitalism: the case of Poland in the 1950s – mid-1990s
Abstract
The main aim of this paper is the presentation and analysis of the fundamental phases of the reshaping of Polish public sector accounting from the beginning of the 1950s up to the mid-1990s. These years consti-tute the period of the two opposite transitions of Polish governmental accounting: at the beginning it was reoriented from serving the state under the market economy of the time towards serving the state under a centrally planned economy; at the end it was reoriented just the opposite – from serving the state under a centrally planned economy towards serving the state under a contemporary market economy. Both transformations were of a unique character on the international scale. The patterns and contingencies of these transitions have been outlined. This article was written in 1996, but has not yet been published. Its publication in practically unchanged form is designed to illustrate a way of thinking and writing about accounting on the Polish academic plain according to the manner of the time. The adopted approach and method have a descriptive-analytical character, backed up with the theory of the change in the public sector accounting and empirical research. The original model of the public sector accounting innovation in Poland and accounting regulations of the time were used. In the conclusion, it is possible to state that, for Poland, the public sector accounting both in the period of the centrally planned economy and in the period of the market economy, rely on the accrual convention and the double entry – it remains steady. Its reshaping is of an evolutionary character, and shifts in the sociopolitical-economic system of the state, the way public authorities function and the nature of public sector entities, determine the process change. Appropriate legal instruments are a basic tool of the regulation of the change, with central government administration in the leading role.
