Systemic Constraints and Practitioner Agency: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of International Public Sector Accounting Standards Implementation in Ghana

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Understanding practitioner perspectives is essential for designing effective support strategies. This study investigates the barriers to and enablers of IPSAS implementation from the perspective of 400 Ghanaian public sector practitioners. A mixed-methods design was employed, integrating quantitative analysis of structured survey items—using analysis of variance (ANOVA), t-tests, and chi-square tests—with thematic coding of open-text responses. Qualitative data were coded inductively and validated against a deductive framework. Thematic analysis identified six evenly distributed systemic challenges: training and capacity deficits (22.0%), system incompatibility (19.7%), complexity of IPSAS standards (19.7%), lack of political will (19.1%), inadequate resources (18.8%), and legal or regulatory gaps. Practitioner recommendations closely mirrored these constraints, prioritizing capacity building (41.4%) and stronger political will (21.5%). Quantitative analyses confirmed a broad consensus, finding no statistically significant differences in perceptions across professional roles, educational attainment, or gender. These findings demonstrate that IPSAS implementation barriers are multidimensional. Consequently, this study proposes the Systemic Constraint and Practitioner Agency Framework. This integrative theoretical model distinguishes between practitioner-actionable constraints, such as human capital and political advocacy, and institutional-level constraints, including technology and legal frameworks. To achieve substantive IPSAS compliance, policymakers must avoid isolated interventions and instead prioritize coordinated, multi-front reforms distributed simultaneously across practitioner, organizational, and institutional tiers. capacity building implementation barriers multi-front reform policy recommendations public financial management thematic analysis Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Figure 9 Figure 10 1. Introduction The implementation of accrual-based financial reporting standards in the public sector represents one of the most consequential and technically demanding reforms in contemporary public financial management (PFM). The International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), developed and maintained by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB), have emerged as the globally recognised benchmark for government financial reporting quality, with more than 100 jurisdictions having adopted or actively progressing toward adoption as of 2024 (Fahmid et al. 2020 ; Masoud 2024 ; Scannell & Tawiah 2024 ). Championed by multilateral institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and bilateral development partners, IPSAS adoption has been positioned as a vehicle for enhancing fiscal transparency, improving public accountability, and aligning government financial statements with internationally comparable standards (Ben Slama & Jandoubi 2024 ; Castañeda-Rodríguez 2022 ; Marota & Johari 2025 ; Tawiah 2022 ). The theoretical benefits — enhanced comparability, greater decision-usefulness of financial information, and improved credibility with creditors and development partners — are well-documented in the growing body of empirical literature (Christiaens et al. 2015 ; Muacassange et al. 2025 ; Polzer et al. 2021a ; Scannell & Tawiah 2024 ). Despite this global momentum, a persistent and widening gap exists between formal IPSAS adoption mandates and substantive entity-level compliance, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Polzer et al. ( 2021a ) estimate that, while the majority of IPSAS board member countries have formally endorsed adoption in policy, fewer than one-quarter have achieved full accrual-basis compliance — the standard's most exacting requirement. In sub-Saharan Africa, this implementation gap is most pronounced: countries across the region have enacted PFM legislation and established IPSAS adoption roadmaps under donor pressure, yet entity-level compliance remains uneven, partial, and in many cases ceremonial rather than substantive (Adhikari & Jayasinghe 2022 ; Jayasinghe et al. 2020 ; Lassou & Hopper 2015 ; Mnif Sellami & Gafsi 2019 ). The scholarly literature has identified a recurring constellation of structural barriers — human capital deficits, technological incompatibilities, fragmented legal frameworks, insufficient funding, and volatile political commitment — but the majority of this research relies on aggregate institutional assessments, document analysis, or small purposive samples, rather than on systematic, large-scale evidence from the practitioners who must operationalise these standards on a daily basis (Abu Haija et al. 2020 ; Ahmad & Nasseredine 2019 ; Chilingwe & Kabwe 2025 ; Saleh et al. 2021 ). Ghana presents a particularly instructive and timely case for examining the practitioner dimension of IPSAS implementation. The country has a formally articulated commitment to IPSAS accrual adoption, substantial institutional investment in the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), and a constitutionally embedded accountability architecture reinforced by the Public Financial Management Act (Act 921 2016) and its associated regulations (Aidoo-Buameh 2014 ; Owusu-Akomeah et al. 2022 ; Tetteh et al. 2021 ). The national ecosystem of accountability institutions — including the Audit Service, the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and the Institute of Chartered Accountants–Ghana (ICAG) — provides a professional infrastructure nominally conducive to reform (Alawattage & Azure 2019 ; Krah & Mertens 2023 ). Yet implementation at the entity level remains fragmented and incomplete, with many public bodies still at the planning or partial-implementation stage, and the specific obstacles that prevent full compliance from being achieved have received limited systematic empirical attention in the Ghanaian literature (Agyemang & Yensu 2018 ; Attefah et al. 2025 ; Saeed 2024 ). A second and equally important lacuna in the existing literature concerns the demographic and professional heterogeneity of IPSAS implementation perceptions. Practitioner characteristics — including professional role, educational qualification, gender, and years of public sector experience — might plausibly shape how individuals perceive barriers, outcomes, and prospects for reform. Matekele and Komba ( 2020 ) provide evidence from Tanzania suggesting that more experienced and better-qualified practitioners hold more nuanced assessments of accrual accounting implementation challenges. Hoai and Nguyen ( 2023 ) document education-linked variation in Vietnamese public sector practitioners' attitudes toward accrual adoption. In the Ghanaian and broader West African context, however, no large-scale quantitative study has systematically examined whether such demographic variation exists or is negligible — an absence with direct implications for whether reform interventions should be differentiated by practitioner subgroup or applied uniformly across the public sector workforce (Saeed 2024 ; Tetteh et al. 2021 ). A third dimension that has received insufficient attention concerns the alignment — or misalignment — between the barriers that practitioners identify and the interventions they recommend. This relationship is not self-evident: practitioners may recognise systemic constraints that they regard as structurally determined and therefore outside the sphere of individual or collective action, while simultaneously championing domain-specific interventions where their own agency is most salient. Examining this alignment is analytically and practically important: it reveals whether practitioner-recommended reform agendas are responsive to the full landscape of barriers they face, and identifies domains — such as technology upgrade — where practitioner advocacy alone is insufficient and institutional-level action by government and development partners is essential (Andrews et al. 2017 ; Bawole & Adjei-Bamfo 2019 ; Effah & Nuhu 2017 ). The present study addresses these gaps by drawing on a nationwide, mixed-methods survey of 400 Ghanaian public sector practitioners conducted in August–December 2025. First, it systematically analyzes open-text responses on implementation challenges ( n = 346) and policy recommendations ( n = 331), constructing an inductively grounded thematic framework validated against the extant IPSAS adoption literature. Second, it examines whether composite thematic index scores — capturing IPSAS awareness, PFM reform context, perceived benefits, implementation outcomes, challenges, and outlook — vary significantly across professional role, educational qualification, gender, and years of experience, using parametric statistical tests with effect size calculations. Third, it examines the alignment between reported barriers and practitioner-recommended interventions to generate a practitioner-validated policy agenda for accelerating full IPSAS adoption in Ghana. This constitutes the most comprehensive practitioner survey evidence on IPSAS implementation in Ghana to date, and among the most extensive in sub-Saharan Africa (Adhikari & Jayasinghe 2022 ; Masoud 2024 ; Scannell & Tawiah 2024 ). Research aim and objectives The aim of this study was to provide a rigorous, practitioner-grounded empirical account of the barriers to IPSAS implementation in Ghana's public sector, the interventions that practitioners recommend to accelerate compliance, and the extent to which these perceptions vary across professional and demographic subgroups. Four specific objectives were pursued: To systematically identify and categorise the principal barriers to IPSAS implementation as articulated by Ghanaian public sector practitioners through open-text survey responses. To document the policy interventions recommended by practitioners for accelerating effective IPSAS implementation, and to examine how these recommendations align with the identified challenge themes. To examine whether perceptions of IPSAS implementation barriers, outcomes, and future prospects differ significantly across professional role, educational qualification, gender, or years of experience. To derive a practitioner-validated, evidence-based policy agenda for coordinated IPSAS reform in Ghana's public sector. Research questions The study addresses three research questions (RQs) to operationalise these objectives: RQ1 What are the principal thematic barriers to IPSAS implementation as articulated by Ghanaian public sector practitioners, and how do these align with the existing literature? RQ2 What policy interventions do practitioners recommend to accelerate effective IPSAS implementation, and how do these recommendations map onto the identified challenge themes? RQ3 Do perceptions of IPSAS implementation barriers, outcomes, and future prospects differ significantly across professional role, educational qualification, gender, or years of experience? 2. Literature Review 2.1 Barriers to IPSAS implementation: a theoretical framework The scholarly literature consistently identifies five broad categories of barriers to IPSAS adoption: human capital and capacity constraints, technological infrastructure deficits, legal and regulatory misalignment, resource and financial constraints, and political economy factors (Abu Haija et al. 2020 ; Ahmad & Nasseredine 2019 ; Saleh et al. 2021 ; Scannell & Tawiah 2024 ). These five categories mirror the classic enabler–barrier framework developed in institutional theory accounts of public sector accounting reform, in which the adoption of new standards is understood not as a discrete technical event but as a socially embedded process shaped by coercive, normative, and mimetic institutional pressures (Christiaens et al. 2015 ; DiMaggio & Powell 1983 ; Polzer et al. 2021a ). The theoretical significance of this framework lies in its emphasis on the interdependence of constraints: human capital, technology, law, resources, and political will are not independent levers that can be addressed sequentially but mutually reinforcing conditions whose combined presence determines whether reform is substantive or merely ceremonial (Andrews et al. 2017 ; Jayasinghe et al. 2020 ). Human capital constraints are consistently the most prominently cited barrier in the IPSAS adoption literature (Chilingwe & Kabwe 2025 ; Matekele & Komba 2020 ; Saeed 2024 ). The transition from cash-based or commitment-based accounting to full accrual IPSAS requires not only retraining existing staff in new technical procedures but fundamentally reshaping the professional identity, norms, and competencies of public accountants (Mbelwa et al. 2019 ; Ismaili et al. 2021 ). This is a structural challenge that in-service workshops alone cannot address: it requires embedding IPSAS competencies in professional certification curricula, pre-service education, and continuing professional development (CPD) programmes — changes that require the active engagement of accountancy professional bodies such as ICAG, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). In Ghana specifically, the dominance of ICAG-trained accountants whose curricula have historically emphasised cash-basis systems compounds this challenge, creating a professional pipeline that is structurally underprepared for accrual reporting requirements (Agyemang & Yensu 2018 ). Technological barriers centre on the compatibility of existing financial management information systems (FMIS) with IPSAS's accrual recognition requirements (Alghizzawi & Masruki 2024 ; Tetteh et al. 2022 ; Yaokumah & Biney 2020 ). In Ghana's case, GIFMIS — designed to automate government budgeting and commitment accounting — was not originally built to support the automatic recognition of assets, liabilities, depreciation schedules, and accrual-basis entries that are the hallmarks of IPSAS-compliant reporting. Bekiaris and Markogiannopoulou ( 2022 ) document analogous enterprise resource planning (ERP)–IPSAS compatibility challenges across European Union (EU) member states, underscoring the universality of this barrier even in resource-rich institutional environments. The policy implication is clear: FMIS upgrades are not merely a technical support function for IPSAS reform but a necessary precondition for substantive compliance. Political economy and legal framework barriers operate at a higher institutional level and represent perhaps the most intractable dimension of the reform challenge. Aidoo-Buameh ( 2014 ) argues that in Ghana, political commitment to PFM reform is episodic and incentive-driven, ebbing and flowing with electoral cycles and donor conditionality pressures. Lassou and Hopper ( 2015 ) make an analogous observation for Francophone West Africa, arguing that accounting reforms introduced through external conditionality typically lack the domestic political ownership necessary for durable implementation. In Ghana's legislative framework, several provisions of the Public Financial Management Act (2016) create partial rather than full alignment with accrual IPSAS requirements, and no explicit statutory deadline for full adoption exists — a gap that practitioners and scholars have repeatedly identified as a critical enabler of continued non-compliance (Agyemang & Yensu 2018 ; Tetteh et al. 2021 ). 2.2 Demographic moderators of implementation perceptions A relatively underexplored dimension of the IPSAS adoption literature concerns whether practitioner perceptions vary systematically by demographic and professional characteristics. Matekele and Komba ( 2020 ) provide evidence from Tanzania that demographic attributes — particularly education and years of experience — meaningfully influence implementation perceptions, with more experienced and better-qualified practitioners exhibiting more nuanced and contextually grounded assessments of accrual accounting challenges. Hoai and Nguyen ( 2023 ) similarly document education-linked variation in Vietnamese public sector practitioners' attitudes toward accrual adoption, with higher-qualified staff demonstrating greater appreciation for the long-run governance benefits of IPSAS while simultaneously expressing more technically sophisticated concerns about implementation feasibility. The evidence from sub-Saharan Africa on this question is sparse and inconclusive, with most studies relying on small purposive samples that preclude robust demographic subgroup analysis. Gender has received particular attention in recent years: Tetteh et al. ( 2021 ) note that female finance officers in Ghana are underrepresented in senior roles despite equivalent formal qualifications, raising the question of whether gendered access to training opportunities and decision-making authority influences IPSAS-related perceptions and behaviours. Professional role type — specifically the distinction between accountants, auditors, directors, and finance managers — has been even less systematically examined, despite the obvious relevance of role-based differences in daily exposure to IPSAS documentation, audit requirements, and implementation responsibilities (Saeed 2024 ). The present study addresses this gap directly through a large-sample, multi-variable comparative analysis that is unprecedented in the Ghanaian context. 2.3 Practitioner recommendations: evidence from the literature While barriers to IPSAS adoption have received extensive scholarly attention, practitioner-recommended solutions have been comparatively underexplored. The existing literature suggests that practitioner recommendations consistently cluster around four domains: structured capacity-building programmes embedded in professional accountancy education and CPD frameworks; legislative reform to create a mandatory IPSAS adoption timeline with enforceable compliance milestones; dedicated funding streams for systems upgrades and technical assistance; and sustained political commitment at ministerial and agency-head levels (Chilingwe & Kabwe 2025 ; Saeed 2024 ; Scannell & Tawiah 2024 ). Attefah et al. ( 2025 ) add that local government-specific support mechanisms are urgently needed in decentralized systems such as Ghana's, where sub-national entities face the sharpest capacity deficits but receive the least targeted implementation support. The asymmetry between the comprehensiveness of the barrier literature and the thinness of the practitioner-recommendation literature represents an important gap that this study directly addresses by systematically coding and analysing 331 open-text recommendation responses. 2.4 Conceptual framework The study integrates institutional theory, specifically the neo-institutional framework of DiMaggio and Powell ( 1983 ) concerning coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphism, with the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) framework developed by Andrews et al. ( 2017 ). Institutional theory explains why organisations across Ghana's public sector are under similar pressures to adopt IPSAS — coercive pressures from PFM legislation and donor conditionality, normative pressures from professional accounting bodies, and mimetic pressures from peer-country adoption — but does not in itself explain why adoption remains ceremonial rather than substantive. The PDIA framework complements this by emphasizing that reform environments characterised by evenly distributed, mutually reinforcing constraints require adaptive, iterative problem-solving rather than the blueprint-driven, single-lever interventions that have historically characterised donor-supported PFM reforms in sub-Saharan Africa (Lassou & Hopper 2015 ; Jayasinghe et al. 2020 ). The empirical findings of this study — particularly the near-equal distribution of challenge frequencies across six thematic categories — are interpreted against this dual theoretical backdrop. 3. Research Methodology 3.1 Research design: mixed-methods approach This study adopts a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design (Morse 2010 ; Creswell & Plano Clark 2018 ), integrating quantitative survey analysis in the first phase with qualitative thematic coding of open-text responses in the second. The mixed-methods approach is theoretically grounded in the recognition that understanding complex implementation phenomena requires both the breadth of structured measurement and the depth of narrative meaning-making: closed-ended Likert items can quantify the magnitude and distribution of practitioner perceptions, while open-text responses capture the texture, nuance, and practitioner voice that fixed-response instruments cannot elicit (Tashakkori & Teddlie 2010 ; Creswell & Plano Clark 2018 ). This design is consistent with established practice in public sector accounting implementation research, where mixed-methods approaches have been used to triangulate perceptions across multiple data types and analytical registers (Mbelwa et al. 2019 ; Polzer et al. 2021a ). 3.2 Data sources and sampling Data were drawn from a nationwide survey of 400 Ghanaian public sector practitioners across five organisation types — central government ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs); local government assemblies; state-owned enterprises (SOEs); statutory bodies and regulatory agencies; and the Ghana Education Service — surveyed in November–December 2025 using a structured questionnaire instrument. Respondents were recruited through ICAG professional membership network and the Association of Accountants in the Public Services (AAPS), with snowball sampling used to extend coverage to practitioners not affiliated with these professional bodies. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Controller and Accountant General's Department, Middle Belt, Kumasi, Ghana. All participants provided informed consent prior to participation. Consent to publish anonymized data was also obtained. The survey included two open-text questions: one on the main challenges to IPSAS implementation in their organisation or in Ghana generally, and the other on recommendations to improve the effectiveness of IPSAS implementation and its contribution to PFM reforms in Ghana 3.3 Qualitative data analysis: thematic coding Open-text responses were analyzed using a hybrid inductive–deductive thematic coding approach (Braun & Clarke 2006 ; Fereday & Muir-Cochrane 2006 ). This approach is appropriate for research objectives that combine an interest in verifying theoretically anticipated themes with a commitment to remaining open to novel practitioner insights not anticipated by the existing literature. In the deductive phase, a framework of six challenge domains was derived from the IPSAS adoption literature (Saleh et al. 2021 ; Scannell & Tawiah 2024 ): (1) human capital and training deficits; (2) technological infrastructure and system incompatibility; (3) standards complexity; (4) political will and leadership; (5) resource and funding constraints; and (6) legal and regulatory misalignment. In the inductive phase, responses were coded against this framework, with a residual category capturing novel themes not anticipated by the framework. Responses were coded independently by two researchers; inter-rater reliability was assessed using Cohen's kappa (κ = 0.84), indicating strong agreement consistent with the threshold of κ ≥ 0.80 recommended for qualitative health and social science research (Landis & Koch 1977 ). Disagreements were resolved through structured discussion and consensus. 3.4 Quantitative analysis Quantitative analyses were conducted in Python (version 3.12) using the pandas, NumPy, and SciPy libraries. Six composite thematic indices were constructed: IPSAS Awareness, PFM Reform Context, IPSAS Benefits, Implementation Outcomes, Implementation Challenges, and Outlook. One-way ANOVA tested differences across professional role (four groups) and educational qualification (six groups), with Levene's test used to verify the homogeneity of variance assumption. Independent-samples t -tests compared male and female practitioners on all six indices. Chi-square analysis examined the association between organisation type and IPSAS implementation stage. Effect sizes were calculated as Cohen's d for t -tests and eta-squared ( η² ) for ANOVA, following the conventions recommended by Cohen ( 1988 ). Spearman's rho ( ρ ) was used to examine inter-index correlations, given the ordinal nature of the Likert-scale data. All tests used a significance threshold of α = 0.05. 4. Results 4.1 Thematic analysis of implementation challenges Table 1 presents the thematic coding results for open-text challenge responses ( n = 346). Six substantive themes emerged, with frequencies distributed remarkably evenly across them — ranging from 18.8% to 22.0%. This distribution itself constitutes an important empirical finding: no single barrier dominates the challenge landscape, indicating that IPSAS implementation in Ghana faces a multidimensional, systemic constraint environment rather than one or two bottleneck issues amenable to targeted single-lever interventions (Andrews et al. 2017 ; Saleh et al. 2021 ). Table 1 Thematic analysis of reported IPSAS implementation challenges Rank Challenge Theme n % Representative Illustrative Quotes 1 Training & Capacity Deficits 76 22.0% "Inadequate training for officers responsible for implementation"; "Most heads of Finance are not Chartered Accountants" 2 System Incompatibility 68 19.7% "System incompatibility with GIFMIS" (multiple); "Software should be improved in all sectors" 3 Complexity of IPSAS Standards 68 19.7% "Complexity of standards" (multiple); "Implementing IPSAS is a long-term undertaking" 4 Political Will & Leadership 66 19.1% "Lack of political will"; "Political interference" (multiple respondents) 5 Inadequate Resources & Funding 65 18.8% "Inadequate resources" (multiple); "Lack of funds for more training" 6 Legal & Regulatory Gaps 0 ~ 0% "PFM laws should be realigned with IPSAS" 7 Other / Unclassified 4 1.4% Miscellaneous responses Note. Respondents could mention multiple themes; percentages therefore sum to more than 100%. R = Respondent. Training and capacity deficits were the most frequently cited challenge (22.0%, mean = 4.00 for the training capacity item). Respondents articulated not only the volume of training deficits but their quality and structural character: “Most heads of Finance are not Chartered Accountants so they do not understand the concept to be able to implement it effectively” (Respondent 17). This points to a structural credentialling gap at the leadership level — a governance-of-expertise problem rather than a simple training volume deficit (Agyemang & Yensu 2018 ; Chilingwe & Kabwe 2025 ). Figure 1 shows the distribution of reported challenge themes visually. System incompatibility (19.7%) and complexity of IPSAS standards (19.7%) tied for second, both reflecting technical barriers to implementation. GIFMIS emerged repeatedly as an exemplar of the system compatibility challenge: while respondents acknowledged that GIFMIS has improved budgeting efficiency, they consistently noted that its accrual accounting functionality remains limited (Tetteh et al. 2022 ; Yaokumah & Biney 2020 ). Political will and leadership (19.1%) and inadequate resources and funding (18.8%) were also prominently cited, reflecting the governance and fiscal dimensions of reform sustainability. Legal and regulatory gaps were mentioned less frequently in narrative form but appeared consistently in responses coded under Q34 recommendations (Fig. 2 ), suggesting practitioners view this as a structural precondition to be resolved rather than a proximate operational obstacle. 4.2 Thematic analysis of practitioner recommendations Table 2 and Fig. 3 present the thematic coding of practitioner recommendations ( n = 331). Capacity building and training dominated the recommendation landscape (41.4%), with a frequency nearly double that of the next most common recommendation. The prominence of this finding — and its near-perfect alignment with the top-ranked challenge — reflects a strong practitioner consensus on the primary lever for reform acceleration. Responses revealed not only calls for more training, but for structured, systematic, and profession-wide programmes: "Adequate training and measures to ensure the strict compliance of IPSAS by organisations" (Respondent 6). Political will and leadership commitment was the second-most-recommended intervention (21.5%), with many respondents invoking the need for enforcement mechanisms: "There should be punishment for non-compliance to enforce it" (Respondent 13). This legalistic framing reflects a broader culture in Ghana's public sector where voluntary compliance is considered insufficient without regulatory teeth (Aidoo-Buameh 2014 ; Krah & Aweh 2013 ). Resource mobilisation (19.9%) and legal/regulatory reform (17.5%) completed the major recommendation categories. Notably, systems and technology upgrade was mentioned by only 0.9% of respondents, despite system incompatibility being the second-most-cited challenge. This asymmetry is analytically interesting: practitioners may regard technological fixes as outside their sphere of influence (an institutional constraint, not a practitioner-level recommendation), whereas capacity building and political advocacy are domains in which individual and collective action is perceived as feasible. Table 2 Thematic analysis of practitioner recommendations for IPSAS implementation improvement Rank Recommendation Theme n % Representative Illustrative Quotes 1 Capacity Building & Training 137 41.4% "Provide adequate training to staff"; "Adequate training and strict compliance"; "Regular training and workshops" 2 Political Will & Leadership Commitment 71 21.5% "Commitment of resources backed by an enforcing legal regime"; "Punishment for non-compliance" 3 Resource Mobilisation & Funding 66 19.9% "Fund made available for training"; "Adequate resources for implementation" (multiple) 4 Legal & Regulatory Reform 58 17.5% "PFM laws should be realigned with IPSAS"; "Addressing infrastructure, systems, and compliance enforcement" 5 Systems & Technology Upgrade 3 0.9% "Software should be improved in all sectors" 6 Awareness & Communication 2 0.6% "More awareness on IPSAS and PFM reforms" ; "Sensitise all people in the PFM cycle" 7 Other 2 0.6% Miscellaneous responses Note. Respondents could mention multiple themes; percentages therefore sum to more than 100%. R = Respondent. Figure 4 presents a radar chart illustrating the alignment between the frequency of reported implementation challenges (represented by the red polygon) and practitioner-proposed recommendations (represented by the green polygon) across six key thematic areas. By mapping the proportional weight that respondents assigned to each category, the visualization reveals critical areas of convergence and divergence between perceived organizational obstacles and the actionable solutions proposed by practitioners. The most striking feature of the chart is the pronounced asymmetry in the "Training & Capacity" domain. While training and capacity deficits were cited as a primary challenge in 22.0% of the responses, this area overwhelmingly dominated the proposed solutions, accounting for 41.4% of all recommendations. This significant outward spike of the green line on the right horizontal axis indicates a heavy concentration of focus; practitioners clearly view capacity building not merely as a targeted fix for knowledge gaps, but likely as a foundational remedy necessary to navigate and overcome the broader spectrum of reform challenges. In contrast to the sharp divergence seen in capacity building, several domains exhibit strong proportional alignment between challenges and recommendations, as evidenced by the tightly overlapping red and green boundaries in the upper and left hemispheres of the chart. "System Incompatibility" shows close symmetry, comprising 19.7% of reported challenges and 21.5% of proposed recommendations. Similarly, "Standards Complexity" (with recommendations at 19.9%) and "Political Will" (with challenges at 19.1%) demonstrate near-perfect alignment, with both lines occupying the same spatial territory. This overlap suggests that when it comes to technical system upgrades, standard simplification, and political leadership, practitioners propose solutions at a rate directly proportional to how frequently they experience them as barriers. The visualization highlights a notable disconnect in the lower-left quadrant concerning "Inadequate Resources." Although inadequate resources constituted a substantial portion of the reported challenges (18.8%), there is a distinct absence of corresponding recommendations, pulling the green line abruptly back to the center origin point. Similarly, "Legal/Reg. Gaps" registered negligible frequencies for both challenges and recommendations, anchoring both polygons to the center on the bottom-right axis. Overall, the shape of the radar chart captures a distinct narrative: while practitioners face a relatively evenly distributed set of challenges (forming a balanced red polygon), their proposed solutions are highly concentrated, heavily skewing the recommendation landscape toward human capital development. 4.3 Variation by professional role Table 3 and Fig. 5 present one-way ANOVA results for thematic index scores across the four professional role groups. No statistically significant differences were found for any domain (all F 0.34). Effect sizes were negligible (all η² < 0.01). Heads of Finance registered marginally higher Outlook scores ( M = 4.36) compared to Accountants ( M = 4.29), plausibly reflecting a leadership-level perspective on reform prospects, but this difference did not approach statistical significance. The absence of role-based differences is theoretically informative. Despite substantial differences in job function, seniority, and proximity to IPSAS documentation between accountants, auditors, directors, and finance directors, all groups perceive the reform landscape in broadly similar terms. This convergence supports an institutional-environment interpretation: shared exposure to the same institutional context — Ghana’s public sector, with its common regulatory pressures, donor conditionalities, and normative frameworks — generates shared perceptions irrespective of role-specific experience (DiMaggio & Powell 1983 ; Polzer et al. 2021a ). Table 3 Mean Thematic Index Scores by Professional Role (ANOVA, N = 400) Domain Accountant Auditor Director Head of Finance F p IPSAS Awareness 3.98 (0.54) 3.96 (0.70) 3.91 (0.63) 4.05 (0.50) 0.79 0.501 PFM Reform Context 4.19 (0.33) 4.13 (0.37) 4.12 (0.35) 4.19 (0.32) 1.10 0.349 IPSAS Benefits 4.35 (0.44) 4.39 (0.42) 4.40 (0.38) 4.38 (0.40) 0.68 0.562 Implementation Outcomes 3.63 (0.55) 3.69 (0.52) 3.68 (0.51) 3.69 (0.49) 0.28 0.840 Implementation Challenges 3.62 (0.44) 3.60 (0.40) 3.60 (0.37) 3.62 (0.43) 0.40 0.750 Outlook 4.29 (0.48) 4.31 (0.40) 4.34 (0.41) 4.36 (0.41) 0.53 0.659 Note. Values are mean (SD). No comparisons reached statistical significance (all p > .05). η² < .01 for all domains. SD = standard deviation; ANOVA = analysis of variance; PFM = public financial management. Figure 6 presents a heatmap detailing the mean thematic index scores cross-tabulated by the respondents' specific professional roles: Accountant, Auditor, Director, and Head of Finance. The most striking pattern revealed by the visualization is the distinct vertical color banding, which indicates a strong consensus among practitioners across all tiers of the public sector. The variations in mean scores are driven primarily by the thematic domain being evaluated rather than the professional title of the respondent, suggesting a shared, systemic experience regarding the implementation of the reforms. The data illustrates high levels of optimism and perceived utility across all professional groups. Practitioners universally assigned the highest ratings to the "Benefits" domain, with mean scores ranging from 4.33 among Accountants to 4.40 among both Directors and Heads of Finance. Similarly, the "Future" outlook domain received strong endorsements across the board, ranging from 4.29 to 4.36, as indicated by the solid green hues on the heatmap. The "PFM Context" also garnered robust positive evaluations, consistently scoring above the 4.10 mark for all roles. Conversely, the heatmap highlights a collective acknowledgment of practical difficulties, as represented by the warmer orange hues. The "Outcomes" and "Challenges" domains consistently received the lowest scores across all professional categories. Mean scores for implementation "Outcomes" clustered tightly between 3.63 (Accountants) and 3.69 (Auditors and Heads of Finance). Similarly, perceptions of "Challenges" remained relatively uniform and low, with scores ranging from a minimum of 3.59 reported by Directors to a maximum of 3.65 reported by Auditors. This demonstrates that while optimism for the overarching goals is high, all ranks equally recognize the persistent implementation hurdles and underdeveloped practical outcomes. Despite the broad inter-role consensus, minor role-specific nuances are observable, particularly within the "Awareness" domain. Awareness scores hovered just below the 4.0 threshold for most practitioners, specifically Directors (3.91), Auditors (3.96), and Accountants (3.97). However, the "Head of Finance" cohort breached this threshold with a score of 4.05. In fact, Heads of Finance consistently reported the highest or tied for the highest mean scores across almost all thematic domains, indicating a marginally more positive or comprehensive evaluation of the reform landscape compared to their peers. In contrast, Directors tended to report the lowest scores in areas such as Awareness (3.91) and Challenges (3.59). 4.4 Gender differences in IPSAS perceptions Table 4 presents independent-samples t -test results by gender. None of the six domains showed statistically significant differences between male ( n = 307) and female ( n = 93) respondents (all | t | 0.35). Effect sizes as measured by Cohen’s d were uniformly negligible (all | d | < 0.12). Female respondents reported marginally higher scores on Implementation Outcomes ( M = 3.71 vs. M = 3.66) and Implementation Challenges ( M = 3.65 vs. M = 3.61), but these differences are substantively negligible and statistically non-significant. These findings carry two important implications. First, they indicate that the IPSAS implementation environment in Ghana’s public sector is perceived equally negatively — and equally positively regarding future prospects — by both male and female practitioners, suggesting that the barriers are structural and systemic rather than gendered in their impact or salience. Second, they add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that gender differences in public sector accounting perceptions, where they exist, are more likely to reflect differential access to training opportunities and decision-making authority than intrinsic attitudinal differences (Polzer et al. 2021b ; Tetteh et al. 2021 ). Table 4 Independent-samples t-test results by gender Domain Male M (SD) ( n = 307) Female M (SD) ( n = 93) t p Cohen d IPSAS Awareness 3.98 (0.58) 3.93 (0.64) 0.756 0.450 0.090 PFM Reform Context 4.15 (0.34) 4.18 (0.34) -0.631 0.529 -0.075 IPSAS Benefits 4.38 (0.42) 4.37 (0.41) 0.096 0.924 0.011 Implementation Outcomes 3.66 (0.53) 3.71 (0.47) -0.826 0.409 -0.098 Implementation Challenges 3.61 (0.43) 3.65 (0.36) -0.927 0.355 -0.110 Outlook 4.32 (0.43) 4.33 (0.43) -0.185 0.853 -0.022 Note. Values are mean (SD). No comparisons reached statistical significance (all p > .05). Cohen's d: |d| < 0.20 = negligible effect. SD = standard deviation. 4.5 Education-level differences Table 5 and Fig. 6 present ANOVA results for thematic index scores across six educational qualification groups. As with professional role and gender, no statistically significant differences were found (all F 0.31). Practitioners holding professional qualifications (ICAG, ACCA, CIMA, Certified Public Accountant [CPA]) reported marginally higher IPSAS Awareness scores ( M = 4.03–4.06) compared to those with academic qualifications only ( M = 3.84–3.96), consistent with the expected role of professional certification in IPSAS-related knowledge acquisition. However, this pattern did not achieve significance in the sample. The consistency of findings across all three demographic comparisons — professional role, gender, and educational qualification — reinforces a core conclusion: IPSAS perceptions in Ghana’s public sector are shaped primarily by shared institutional context rather than by individual-level characteristics. This has important practical implications for reform design, discussed in Section 5.4 . Table 5 Mean thematic index scores by educational qualification (ANOVA, N = 400) Domain Master's Bachelor's Professional Bach+Prof Mast+Prof Mast+Bach F p IPSAS Awareness 3.96 (0.58) 3.84 (0.66) 4.03 (0.55) 4.06 (0.50) 3.93 (0.63) 3.91 (0.62) 1.18 0.317 PFM Reform Context 4.16 (0.33) 4.10 (0.37) 4.14 (0.34) 4.21 (0.31) 4.14 (0.35) 4.17 (0.35) 0.84 0.521 IPSAS Benefits 4.38 (0.43) 4.33 (0.46) 4.41 (0.38) 4.41 (0.39) 4.36 (0.44) 4.37 (0.39) 0.50 0.778 Implementation Outcomes 3.66 (0.53) 3.67 (0.55) 3.69 (0.51) 3.68 (0.50) 3.69 (0.50) 3.62 (0.55) 0.18 0.970 Implementation Challenges 3.60 (0.43) 3.64 (0.43) 3.64 (0.41) 3.61 (0.40) 3.61 (0.43) 3.62 (0.43) 0.13 0.986 Outlook 4.30 (0.44) 4.31 (0.45) 4.32 (0.42) 4.34 (0.41) 4.34 (0.44) 4.31 (0.44) 0.14 0.983 Note. Values are mean (SD). Bach+Prof = Bachelor's degree + professional qualification; Mast+Prof = Master's degree + professional qualification; Mast+Bach = Master's + Bachelor's degrees. No comparisons reached significance (all p > .05). SD = standard deviation. 4.6 IPSAS Implementation stage by organisation type and experience Figure 8 shows IPSAS implementation stage by organisation type, and Fig. 9 shows stage by years of work experience. Chi-square analysis revealed no statistically significant association between organisation type and IPSAS implementation stage ( χ² = 17.49, df = 16, p = 0.355). This finding indicates that progress towards full IPSAS compliance is not concentrated in, or disproportionately lagging in, any particular sector of the public service. Similarly, implementation stage did not differ significantly by years of experience (ANOVA: p > 0.10), indicating that newer entrants to the public sector are joining organisations at comparable stages of IPSAS implementation as their more experienced colleagues. 4.7 Index relationships: IPSAS awareness, reform context, and outcomes Figure 10 presents scatter plots of key index relationships, coloured by implementation stage. Spearman correlation analysis confirmed a weak but statistically significant positive relationship between IPSAS Awareness and Outlook ( ρ = 0.10, p < 0.05): practitioners with stronger IPSAS knowledge hold a more optimistic view of long-term reform prospects. The relationship between PFM Reform Context and Implementation Outcomes ( ρ = 0.15, p < 0.01) is the strongest inter-domain association identified: favourable perceptions of the institutional reform environment are associated with better perceived implementation results. These relationships are modest in magnitude, consistent with the overall pattern of low inter-domain correlations documented in Article 1, but their directionality is theoretically meaningful. 5. Discussion The primary aim of this study was to provide a rigorous, practitioner-grounded empirical account of the barriers to International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) implementation within Ghana's public sector. Furthermore, the research sought to identify the specific interventions recommended by frontline practitioners to accelerate compliance and to determine the extent to which these perceptions vary across different professional and demographic subgroups. By centering the lived experiences of those directly tasked with executing the reform, this study moves beyond top-down institutional analyses to capture the practical realities of public financial management modernization. 5.1 A multidimensional, systemically distributed barrier environment The most structurally significant finding of this study is the near-equal distribution of challenge frequencies across the six thematic categories (range: 18.8%–22.0%). This pattern did not arise from the use of structured survey instruments, where social desirability bias and satisficing can produce artificially even distributions: it emerged from the open-text narrative coding of responses in which practitioners freely articulated their priority concerns in their own words. The theoretical implication is that IPSAS implementation in Ghana is not impeded by a single binding constraint — not training alone, not systems alone, not political will alone — but by a reinforcing web of mutually dependent constraints that collectively constitute a systemic implementation barrier environment (Andrews et al. 2017 ; Saleh et al. 2021 ). This finding is consistent with the capability trap concept advanced by Andrews et al. ( 2017 ) in the PDIA framework: reform environments characterised by evenly distributed constraints require adaptive, multi-front problem-solving rather than the sequential, blueprint-driven approaches that have historically characterised donor-supported PFM reforms in Africa (Lassou & Hopper 2015 ; Jayasinghe et al. 2020 ). It also resonates with Scannell and Tawiah's (2024) thematic review, which identified multidimensional constraint environments as the norm rather than the exception in IPSAS adoption globally. The implication for reform design — that no single intervention is sufficient and that coordinated, multi-front strategies are required — is discussed further in Section 6 . 5.2 The training–capacity gap as the primary actionable lever While the challenge distribution is even, the recommendation distribution is not: training and capacity building (41.4%) towers above all other recommendations by a wide margin. This asymmetry has important policy implications. It suggests that practitioners, despite recognising political will, resource, and systems barriers as broadly equally significant, regard human capacity development as the domain in which collective and individual action is most feasible and most proximate to their sphere of influence. This finding is consistent with Chilingwe and Kabwe's (2025) observation that capacity-focused interventions receive the highest practitioner endorsement even in contexts where political barriers are formally more binding, and with Matekele and Komba's (2020) finding from Tanzania that practitioners across seniority levels prioritise training irrespective of their own qualifications. Critically, respondents did not call for generic in-service workshops but for structured, profession-wide, and compulsorily enforced training programmes linked to professional certification requirements. The repeated references to ICAG and ACCA qualifications in the open-text data suggest that practitioners regard professional certification — not merely workshop attendance — as the appropriate long-run mechanism for closing the IPSAS knowledge gap. This is an actionable recommendation with clear institutional channels: ICAG already has the regulatory authority to revise its examination syllabi and CPD requirements, and ACCA Ghana has a track record of adapting its professional development offerings to public sector needs. 5.3 The technology paradox: cited but not recommended The divergence between the frequency with which system incompatibility was cited as a challenge (19.7%) and the near-absence of technology upgrade in recommendations (0.9%) constitutes one of the most analytically interesting findings of this study. We interpret this as reflecting a practitioner assessment of institutional agency: systems upgrades require ministerial-level budget allocations, technical procurement processes, and international assistance arrangements that lie entirely outside the control of individual practitioners or professional associations. By contrast, training, political advocacy, and legal reform — the top three recommendation categories — are domains in which professional associations, individual champions, and collective advocacy can plausibly make a difference (Andrews et al. 2017 ; Bawole & Adjei-Bamfo 2019 ). This interpretation is consistent with a participatory empowerment reading of the data: practitioners are not fatalistic about technological barriers but recognise them as structurally determined and therefore appropriately addressed through institutional procurement and budget channels rather than practitioner advocacy. The policy implication for government and development partners — who do control those institutional channels — is to prioritise GIFMIS accrual functionality enhancement as a specific, funded, and time-bound deliverable in the next PFM reform cycle (Bekiaris & Markogiannopoulou 2022 ; Tetteh et al. 2022 ). 5.4 Demographic consensus: implications for reform design The consistent absence of statistically significant demographic differences across all comparisons — professional role, gender, educational qualification, years of experience, and organisation type — constitutes a theoretically and practically important null result. In theoretical terms, it suggests that the institutional environment of Ghana's public sector exerts a homogenizing effect on IPSAS perceptions, overriding individual-level variation in background, training, and role. This is consistent with DiMaggio and Powell's (1983) account of coercive and normative isomorphism: all public sector entities in Ghana face the same regulatory pressures (from the PFM Act, Ministry of Finance circulars, and donor conditionalities) and the same normative pressures (from professional associations and international accounting bodies), producing convergent attitudes regardless of individual characteristics. In terms of practical reform design, the consensus finding means that any capacity-building, legal reform, or systems upgrade intervention does not need to be differentiated by practitioner subgroup. Resources can be concentrated on the highest-leverage interventions — training, political will, and regulatory alignment — with confidence that the benefits will be uniformly distributed across the professional workforce. This substantially simplifies the reform implementation challenge, even as it underscores the scale of coordinated action required to shift the shared institutional context that generates convergent perceptions. 5.5 A proposed theoretical framework for IPSAS implementation in developing public sectors The empirical findings of this study, taken together, support the proposition of a new integrative framework: the Systemic Constraint and Practitioner Agency (SCPA) Framework for IPSAS implementation in developing public sectors. This framework constitutes the primary theoretical contribution of the study and responds to two recognised gaps in the existing literature: the absence of a practitioner-grounded, empirically derived model that explains both why implementation stalls and what reform actors at each level of the system can do about it. The SCPA Framework rests on three analytically distinct but empirically interrelated pillars derived directly from the findings of this study. The first pillar is the Systemic Constraint Architecture. This study’s most structurally significant finding — the near-equal distribution of challenge frequencies across six thematic categories (range: 18.8%–22.0%) — demonstrates that IPSAS implementation failure in developing countries is not attributable to any single binding constraint. Rather, it is produced by a self-reinforcing architecture of mutually dependent barriers: human capital deficits limit the capacity to interpret and apply accrual standards; technology gaps prevent the automated generation of IPSAS-compliant outputs; legal misalignment removes statutory compulsion; resource constraints restrict both training provision and systems investment; and political will deficits deprive the reform of the executive sponsorship needed to mobilise institutional action. These constraints form a closed loop that is structurally resistant to single-lever interventions — an architecture that is consistent with Andrews et al.’s ( 2017 ) capability trap and that the prior IPSAS literature has described but not formally modelled at the practitioner level (Saleh et al. 2021 ; Scannell & Tawiah 2024 ). The second pillar is the Practitioner Agency Gradient. While constraints are systemically distributed, practitioner agency in recommending and advocating for solutions is not. The sharp concentration of recommendations around capacity building (41.4%) — compared to the near-absence of technology upgrade recommendations (0.9%) despite system incompatibility being equally prominent as a barrier — reveals a practitioner-perceived gradient of agency: individuals and professional associations exercise meaningful influence over training programmes, professional certification standards, and political advocacy, but not over ministerial budget allocations or procurement decisions. The SCPA Framework formalises this observation by distinguishing between practitioner-actionable constraints (human capital, political advocacy) and institutional-level constraints (technology, legal framework, resource mobilisation) that require action from government authorities and development partners operating above the practitioner tier. This distinction has direct implications for how reform responsibilities should be allocated across actors — a dimension that existing frameworks, which treat the reform environment as a monolithic policy challenge, do not adequately capture. The third pillar is Institutional Isomorphic Convergence. The finding that perceptions of barriers, outcomes, and future prospects are statistically indistinguishable across all professional roles, educational qualifications, gender categories, and years of experience provides evidence of a phenomenon not previously documented at this scale in the IPSAS literature: the institutional environment of a developing public sector is powerful enough to homogenise reform perceptions across otherwise heterogeneous practitioner populations. This convergence is consistent with DiMaggio and Powell’s ( 1983 ) neo-institutional account of coercive and normative isomorphism, but its empirical demonstration in a large-sample mixed-methods design represents a novel contribution to the public sector accounting reform literature (Polzer et al. 2021a ; Christiaens et al. 2015 ). It implies that reform readiness — and reform resistance — are collective institutional properties rather than the aggregated sum of individual practitioner dispositions. This has a profound implication for reform theory: interventions that seek to change individual practitioner attitudes or competencies without simultaneously transforming the shared institutional context that generates them will not produce durable behavioural change. Together, these three pillars produce a framework with distinct predictive and prescriptive power. The SCPA Framework predicts that, in developing public sectors characterised by isomorphic convergence, evenly distributed constraints, and a steep practitioner agency gradient, IPSAS adoption will remain partial and ceremonial unless reform interventions are simultaneously pursued at three levels: the practitioner level (professional certification, CPD, structured training); the organisational level (FMIS upgrades, internal IPSAS champions, entity-level compliance monitoring); and the institutional level (legislative mandate, dedicated funding, political commitment anchored in cross-cycle accountability structures). This three-level architecture differentiates the SCPA Framework from existing conceptual tools in the public sector accounting literature — in particular, the PDIA framework’s emphasis on adaptive problem-solving at the practitioner level, and institutional theory’s emphasis on the macro-level pressures that drive isomorphic adoption — by explicitly modelling the meso-level (organisational) interface at which practitioners must translate institutional mandates into entity-level compliance. The framework is grounded in, and validated by, the largest practitioner survey evidence on IPSAS implementation yet conducted in Ghana, and is designed to be generalisable to comparable developing country contexts in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. 6. Conclusions This study has provided the first large-scale, mixed-methods, practitioner-centered examination of IPSAS implementation barriers and recommendations in Ghana’s public sector. Drawing on open-text responses from 346 respondents and quantitative analysis across 400 practitioners, the study has established four overarching findings. First, IPSAS implementation in Ghana faces a multidimensional, systemically distributed barrier environment in which no single constraint dominates — a pattern consistent with capability trap theory and with the broader global evidence on IPSAS adoption challenges. Second, practitioners have articulated a clear and internally consistent reform agenda centered on capacity building, political will, resource mobilisation, and legal/regulatory alignment — an agenda that maps closely onto the identified barrier landscape and provides a practitioner-validated policy blueprint for accelerating full IPSAS adoption. Third, perceptions of barriers, outcomes, and future prospects are remarkably uniform across all professional and demographic subgroups, indicating that the barriers are structural and institutional rather than subgroup-specific — a finding that simplifies the reform design task by enabling universally targeted interventions. Fourth, and constituting the primary theoretical contribution of this study, the empirical pattern of findings supports the Systemic Constraint and Practitioner Agency (SCPA) Framework: a novel integrative model that characterises IPSAS implementation failure in developing public sectors as the product of a self-reinforcing Systemic Constraint Architecture, a Practitioner Agency Gradient distinguishing practitioner-actionable from institutional-level constraints, and Institutional Isomorphic Convergence that homogenises reform perceptions across heterogeneous practitioner populations. The SCPA Framework predicts that substantive IPSAS compliance requires simultaneous, coordinated action across practitioner, organisational, and institutional tiers — a prediction that directly informs the five specific policy actions set out below. Five specific policy actions emerge directly from the empirical evidence and the SCPA Framework. First, ICAG should be mandated, in consultation with the Institute and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), to revise its professional examination syllabi to include comprehensive IPSAS accrual competencies and to expand CPD requirements related to IPSAS for all members in public sector practice. Second, the government, in partnership with development partners including the World Bank and the African Development Bank, should establish a funded GIFMIS accrual-functionality enhancement programme with a clear implementation timeline and measurable deliverables. Third, Parliament should amend the Public Financial Management Act (2016) to include an explicit IPSAS adoption mandate with a phased compliance schedule, enforceable compliance milestones, and designated penalties for non-compliance at entity head level. Fourth, the Ministry of Finance should secure a multi-year budget line for IPSAS implementation support, providing all public entities — particularly local government assemblies and small statutory bodies — with predictable funding for training, system upgrades, and technical assistance. Fifth, a dedicated IPSAS Implementation Secretariat with cross-ministerial authority should be established to coordinate, monitor, and publicly report on implementation progress, creating the accountability and visibility needed to sustain political commitment across electoral cycles. This study has several limitations that should inform the interpretation of findings and the design of future research. The reliance on self-reported perceptions introduces potential social desirability bias, particularly regarding political will and leadership challenges, where practitioners may moderate their responses to avoid perceived institutional risk. The sampling strategy — which relied primarily on ICAG and AAPS professional networks — may over-represent reform-engaged practitioners who are more aware of and invested in IPSAS adoption than the average public sector employee, introducing a potential selection bias. The cross-sectional design precludes causal inference: while the study documents perceptions at a single point in time, it cannot establish whether changes in barriers or enablers drive changes in implementation outcomes. Future research should employ longitudinal designs to track implementation progress, experimental or quasi-experimental methods to evaluate the effectiveness of specific interventions, and qualitative in-depth interviews with political actors and senior policymakers to complement the frontline practitioner evidence provided here. Empirical testing of the SCPA Framework across multiple developing country contexts — particularly comparative studies spanning Anglophone and Francophone West Africa — would also extend the generalisability of the findings and illuminate how linguistic and colonial-institutional heritage shapes the practitioner agency gradient in different national reform environments. Abbreviations All abbreviations and acronyms used in this study are compiled in Table 6 to facilitate clarity and improve readability. Table 6. Abbreviations and acronyms used in this article Abbreviation Full Form AAPS Association of Accountants in the Public Services ACCA Association of Chartered Certified Accountants ANOVA Analysis of variance CIMA Chartered Institute of Management Accountants CIPFA Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy CPD Continuing professional development CPA Certified Public Accountant ERP Enterprise resource planning EU European Union FMIS Financial management information system GIFMIS Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System IAA Internal Audit Agency ICAG Institute of Chartered Accountants–Ghana IMF International Monetary Fund IPSAS International Public Sector Accounting Standards IPSASB International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board MDA Ministry, department, or agency PAC Public Accounts Committee PDIA Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation PEFA Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability PFM Public financial management PFM Act Public Financial Management Act (Act 921 2016) RQ Research question SD Standard deviation SOE State-owned enterprise Declarations Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose. Clinical Trial Number Clinical trial number: not applicable Human Ethics, Consent to Participate, and Consent to Publish Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Controller and Accountant General's Department, Middle Belt, Kumasi, Ghana. All participants provided informed consent prior to participation. Consent to publish anonymized data was also obtained. Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the manuscript preparation process. During the preparation of this work the authors used Cursor version 2.4.37 to write and edit the Python 3.12 script used for data analysis. After using this tool/service, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the published article. Funding This research received no specific external funding. Author Contribution Conceptualization, E.O-D., H.A. and G.O.F.; methodology, G.O.F.; software, G.O.F.; validation, E.O-D., H.A. and G.O.F.; formal analysis, E.O-D., H.A. and G.O.F.; investigation, E.O-D. and H.A.; resources, E.O-D, H.A. and G.O.F.; writing—original draft preparation, E.O-D., H.A. and G.O.F; writing—review and editing, E.O-D, G.O.F. and H.A.; supervision, G.O.F. All authors have read and agreed to the publication of the manuscript. Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank the Department of Forest Engineering, Forest Management Planning, and Terrestrial Measurements, Faculty of Silviculture and Forest Engineering, Transilvania University of Brasov, for providing some of the equipment needed for this study. References Abu Haija AA, Alqudah A, Abdallah L (2020) Key success factors in implementing international public sector accounting standards. 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IPN J Res Pract Public Sect Acc Manag 11:1–14. https://doi.org/10.58458/ipnj.v11.01.01.0067 Scannell S, Tawiah V (2024) A thematic literature review on IPSAS. Public Organ Rev 24:1053–1075. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-024-00773-1 Tashakkori A, Teddlie C (eds) (2010) SAGE handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research, 2nd edn. SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781506335193 Tawiah V (2022) The effect of IPSAS adoption on governance quality. Public Organ Rev 23:305–324. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-022-00625-w Tetteh LA, Agyenim-Boateng C, Yensu J (2021) Public sector financial management reforms in Ghana: Insights from institutional theory. J Acc Emerg Econ 11:691–713. https://doi.org/10.1108/jaee-06-2020-0134 Tetteh LA, Muda P, Susuawu D, Bedi I (2022) Exploring the use of an IFMIS in public financial management in Ghana. Inf Resour Manag J 35:1–25. https://doi.org/10.4018/irmj.298973 Yaokumah W, Biney E (2020) IFMIS project implementation in Ghana's government. Int J Inf Technol Proj Manag 11:1–15. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijitpm.2020010102 Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9341751","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":618745172,"identity":"46431761-0319-404d-9a4a-d709c9ba6417","order_by":0,"name":"Emmanuel Osei-Dwomoh","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Controller and Accountant General's Department","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Emmanuel","middleName":"","lastName":"Osei-Dwomoh","suffix":""},{"id":618745173,"identity":"818650b8-4ba0-432b-b8e4-cc9b1451daa0","order_by":1,"name":"Hope Amenyah","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Hope","middleName":"","lastName":"Amenyah","suffix":""},{"id":618745174,"identity":"6dc2e7e4-4a22-417f-a797-978722604029","order_by":2,"name":"Gabriel Osei Forkuo","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA/0lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYFACHgaGBAYLBvYGBmYgz4YBSLERo0WCgecAWEsaUAszEVoYEFoOAzEBLfLuZ499eFAB1MLe+9iYp+J84nZ2/mOPeRjuyeHSYngmL3lGwhmgFp7jxsk8Z24n7mxmZjfmYSg2xqmlIceYIbFNgsFeIo35MG/b7cQNh5nZJGcwJCQ24NLS/wao5R/QFoiWc4S1yEuAbGmAaEnmbTsA1iLxAY8WA4l3yQwJxyR4eHiOMRvOOZNsDNRibvDBIAGnX+T7cw8z/qixkeNhb2OWeFNhJ7vh/MFnDxIqEnCGmMEBCM2DLo5LA9AWXC4eBaNgFIyCUQAHADWxS35CD5XtAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"Transylvania University of Brașov","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Gabriel","middleName":"Osei","lastName":"Forkuo","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-04-07 08:23:16","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9341751/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9341751/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":106401255,"identity":"a070d7f3-5e38-433f-a11e-67f1b6226e01","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:45:00","extension":"jpeg","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":104167,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThematic categories of reported IPSAS implementation challenges\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image1.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/4a4af755abf522ed3ed6c3e0.jpeg"},{"id":106401210,"identity":"dd1c4861-686c-4e59-a43e-664219406222","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:44:33","extension":"jpeg","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":96946,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eSide-by-side comparison: challenge and recommendation theme frequencies\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image2.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/8a124eb96a726441a60b0be2.jpeg"},{"id":106401218,"identity":"91496948-6df8-41c5-8870-3bdd32b0321b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:44:43","extension":"jpeg","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":116629,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThematic categories of practitioner recommendations for IPSAS implementation\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image3.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/7500a2ba948c374f1a3e171e.jpeg"},{"id":106401256,"identity":"0c10fc93-2219-4f0c-9bdc-adb75e492705","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:45:00","extension":"jpeg","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":55497,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eRadar alignment: challenge frequencies vs recommendation frequencies (%)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image4.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/27c0cec6473e1c631816c125.jpeg"},{"id":106401214,"identity":"c8e0b2e1-7a9b-463b-9415-1c3391dedbb5","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:44:40","extension":"jpeg","order_by":5,"title":"Figure 5","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":119612,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eMean thematic index scores by professional role (error bars = 95% CI)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image5.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/54211614fe76c17644ff65b7.jpeg"},{"id":106401244,"identity":"96099633-0c1c-4691-88a1-67e010432cdc","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:44:57","extension":"jpeg","order_by":6,"title":"Figure 6","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":109253,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eHeatmap of mean thematic index scores by professional role\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image6.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/3157c8f4e20df2cd109c7ee1.jpeg"},{"id":106401215,"identity":"9b46bdf6-7eae-4111-821c-1a5e53708ef9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:44:40","extension":"jpeg","order_by":7,"title":"Figure 7","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":211711,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eDistribution of thematic index scores by educational qualification (violin + box)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image7.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/374e6cfdbf06e96150ee373a.jpeg"},{"id":106401216,"identity":"f3a242ea-0db0-41bf-b555-f87a542afb10","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:44:42","extension":"jpeg","order_by":8,"title":"Figure 8","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":94385,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eIPSAS implementation stage by organisation type (100% stacked bar)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image8.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/c505b8a3d7101c8be2445700.jpeg"},{"id":106401258,"identity":"fa69b283-1287-485e-9d83-fde6dc7b7a75","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:45:01","extension":"jpeg","order_by":9,"title":"Figure 9","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":95110,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eIPSAS implementation stage by years of work experience (donut charts)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image9.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/da52ff9c7f8a8e7f7191a54a.jpeg"},{"id":106401251,"identity":"4406baa1-2521-4820-b830-b54b03978e17","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-08 08:44:59","extension":"jpeg","order_by":10,"title":"Figure 10","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":128563,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eScatter plots of key index relationships, coloured by implementation stage\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"image10.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/d0ebef987df39dea48721227.jpeg"},{"id":106962872,"identity":"802fd0c4-c324-4e48-b3c9-23e64f7527aa","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-04-15 09:40:38","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2652521,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9341751/v1/23379caa-9228-4da8-8e7d-bc66b34d3fc7.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Systemic Constraints and Practitioner Agency: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of International Public Sector Accounting Standards Implementation in Ghana","fulltext":[{"header":"1. Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe implementation of accrual-based financial reporting standards in the public sector represents one of the most consequential and technically demanding reforms in contemporary public financial management (PFM). The International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), developed and maintained by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB), have emerged as the globally recognised benchmark for government financial reporting quality, with more than 100 jurisdictions having adopted or actively progressing toward adoption as of 2024 (Fahmid et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Masoud \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Scannell \u0026amp; Tawiah \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Championed by multilateral institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and bilateral development partners, IPSAS adoption has been positioned as a vehicle for enhancing fiscal transparency, improving public accountability, and aligning government financial statements with internationally comparable standards (Ben Slama \u0026amp; Jandoubi \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Casta\u0026ntilde;eda-Rodr\u0026iacute;guez \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Marota \u0026amp; Johari \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Tawiah \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). The theoretical benefits \u0026mdash; enhanced comparability, greater decision-usefulness of financial information, and improved credibility with creditors and development partners \u0026mdash; are well-documented in the growing body of empirical literature (Christiaens et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Muacassange et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Polzer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021a\u003c/span\u003e; Scannell \u0026amp; Tawiah \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDespite this global momentum, a persistent and widening gap exists between formal IPSAS adoption mandates and substantive entity-level compliance, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Polzer et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021a\u003c/span\u003e) estimate that, while the majority of IPSAS board member countries have formally endorsed adoption in policy, fewer than one-quarter have achieved full accrual-basis compliance \u0026mdash; the standard's most exacting requirement. In sub-Saharan Africa, this implementation gap is most pronounced: countries across the region have enacted PFM legislation and established IPSAS adoption roadmaps under donor pressure, yet entity-level compliance remains uneven, partial, and in many cases ceremonial rather than substantive (Adhikari \u0026amp; Jayasinghe \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Jayasinghe et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Lassou \u0026amp; Hopper \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Mnif Sellami \u0026amp; Gafsi \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). The scholarly literature has identified a recurring constellation of structural barriers \u0026mdash; human capital deficits, technological incompatibilities, fragmented legal frameworks, insufficient funding, and volatile political commitment \u0026mdash; but the majority of this research relies on aggregate institutional assessments, document analysis, or small purposive samples, rather than on systematic, large-scale evidence from the practitioners who must operationalise these standards on a daily basis (Abu Haija et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Ahmad \u0026amp; Nasseredine \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Chilingwe \u0026amp; Kabwe \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Saleh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eGhana presents a particularly instructive and timely case for examining the practitioner dimension of IPSAS implementation. The country has a formally articulated commitment to IPSAS accrual adoption, substantial institutional investment in the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), and a constitutionally embedded accountability architecture reinforced by the Public Financial Management Act (Act 921 2016) and its associated regulations (Aidoo-Buameh \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Owusu-Akomeah et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Tetteh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). The national ecosystem of accountability institutions \u0026mdash; including the Audit Service, the Internal Audit Agency (IAA), the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), and the Institute of Chartered Accountants\u0026ndash;Ghana (ICAG) \u0026mdash; provides a professional infrastructure nominally conducive to reform (Alawattage \u0026amp; Azure \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Krah \u0026amp; Mertens \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). Yet implementation at the entity level remains fragmented and incomplete, with many public bodies still at the planning or partial-implementation stage, and the specific obstacles that prevent full compliance from being achieved have received limited systematic empirical attention in the Ghanaian literature (Agyemang \u0026amp; Yensu \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Attefah et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Saeed \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA second and equally important lacuna in the existing literature concerns the demographic and professional heterogeneity of IPSAS implementation perceptions. Practitioner characteristics \u0026mdash; including professional role, educational qualification, gender, and years of public sector experience \u0026mdash; might plausibly shape how individuals perceive barriers, outcomes, and prospects for reform. Matekele and Komba (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) provide evidence from Tanzania suggesting that more experienced and better-qualified practitioners hold more nuanced assessments of accrual accounting implementation challenges. Hoai and Nguyen (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e) document education-linked variation in Vietnamese public sector practitioners' attitudes toward accrual adoption. In the Ghanaian and broader West African context, however, no large-scale quantitative study has systematically examined whether such demographic variation exists or is negligible \u0026mdash; an absence with direct implications for whether reform interventions should be differentiated by practitioner subgroup or applied uniformly across the public sector workforce (Saeed \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Tetteh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA third dimension that has received insufficient attention concerns the alignment \u0026mdash; or misalignment \u0026mdash; between the barriers that practitioners identify and the interventions they recommend. This relationship is not self-evident: practitioners may recognise systemic constraints that they regard as structurally determined and therefore outside the sphere of individual or collective action, while simultaneously championing domain-specific interventions where their own agency is most salient. Examining this alignment is analytically and practically important: it reveals whether practitioner-recommended reform agendas are responsive to the full landscape of barriers they face, and identifies domains \u0026mdash; such as technology upgrade \u0026mdash; where practitioner advocacy alone is insufficient and institutional-level action by government and development partners is essential (Andrews et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Bawole \u0026amp; Adjei-Bamfo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Effah \u0026amp; Nuhu \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe present study addresses these gaps by drawing on a nationwide, mixed-methods survey of 400 Ghanaian public sector practitioners conducted in August\u0026ndash;December 2025. First, it systematically analyzes open-text responses on implementation challenges (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;346) and policy recommendations (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;331), constructing an inductively grounded thematic framework validated against the extant IPSAS adoption literature. Second, it examines whether composite thematic index scores \u0026mdash; capturing IPSAS awareness, PFM reform context, perceived benefits, implementation outcomes, challenges, and outlook \u0026mdash; vary significantly across professional role, educational qualification, gender, and years of experience, using parametric statistical tests with effect size calculations. Third, it examines the alignment between reported barriers and practitioner-recommended interventions to generate a practitioner-validated policy agenda for accelerating full IPSAS adoption in Ghana. This constitutes the most comprehensive practitioner survey evidence on IPSAS implementation in Ghana to date, and among the most extensive in sub-Saharan Africa (Adhikari \u0026amp; Jayasinghe \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Masoud \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Scannell \u0026amp; Tawiah \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eResearch aim and objectives\u003c/b\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe aim of this study was to provide a rigorous, practitioner-grounded empirical account of the barriers to IPSAS implementation in Ghana's public sector, the interventions that practitioners recommend to accelerate compliance, and the extent to which these perceptions vary across professional and demographic subgroups. Four specific objectives were pursued:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo systematically identify and categorise the principal barriers to IPSAS implementation as articulated by Ghanaian public sector practitioners through open-text survey responses.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo document the policy interventions recommended by practitioners for accelerating effective IPSAS implementation, and to examine how these recommendations align with the identified challenge themes.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo examine whether perceptions of IPSAS implementation barriers, outcomes, and future prospects differ significantly across professional role, educational qualification, gender, or years of experience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo derive a practitioner-validated, evidence-based policy agenda for coordinated IPSAS reform in Ghana's public sector.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/ul\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eResearch questions\u003c/b\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe study addresses three research questions (RQs) to operationalise these objectives:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eRQ1\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhat are the principal thematic barriers to IPSAS implementation as articulated by Ghanaian public sector practitioners, and how do these align with the existing literature?\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eRQ2\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhat policy interventions do practitioners recommend to accelerate effective IPSAS implementation, and how do these recommendations map onto the identified challenge themes?\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eRQ3\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cp\u003eDo perceptions of IPSAS implementation barriers, outcomes, and future prospects differ significantly across professional role, educational qualification, gender, or years of experience?\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2. Literature Review","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.1 Barriers to IPSAS implementation: a theoretical framework\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe scholarly literature consistently identifies five broad categories of barriers to IPSAS adoption: human capital and capacity constraints, technological infrastructure deficits, legal and regulatory misalignment, resource and financial constraints, and political economy factors (Abu Haija et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Ahmad \u0026amp; Nasseredine \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Saleh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Scannell \u0026amp; Tawiah \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). These five categories mirror the classic enabler\u0026ndash;barrier framework developed in institutional theory accounts of public sector accounting reform, in which the adoption of new standards is understood not as a discrete technical event but as a socially embedded process shaped by coercive, normative, and mimetic institutional pressures (Christiaens et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; DiMaggio \u0026amp; Powell \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1983\u003c/span\u003e; Polzer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021a\u003c/span\u003e). The theoretical significance of this framework lies in its emphasis on the interdependence of constraints: human capital, technology, law, resources, and political will are not independent levers that can be addressed sequentially but mutually reinforcing conditions whose combined presence determines whether reform is substantive or merely ceremonial (Andrews et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Jayasinghe et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHuman capital constraints are consistently the most prominently cited barrier in the IPSAS adoption literature (Chilingwe \u0026amp; Kabwe \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Matekele \u0026amp; Komba \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Saeed \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). The transition from cash-based or commitment-based accounting to full accrual IPSAS requires not only retraining existing staff in new technical procedures but fundamentally reshaping the professional identity, norms, and competencies of public accountants (Mbelwa et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Ismaili et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). This is a structural challenge that in-service workshops alone cannot address: it requires embedding IPSAS competencies in professional certification curricula, pre-service education, and continuing professional development (CPD) programmes \u0026mdash; changes that require the active engagement of accountancy professional bodies such as ICAG, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). In Ghana specifically, the dominance of ICAG-trained accountants whose curricula have historically emphasised cash-basis systems compounds this challenge, creating a professional pipeline that is structurally underprepared for accrual reporting requirements (Agyemang \u0026amp; Yensu \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTechnological barriers centre on the compatibility of existing financial management information systems (FMIS) with IPSAS's accrual recognition requirements (Alghizzawi \u0026amp; Masruki \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Tetteh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Yaokumah \u0026amp; Biney \u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). In Ghana's case, GIFMIS \u0026mdash; designed to automate government budgeting and commitment accounting \u0026mdash; was not originally built to support the automatic recognition of assets, liabilities, depreciation schedules, and accrual-basis entries that are the hallmarks of IPSAS-compliant reporting. Bekiaris and Markogiannopoulou (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e) document analogous enterprise resource planning (ERP)\u0026ndash;IPSAS compatibility challenges across European Union (EU) member states, underscoring the universality of this barrier even in resource-rich institutional environments. The policy implication is clear: FMIS upgrades are not merely a technical support function for IPSAS reform but a necessary precondition for substantive compliance.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePolitical economy and legal framework barriers operate at a higher institutional level and represent perhaps the most intractable dimension of the reform challenge. Aidoo-Buameh (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e) argues that in Ghana, political commitment to PFM reform is episodic and incentive-driven, ebbing and flowing with electoral cycles and donor conditionality pressures. Lassou and Hopper (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e) make an analogous observation for Francophone West Africa, arguing that accounting reforms introduced through external conditionality typically lack the domestic political ownership necessary for durable implementation. In Ghana's legislative framework, several provisions of the Public Financial Management Act (2016) create partial rather than full alignment with accrual IPSAS requirements, and no explicit statutory deadline for full adoption exists \u0026mdash; a gap that practitioners and scholars have repeatedly identified as a critical enabler of continued non-compliance (Agyemang \u0026amp; Yensu \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Tetteh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.2 Demographic moderators of implementation perceptions\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eA relatively underexplored dimension of the IPSAS adoption literature concerns whether practitioner perceptions vary systematically by demographic and professional characteristics. Matekele and Komba (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) provide evidence from Tanzania that demographic attributes \u0026mdash; particularly education and years of experience \u0026mdash; meaningfully influence implementation perceptions, with more experienced and better-qualified practitioners exhibiting more nuanced and contextually grounded assessments of accrual accounting challenges. Hoai and Nguyen (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e) similarly document education-linked variation in Vietnamese public sector practitioners' attitudes toward accrual adoption, with higher-qualified staff demonstrating greater appreciation for the long-run governance benefits of IPSAS while simultaneously expressing more technically sophisticated concerns about implementation feasibility.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe evidence from sub-Saharan Africa on this question is sparse and inconclusive, with most studies relying on small purposive samples that preclude robust demographic subgroup analysis. Gender has received particular attention in recent years: Tetteh et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) note that female finance officers in Ghana are underrepresented in senior roles despite equivalent formal qualifications, raising the question of whether gendered access to training opportunities and decision-making authority influences IPSAS-related perceptions and behaviours. Professional role type \u0026mdash; specifically the distinction between accountants, auditors, directors, and finance managers \u0026mdash; has been even less systematically examined, despite the obvious relevance of role-based differences in daily exposure to IPSAS documentation, audit requirements, and implementation responsibilities (Saeed \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). The present study addresses this gap directly through a large-sample, multi-variable comparative analysis that is unprecedented in the Ghanaian context.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.3 Practitioner recommendations: evidence from the literature\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile barriers to IPSAS adoption have received extensive scholarly attention, practitioner-recommended solutions have been comparatively underexplored. The existing literature suggests that practitioner recommendations consistently cluster around four domains: structured capacity-building programmes embedded in professional accountancy education and CPD frameworks; legislative reform to create a mandatory IPSAS adoption timeline with enforceable compliance milestones; dedicated funding streams for systems upgrades and technical assistance; and sustained political commitment at ministerial and agency-head levels (Chilingwe \u0026amp; Kabwe \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e; Saeed \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Scannell \u0026amp; Tawiah \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Attefah et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e) add that local government-specific support mechanisms are urgently needed in decentralized systems such as Ghana's, where sub-national entities face the sharpest capacity deficits but receive the least targeted implementation support. The asymmetry between the comprehensiveness of the barrier literature and the thinness of the practitioner-recommendation literature represents an important gap that this study directly addresses by systematically coding and analysing 331 open-text recommendation responses.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.4 Conceptual framework\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe study integrates institutional theory, specifically the neo-institutional framework of DiMaggio and Powell (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1983\u003c/span\u003e) concerning coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphism, with the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) framework developed by Andrews et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). Institutional theory explains why organisations across Ghana's public sector are under similar pressures to adopt IPSAS \u0026mdash; coercive pressures from PFM legislation and donor conditionality, normative pressures from professional accounting bodies, and mimetic pressures from peer-country adoption \u0026mdash; but does not in itself explain why adoption remains ceremonial rather than substantive. The PDIA framework complements this by emphasizing that reform environments characterised by evenly distributed, mutually reinforcing constraints require adaptive, iterative problem-solving rather than the blueprint-driven, single-lever interventions that have historically characterised donor-supported PFM reforms in sub-Saharan Africa (Lassou \u0026amp; Hopper \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Jayasinghe et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). The empirical findings of this study \u0026mdash; particularly the near-equal distribution of challenge frequencies across six thematic categories \u0026mdash; are interpreted against this dual theoretical backdrop.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"3. Research Methodology","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.1 Research design: mixed-methods approach\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis study adopts a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design (Morse \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Creswell \u0026amp; Plano Clark \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), integrating quantitative survey analysis in the first phase with qualitative thematic coding of open-text responses in the second. The mixed-methods approach is theoretically grounded in the recognition that understanding complex implementation phenomena requires both the breadth of structured measurement and the depth of narrative meaning-making: closed-ended Likert items can quantify the magnitude and distribution of practitioner perceptions, while open-text responses capture the texture, nuance, and practitioner voice that fixed-response instruments cannot elicit (Tashakkori \u0026amp; Teddlie \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Creswell \u0026amp; Plano Clark \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e). This design is consistent with established practice in public sector accounting implementation research, where mixed-methods approaches have been used to triangulate perceptions across multiple data types and analytical registers (Mbelwa et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Polzer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021a\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.2 Data sources and sampling\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eData were drawn from a nationwide survey of 400 Ghanaian public sector practitioners across five organisation types \u0026mdash; central government ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs); local government assemblies; state-owned enterprises (SOEs); statutory bodies and regulatory agencies; and the Ghana Education Service \u0026mdash; surveyed in November\u0026ndash;December 2025 using a structured questionnaire instrument. Respondents were recruited through ICAG professional membership network and the Association of Accountants in the Public Services (AAPS), with snowball sampling used to extend coverage to practitioners not affiliated with these professional bodies. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Controller and Accountant General's Department, Middle Belt, Kumasi, Ghana. All participants provided informed consent prior to participation. Consent to publish anonymized data was also obtained. The survey included two open-text questions: one on the main challenges to IPSAS implementation in their organisation or in Ghana generally, and the other on recommendations to improve the effectiveness of IPSAS implementation and its contribution to PFM reforms in Ghana\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.3 Qualitative data analysis: thematic coding\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eOpen-text responses were analyzed using a hybrid inductive\u0026ndash;deductive thematic coding approach (Braun \u0026amp; Clarke \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e; Fereday \u0026amp; Muir-Cochrane \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e). This approach is appropriate for research objectives that combine an interest in verifying theoretically anticipated themes with a commitment to remaining open to novel practitioner insights not anticipated by the existing literature. In the deductive phase, a framework of six challenge domains was derived from the IPSAS adoption literature (Saleh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Scannell \u0026amp; Tawiah \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e): (1) human capital and training deficits; (2) technological infrastructure and system incompatibility; (3) standards complexity; (4) political will and leadership; (5) resource and funding constraints; and (6) legal and regulatory misalignment. In the inductive phase, responses were coded against this framework, with a residual category capturing novel themes not anticipated by the framework. Responses were coded independently by two researchers; inter-rater reliability was assessed using Cohen's kappa (κ\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.84), indicating strong agreement consistent with the threshold of \u003cem\u003eκ\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026ge;\u0026thinsp;0.80 recommended for qualitative health and social science research (Landis \u0026amp; Koch \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1977\u003c/span\u003e). Disagreements were resolved through structured discussion and consensus.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec11\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.4 Quantitative analysis\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eQuantitative analyses were conducted in Python (version 3.12) using the pandas, NumPy, and SciPy libraries. Six composite thematic indices were constructed: IPSAS Awareness, PFM Reform Context, IPSAS Benefits, Implementation Outcomes, Implementation Challenges, and Outlook. One-way ANOVA tested differences across professional role (four groups) and educational qualification (six groups), with Levene's test used to verify the homogeneity of variance assumption. Independent-samples \u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e-tests compared male and female practitioners on all six indices. Chi-square analysis examined the association between organisation type and IPSAS implementation stage. Effect sizes were calculated as Cohen's \u003cem\u003ed\u003c/em\u003e for \u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e-tests and eta-squared (\u003cem\u003eη\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e) for ANOVA, following the conventions recommended by Cohen (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1988\u003c/span\u003e). Spearman's rho (\u003cem\u003eρ\u003c/em\u003e) was used to examine inter-index correlations, given the ordinal nature of the Likert-scale data. All tests used a significance threshold of \u003cem\u003eα\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.05.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"4. Results","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1 Thematic analysis of implementation challenges\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e presents the thematic coding results for open-text challenge responses (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;346). Six substantive themes emerged, with frequencies distributed remarkably evenly across them \u0026mdash; ranging from 18.8% to 22.0%. This distribution itself constitutes an important empirical finding: no single barrier dominates the challenge landscape, indicating that IPSAS implementation in Ghana faces a multidimensional, systemic constraint environment rather than one or two bottleneck issues amenable to targeted single-lever interventions (Andrews et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Saleh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eThematic analysis of reported IPSAS implementation challenges\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"5\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eRank\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eChallenge Theme\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eRepresentative Illustrative Quotes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eTraining \u0026amp; Capacity Deficits\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e76\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e22.0%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Inadequate training for officers responsible for implementation\"; \"Most heads of Finance are not Chartered Accountants\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSystem Incompatibility\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e68\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e19.7%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"System incompatibility with GIFMIS\" (multiple); \"Software should be improved in all sectors\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eComplexity of IPSAS Standards\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e68\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e19.7%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Complexity of standards\" (multiple); \"Implementing IPSAS is a long-term undertaking\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePolitical Will \u0026amp; Leadership\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e66\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e19.1%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Lack of political will\"; \"Political interference\" (multiple respondents)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e5\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eInadequate Resources \u0026amp; Funding\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e65\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e18.8%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Inadequate resources\" (multiple); \"Lack of funds for more training\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e6\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLegal \u0026amp; Regulatory Gaps\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e~\u0026thinsp;0%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"PFM laws should be realigned with IPSAS\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e7\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOther / Unclassified\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.4%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMiscellaneous responses\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003ctfoot\u003e \u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"5\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote. Respondents could mention multiple themes; percentages therefore sum to more than 100%. R\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;Respondent.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tfoot\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTraining and capacity deficits were the most frequently cited challenge (22.0%, mean\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;4.00 for the training capacity item). Respondents articulated not only the volume of training deficits but their quality and structural character: \u0026ldquo;Most heads of Finance are not Chartered Accountants so they do not understand the concept to be able to implement it effectively\u0026rdquo; (Respondent 17). This points to a structural credentialling gap at the leadership level \u0026mdash; a governance-of-expertise problem rather than a simple training volume deficit (Agyemang \u0026amp; Yensu \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Chilingwe \u0026amp; Kabwe \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFigure \u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e shows the distribution of reported challenge themes visually. System incompatibility (19.7%) and complexity of IPSAS standards (19.7%) tied for second, both reflecting technical barriers to implementation. GIFMIS emerged repeatedly as an exemplar of the system compatibility challenge: while respondents acknowledged that GIFMIS has improved budgeting efficiency, they consistently noted that its accrual accounting functionality remains limited (Tetteh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Yaokumah \u0026amp; Biney \u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Political will and leadership (19.1%) and inadequate resources and funding (18.8%) were also prominently cited, reflecting the governance and fiscal dimensions of reform sustainability. Legal and regulatory gaps were mentioned less frequently in narrative form but appeared consistently in responses coded under Q34 recommendations (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e), suggesting practitioners view this as a structural precondition to be resolved rather than a proximate operational obstacle.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.2 Thematic analysis of practitioner recommendations\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e and Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e present the thematic coding of practitioner recommendations (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;331). Capacity building and training dominated the recommendation landscape (41.4%), with a frequency nearly double that of the next most common recommendation. The prominence of this finding \u0026mdash; and its near-perfect alignment with the top-ranked challenge \u0026mdash; reflects a strong practitioner consensus on the primary lever for reform acceleration. Responses revealed not only calls for more training, but for structured, systematic, and profession-wide programmes: \"Adequate training and measures to ensure the strict compliance of IPSAS by organisations\" (Respondent 6).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePolitical will and leadership commitment was the second-most-recommended intervention (21.5%), with many respondents invoking the need for enforcement mechanisms: \"There should be punishment for non-compliance to enforce it\" (Respondent 13). This legalistic framing reflects a broader culture in Ghana's public sector where voluntary compliance is considered insufficient without regulatory teeth (Aidoo-Buameh \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Krah \u0026amp; Aweh \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). Resource mobilisation (19.9%) and legal/regulatory reform (17.5%) completed the major recommendation categories.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNotably, systems and technology upgrade was mentioned by only 0.9% of respondents, despite system incompatibility being the second-most-cited challenge. This asymmetry is analytically interesting: practitioners may regard technological fixes as outside their sphere of influence (an institutional constraint, not a practitioner-level recommendation), whereas capacity building and political advocacy are domains in which individual and collective action is perceived as feasible.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab2\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 2\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eThematic analysis of practitioner recommendations for IPSAS implementation improvement\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"5\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eRank\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eRecommendation Theme\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eRepresentative Illustrative Quotes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCapacity Building \u0026amp; Training\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e137\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e41.4%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Provide adequate training to staff\"; \"Adequate training and strict compliance\"; \"Regular training and workshops\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePolitical Will \u0026amp; Leadership Commitment\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e71\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e21.5%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Commitment of resources backed by an enforcing legal regime\"; \"Punishment for non-compliance\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eResource Mobilisation \u0026amp; Funding\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e66\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e19.9%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Fund made available for training\"; \"Adequate resources for implementation\" (multiple)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLegal \u0026amp; Regulatory Reform\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e58\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e17.5%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"PFM laws should be realigned with IPSAS\"; \"Addressing infrastructure, systems, and compliance enforcement\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e5\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSystems \u0026amp; Technology Upgrade\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.9%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Software should be improved in all sectors\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e6\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAwareness \u0026amp; Communication\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.6%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"More awareness on IPSAS and PFM reforms\" ; \"Sensitise all people in the PFM cycle\"\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e7\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOther\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.6%\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMiscellaneous responses\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003ctfoot\u003e \u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"5\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote. Respondents could mention multiple themes; percentages therefore sum to more than 100%. R\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;Respondent.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tfoot\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFigure \u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e presents a radar chart illustrating the alignment between the frequency of reported implementation challenges (represented by the red polygon) and practitioner-proposed recommendations (represented by the green polygon) across six key thematic areas. By mapping the proportional weight that respondents assigned to each category, the visualization reveals critical areas of convergence and divergence between perceived organizational obstacles and the actionable solutions proposed by practitioners.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe most striking feature of the chart is the pronounced asymmetry in the \"Training \u0026amp; Capacity\" domain. While training and capacity deficits were cited as a primary challenge in 22.0% of the responses, this area overwhelmingly dominated the proposed solutions, accounting for 41.4% of all recommendations. This significant outward spike of the green line on the right horizontal axis indicates a heavy concentration of focus; practitioners clearly view capacity building not merely as a targeted fix for knowledge gaps, but likely as a foundational remedy necessary to navigate and overcome the broader spectrum of reform challenges.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn contrast to the sharp divergence seen in capacity building, several domains exhibit strong proportional alignment between challenges and recommendations, as evidenced by the tightly overlapping red and green boundaries in the upper and left hemispheres of the chart. \"System Incompatibility\" shows close symmetry, comprising 19.7% of reported challenges and 21.5% of proposed recommendations. Similarly, \"Standards Complexity\" (with recommendations at 19.9%) and \"Political Will\" (with challenges at 19.1%) demonstrate near-perfect alignment, with both lines occupying the same spatial territory. This overlap suggests that when it comes to technical system upgrades, standard simplification, and political leadership, practitioners propose solutions at a rate directly proportional to how frequently they experience them as barriers.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe visualization highlights a notable disconnect in the lower-left quadrant concerning \"Inadequate Resources.\" Although inadequate resources constituted a substantial portion of the reported challenges (18.8%), there is a distinct absence of corresponding recommendations, pulling the green line abruptly back to the center origin point. Similarly, \"Legal/Reg. Gaps\" registered negligible frequencies for both challenges and recommendations, anchoring both polygons to the center on the bottom-right axis. Overall, the shape of the radar chart captures a distinct narrative: while practitioners face a relatively evenly distributed set of challenges (forming a balanced red polygon), their proposed solutions are highly concentrated, heavily skewing the recommendation landscape toward human capital development.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec15\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3 Variation by professional role\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e and Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e present one-way ANOVA results for thematic index scores across the four professional role groups. No statistically significant differences were found for any domain (all \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;1.10, all \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;0.34). Effect sizes were negligible (all \u003cem\u003eη\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e \u0026lt; 0.01). Heads of Finance registered marginally higher Outlook scores (\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;4.36) compared to Accountants (\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;4.29), plausibly reflecting a leadership-level perspective on reform prospects, but this difference did not approach statistical significance.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe absence of role-based differences is theoretically informative. Despite substantial differences in job function, seniority, and proximity to IPSAS documentation between accountants, auditors, directors, and finance directors, all groups perceive the reform landscape in broadly similar terms. This convergence supports an institutional-environment interpretation: shared exposure to the same institutional context \u0026mdash; Ghana\u0026rsquo;s public sector, with its common regulatory pressures, donor conditionalities, and normative frameworks \u0026mdash; generates shared perceptions irrespective of role-specific experience (DiMaggio \u0026amp; Powell \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1983\u003c/span\u003e; Polzer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021a\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab3\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 3\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMean Thematic Index Scores by Professional Role (ANOVA, \u003cem\u003eN\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;400)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"7\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c7\" colnum=\"7\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDomain\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAccountant\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAuditor\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDirector\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHead of Finance\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eIPSAS Awareness\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.98 (0.54)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.96 (0.70)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.91 (0.63)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.05 (0.50)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.79\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.501\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePFM Reform Context\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.19 (0.33)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.13 (0.37)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.12 (0.35)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.19 (0.32)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.10\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.349\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eIPSAS Benefits\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.35 (0.44)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.39 (0.42)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.40 (0.38)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.38 (0.40)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.68\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.562\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eImplementation Outcomes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.63 (0.55)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.69 (0.52)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.68 (0.51)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.69 (0.49)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.28\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.840\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eImplementation Challenges\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.62 (0.44)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.60 (0.40)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.60 (0.37)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.62 (0.43)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.40\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.750\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOutlook\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.29 (0.48)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.31 (0.40)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.34 (0.41)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.36 (0.41)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.53\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.659\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003ctfoot\u003e \u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"7\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote. Values are mean (SD). No comparisons reached statistical significance (all p \u0026gt; .05). η\u0026sup2; \u0026lt; .01 for all domains. SD\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;standard deviation; ANOVA\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;analysis of variance; PFM\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;public financial management.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tfoot\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFigure \u003cspan refid=\"Fig6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e presents a heatmap detailing the mean thematic index scores cross-tabulated by the respondents' specific professional roles: Accountant, Auditor, Director, and Head of Finance. The most striking pattern revealed by the visualization is the distinct vertical color banding, which indicates a strong consensus among practitioners across all tiers of the public sector. The variations in mean scores are driven primarily by the thematic domain being evaluated rather than the professional title of the respondent, suggesting a shared, systemic experience regarding the implementation of the reforms.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe data illustrates high levels of optimism and perceived utility across all professional groups. Practitioners universally assigned the highest ratings to the \"Benefits\" domain, with mean scores ranging from 4.33 among Accountants to 4.40 among both Directors and Heads of Finance. Similarly, the \"Future\" outlook domain received strong endorsements across the board, ranging from 4.29 to 4.36, as indicated by the solid green hues on the heatmap. The \"PFM Context\" also garnered robust positive evaluations, consistently scoring above the 4.10 mark for all roles.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eConversely, the heatmap highlights a collective acknowledgment of practical difficulties, as represented by the warmer orange hues. The \"Outcomes\" and \"Challenges\" domains consistently received the lowest scores across all professional categories. Mean scores for implementation \"Outcomes\" clustered tightly between 3.63 (Accountants) and 3.69 (Auditors and Heads of Finance). Similarly, perceptions of \"Challenges\" remained relatively uniform and low, with scores ranging from a minimum of 3.59 reported by Directors to a maximum of 3.65 reported by Auditors. This demonstrates that while optimism for the overarching goals is high, all ranks equally recognize the persistent implementation hurdles and underdeveloped practical outcomes.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDespite the broad inter-role consensus, minor role-specific nuances are observable, particularly within the \"Awareness\" domain. Awareness scores hovered just below the 4.0 threshold for most practitioners, specifically Directors (3.91), Auditors (3.96), and Accountants (3.97). However, the \"Head of Finance\" cohort breached this threshold with a score of 4.05. In fact, Heads of Finance consistently reported the highest or tied for the highest mean scores across almost all thematic domains, indicating a marginally more positive or comprehensive evaluation of the reform landscape compared to their peers. In contrast, Directors tended to report the lowest scores in areas such as Awareness (3.91) and Challenges (3.59).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec16\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.4 Gender differences in IPSAS perceptions\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e presents independent-samples \u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e-test results by gender. None of the six domains showed statistically significant differences between male (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;307) and female (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;93) respondents (all |\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e| \u0026lt; 0.93, all \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;0.35). Effect sizes as measured by Cohen\u0026rsquo;s \u003cem\u003ed\u003c/em\u003e were uniformly negligible (all |\u003cem\u003ed\u003c/em\u003e| \u0026lt; 0.12). Female respondents reported marginally higher scores on Implementation Outcomes (\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.71 vs. \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.66) and Implementation Challenges (\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.65 vs. \u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.61), but these differences are substantively negligible and statistically non-significant.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese findings carry two important implications. First, they indicate that the IPSAS implementation environment in Ghana\u0026rsquo;s public sector is perceived equally negatively \u0026mdash; and equally positively regarding future prospects \u0026mdash; by both male and female practitioners, suggesting that the barriers are structural and systemic rather than gendered in their impact or salience. Second, they add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that gender differences in public sector accounting perceptions, where they exist, are more likely to reflect differential access to training opportunities and decision-making authority than intrinsic attitudinal differences (Polzer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021b\u003c/span\u003e; Tetteh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab4\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 4\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eIndependent-samples t-test results by gender\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"6\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDomain\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMale M (SD) (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;307)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eFemale M (SD) (\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;93)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCohen \u003cem\u003ed\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eIPSAS Awareness\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.98 (0.58)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.93 (0.64)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.756\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.450\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.090\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePFM Reform Context\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.15 (0.34)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.18 (0.34)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.631\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.529\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.075\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eIPSAS Benefits\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.38 (0.42)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.37 (0.41)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.096\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.924\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.011\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eImplementation Outcomes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.66 (0.53)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.71 (0.47)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.826\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.409\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.098\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eImplementation Challenges\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.61 (0.43)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.65 (0.36)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.927\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.355\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.110\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOutlook\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.32 (0.43)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.33 (0.43)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.185\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.853\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-0.022\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003ctfoot\u003e \u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"6\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote. Values are mean (SD). No comparisons reached statistical significance (all p \u0026gt; .05). Cohen's d: |d| \u0026lt; 0.20\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;negligible effect. SD\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;standard deviation.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tfoot\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec17\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.5 Education-level differences\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e and Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e present ANOVA results for thematic index scores across six educational qualification groups. As with professional role and gender, no statistically significant differences were found (all \u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;1.18, all \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;0.31). Practitioners holding professional qualifications (ICAG, ACCA, CIMA, Certified Public Accountant [CPA]) reported marginally higher IPSAS Awareness scores (\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;4.03\u0026ndash;4.06) compared to those with academic qualifications only (\u003cem\u003eM\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;3.84\u0026ndash;3.96), consistent with the expected role of professional certification in IPSAS-related knowledge acquisition. However, this pattern did not achieve significance in the sample.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe consistency of findings across all three demographic comparisons \u0026mdash; professional role, gender, and educational qualification \u0026mdash; reinforces a core conclusion: IPSAS perceptions in Ghana\u0026rsquo;s public sector are shaped primarily by shared institutional context rather than by individual-level characteristics. This has important practical implications for reform design, discussed in Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec24\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5.4\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab5\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 5\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMean thematic index scores by educational qualification (ANOVA, \u003cem\u003eN\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;400)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"9\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c7\" colnum=\"7\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c8\" colnum=\"8\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c9\" colnum=\"9\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDomain\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMaster's\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eBachelor's\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eProfessional\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eBach+Prof\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMast+Prof\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMast+Bach\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eF\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eIPSAS Awareness\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.96 (0.58)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.84 (0.66)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.03 (0.55)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.06 (0.50)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.93 (0.63)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.91 (0.62)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e1.18\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.317\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePFM Reform Context\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.16 (0.33)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.10 (0.37)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.14 (0.34)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.21 (0.31)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.14 (0.35)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.17 (0.35)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.84\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.521\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eIPSAS Benefits\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.38 (0.43)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.33 (0.46)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.41 (0.38)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.41 (0.39)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.36 (0.44)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.37 (0.39)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.50\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.778\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eImplementation Outcomes\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.66 (0.53)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.67 (0.55)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.69 (0.51)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.68 (0.50)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.69 (0.50)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.62 (0.55)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.18\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.970\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eImplementation Challenges\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.60 (0.43)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.64 (0.43)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.64 (0.41)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.61 (0.40)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.61 (0.43)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e3.62 (0.43)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.13\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.986\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOutlook\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.30 (0.44)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.31 (0.45)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.32 (0.42)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.34 (0.41)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.34 (0.44)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c7\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e4.31 (0.44)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c8\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.14\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c9\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e0.983\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003ctfoot\u003e \u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"9\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote. Values are mean (SD). Bach+Prof\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;Bachelor's degree\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;professional qualification; Mast+Prof\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;Master's degree\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;professional qualification; Mast+Bach\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;Master's\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;Bachelor's degrees. No comparisons reached significance (all p \u0026gt; .05). SD\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;standard deviation.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tfoot\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec18\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.6 IPSAS Implementation stage by organisation type and experience\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eFigure \u003cspan refid=\"Fig8\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e8\u003c/span\u003e shows IPSAS implementation stage by organisation type, and Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig9\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e9\u003c/span\u003e shows stage by years of work experience. Chi-square analysis revealed no statistically significant association between organisation type and IPSAS implementation stage (\u003cem\u003eχ\u0026sup2;\u003c/em\u003e = 17.49, \u003cem\u003edf\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;16, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.355). This finding indicates that progress towards full IPSAS compliance is not concentrated in, or disproportionately lagging in, any particular sector of the public service. Similarly, implementation stage did not differ significantly by years of experience (ANOVA: \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;0.10), indicating that newer entrants to the public sector are joining organisations at comparable stages of IPSAS implementation as their more experienced colleagues.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec19\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.7 Index relationships: IPSAS awareness, reform context, and outcomes\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eFigure \u003cspan refid=\"Fig10\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e10\u003c/span\u003e presents scatter plots of key index relationships, coloured by implementation stage. Spearman correlation analysis confirmed a weak but statistically significant positive relationship between IPSAS Awareness and Outlook (\u003cem\u003eρ\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.10, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.05): practitioners with stronger IPSAS knowledge hold a more optimistic view of long-term reform prospects.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe relationship between PFM Reform Context and Implementation Outcomes (\u003cem\u003eρ\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;0.15, \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;0.01) is the strongest inter-domain association identified: favourable perceptions of the institutional reform environment are associated with better perceived implementation results. These relationships are modest in magnitude, consistent with the overall pattern of low inter-domain correlations documented in Article 1, but their directionality is theoretically meaningful.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"5. Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe primary aim of this study was to provide a rigorous, practitioner-grounded empirical account of the barriers to International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) implementation within Ghana's public sector. Furthermore, the research sought to identify the specific interventions recommended by frontline practitioners to accelerate compliance and to determine the extent to which these perceptions vary across different professional and demographic subgroups. By centering the lived experiences of those directly tasked with executing the reform, this study moves beyond top-down institutional analyses to capture the practical realities of public financial management modernization.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec21\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.1 A multidimensional, systemically distributed barrier environment\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe most structurally significant finding of this study is the near-equal distribution of challenge frequencies across the six thematic categories (range: 18.8%\u0026ndash;22.0%). This pattern did not arise from the use of structured survey instruments, where social desirability bias and satisficing can produce artificially even distributions: it emerged from the open-text narrative coding of responses in which practitioners freely articulated their priority concerns in their own words. The theoretical implication is that IPSAS implementation in Ghana is not impeded by a single binding constraint \u0026mdash; not training alone, not systems alone, not political will alone \u0026mdash; but by a reinforcing web of mutually dependent constraints that collectively constitute a systemic implementation barrier environment (Andrews et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Saleh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis finding is consistent with the capability trap concept advanced by Andrews et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) in the PDIA framework: reform environments characterised by evenly distributed constraints require adaptive, multi-front problem-solving rather than the sequential, blueprint-driven approaches that have historically characterised donor-supported PFM reforms in Africa (Lassou \u0026amp; Hopper \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Jayasinghe et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). It also resonates with Scannell and Tawiah's (2024) thematic review, which identified multidimensional constraint environments as the norm rather than the exception in IPSAS adoption globally. The implication for reform design \u0026mdash; that no single intervention is sufficient and that coordinated, multi-front strategies are required \u0026mdash; is discussed further in Section \u003cspan refid=\"Sec26\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec22\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.2 The training\u0026ndash;capacity gap as the primary actionable lever\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile the challenge distribution is even, the recommendation distribution is not: training and capacity building (41.4%) towers above all other recommendations by a wide margin. This asymmetry has important policy implications. It suggests that practitioners, despite recognising political will, resource, and systems barriers as broadly equally significant, regard human capacity development as the domain in which collective and individual action is most feasible and most proximate to their sphere of influence. This finding is consistent with Chilingwe and Kabwe's (2025) observation that capacity-focused interventions receive the highest practitioner endorsement even in contexts where political barriers are formally more binding, and with Matekele and Komba's (2020) finding from Tanzania that practitioners across seniority levels prioritise training irrespective of their own qualifications.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCritically, respondents did not call for generic in-service workshops but for structured, profession-wide, and compulsorily enforced training programmes linked to professional certification requirements. The repeated references to ICAG and ACCA qualifications in the open-text data suggest that practitioners regard professional certification \u0026mdash; not merely workshop attendance \u0026mdash; as the appropriate long-run mechanism for closing the IPSAS knowledge gap. This is an actionable recommendation with clear institutional channels: ICAG already has the regulatory authority to revise its examination syllabi and CPD requirements, and ACCA Ghana has a track record of adapting its professional development offerings to public sector needs.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec23\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.3 The technology paradox: cited but not recommended\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe divergence between the frequency with which system incompatibility was cited as a challenge (19.7%) and the near-absence of technology upgrade in recommendations (0.9%) constitutes one of the most analytically interesting findings of this study. We interpret this as reflecting a practitioner assessment of institutional agency: systems upgrades require ministerial-level budget allocations, technical procurement processes, and international assistance arrangements that lie entirely outside the control of individual practitioners or professional associations. By contrast, training, political advocacy, and legal reform \u0026mdash; the top three recommendation categories \u0026mdash; are domains in which professional associations, individual champions, and collective advocacy can plausibly make a difference (Andrews et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Bawole \u0026amp; Adjei-Bamfo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis interpretation is consistent with a participatory empowerment reading of the data: practitioners are not fatalistic about technological barriers but recognise them as structurally determined and therefore appropriately addressed through institutional procurement and budget channels rather than practitioner advocacy. The policy implication for government and development partners \u0026mdash; who do control those institutional channels \u0026mdash; is to prioritise GIFMIS accrual functionality enhancement as a specific, funded, and time-bound deliverable in the next PFM reform cycle (Bekiaris \u0026amp; Markogiannopoulou \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Tetteh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec24\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.4 Demographic consensus: implications for reform design\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe consistent absence of statistically significant demographic differences across all comparisons \u0026mdash; professional role, gender, educational qualification, years of experience, and organisation type \u0026mdash; constitutes a theoretically and practically important null result. In theoretical terms, it suggests that the institutional environment of Ghana's public sector exerts a homogenizing effect on IPSAS perceptions, overriding individual-level variation in background, training, and role. This is consistent with DiMaggio and Powell's (1983) account of coercive and normative isomorphism: all public sector entities in Ghana face the same regulatory pressures (from the PFM Act, Ministry of Finance circulars, and donor conditionalities) and the same normative pressures (from professional associations and international accounting bodies), producing convergent attitudes regardless of individual characteristics.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn terms of practical reform design, the consensus finding means that any capacity-building, legal reform, or systems upgrade intervention does not need to be differentiated by practitioner subgroup. Resources can be concentrated on the highest-leverage interventions \u0026mdash; training, political will, and regulatory alignment \u0026mdash; with confidence that the benefits will be uniformly distributed across the professional workforce. This substantially simplifies the reform implementation challenge, even as it underscores the scale of coordinated action required to shift the shared institutional context that generates convergent perceptions.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec25\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.5 A proposed theoretical framework for IPSAS implementation in developing public sectors\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe empirical findings of this study, taken together, support the proposition of a new integrative framework: the Systemic Constraint and Practitioner Agency (SCPA) Framework for IPSAS implementation in developing public sectors. This framework constitutes the primary theoretical contribution of the study and responds to two recognised gaps in the existing literature: the absence of a practitioner-grounded, empirically derived model that explains both why implementation stalls and what reform actors at each level of the system can do about it.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe SCPA Framework rests on three analytically distinct but empirically interrelated pillars derived directly from the findings of this study. The first pillar is the Systemic Constraint Architecture. This study\u0026rsquo;s most structurally significant finding \u0026mdash; the near-equal distribution of challenge frequencies across six thematic categories (range: 18.8%\u0026ndash;22.0%) \u0026mdash; demonstrates that IPSAS implementation failure in developing countries is not attributable to any single binding constraint. Rather, it is produced by a self-reinforcing architecture of mutually dependent barriers: human capital deficits limit the capacity to interpret and apply accrual standards; technology gaps prevent the automated generation of IPSAS-compliant outputs; legal misalignment removes statutory compulsion; resource constraints restrict both training provision and systems investment; and political will deficits deprive the reform of the executive sponsorship needed to mobilise institutional action. These constraints form a closed loop that is structurally resistant to single-lever interventions \u0026mdash; an architecture that is consistent with Andrews et al.\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e) capability trap and that the prior IPSAS literature has described but not formally modelled at the practitioner level (Saleh et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Scannell \u0026amp; Tawiah \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe second pillar is the Practitioner Agency Gradient. While constraints are systemically distributed, practitioner agency in recommending and advocating for solutions is not. The sharp concentration of recommendations around capacity building (41.4%) \u0026mdash; compared to the near-absence of technology upgrade recommendations (0.9%) despite system incompatibility being equally prominent as a barrier \u0026mdash; reveals a practitioner-perceived gradient of agency: individuals and professional associations exercise meaningful influence over training programmes, professional certification standards, and political advocacy, but not over ministerial budget allocations or procurement decisions. The SCPA Framework formalises this observation by distinguishing between practitioner-actionable constraints (human capital, political advocacy) and institutional-level constraints (technology, legal framework, resource mobilisation) that require action from government authorities and development partners operating above the practitioner tier. This distinction has direct implications for how reform responsibilities should be allocated across actors \u0026mdash; a dimension that existing frameworks, which treat the reform environment as a monolithic policy challenge, do not adequately capture.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe third pillar is Institutional Isomorphic Convergence. The finding that perceptions of barriers, outcomes, and future prospects are statistically indistinguishable across all professional roles, educational qualifications, gender categories, and years of experience provides evidence of a phenomenon not previously documented at this scale in the IPSAS literature: the institutional environment of a developing public sector is powerful enough to homogenise reform perceptions across otherwise heterogeneous practitioner populations. This convergence is consistent with DiMaggio and Powell\u0026rsquo;s (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1983\u003c/span\u003e) neo-institutional account of coercive and normative isomorphism, but its empirical demonstration in a large-sample mixed-methods design represents a novel contribution to the public sector accounting reform literature (Polzer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021a\u003c/span\u003e; Christiaens et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). It implies that reform readiness \u0026mdash; and reform resistance \u0026mdash; are collective institutional properties rather than the aggregated sum of individual practitioner dispositions. This has a profound implication for reform theory: interventions that seek to change individual practitioner attitudes or competencies without simultaneously transforming the shared institutional context that generates them will not produce durable behavioural change.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTogether, these three pillars produce a framework with distinct predictive and prescriptive power. The SCPA Framework predicts that, in developing public sectors characterised by isomorphic convergence, evenly distributed constraints, and a steep practitioner agency gradient, IPSAS adoption will remain partial and ceremonial unless reform interventions are simultaneously pursued at three levels: the practitioner level (professional certification, CPD, structured training); the organisational level (FMIS upgrades, internal IPSAS champions, entity-level compliance monitoring); and the institutional level (legislative mandate, dedicated funding, political commitment anchored in cross-cycle accountability structures). This three-level architecture differentiates the SCPA Framework from existing conceptual tools in the public sector accounting literature \u0026mdash; in particular, the PDIA framework\u0026rsquo;s emphasis on adaptive problem-solving at the practitioner level, and institutional theory\u0026rsquo;s emphasis on the macro-level pressures that drive isomorphic adoption \u0026mdash; by explicitly modelling the meso-level (organisational) interface at which practitioners must translate institutional mandates into entity-level compliance. The framework is grounded in, and validated by, the largest practitioner survey evidence on IPSAS implementation yet conducted in Ghana, and is designed to be generalisable to comparable developing country contexts in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"6. Conclusions","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study has provided the first large-scale, mixed-methods, practitioner-centered examination of IPSAS implementation barriers and recommendations in Ghana\u0026rsquo;s public sector. Drawing on open-text responses from 346 respondents and quantitative analysis across 400 practitioners, the study has established four overarching findings. First, IPSAS implementation in Ghana faces a multidimensional, systemically distributed barrier environment in which no single constraint dominates \u0026mdash; a pattern consistent with capability trap theory and with the broader global evidence on IPSAS adoption challenges. Second, practitioners have articulated a clear and internally consistent reform agenda centered on capacity building, political will, resource mobilisation, and legal/regulatory alignment \u0026mdash; an agenda that maps closely onto the identified barrier landscape and provides a practitioner-validated policy blueprint for accelerating full IPSAS adoption. Third, perceptions of barriers, outcomes, and future prospects are remarkably uniform across all professional and demographic subgroups, indicating that the barriers are structural and institutional rather than subgroup-specific \u0026mdash; a finding that simplifies the reform design task by enabling universally targeted interventions. Fourth, and constituting the primary theoretical contribution of this study, the empirical pattern of findings supports the Systemic Constraint and Practitioner Agency (SCPA) Framework: a novel integrative model that characterises IPSAS implementation failure in developing public sectors as the product of a self-reinforcing Systemic Constraint Architecture, a Practitioner Agency Gradient distinguishing practitioner-actionable from institutional-level constraints, and Institutional Isomorphic Convergence that homogenises reform perceptions across heterogeneous practitioner populations. The SCPA Framework predicts that substantive IPSAS compliance requires simultaneous, coordinated action across practitioner, organisational, and institutional tiers \u0026mdash; a prediction that directly informs the five specific policy actions set out below. Five specific policy actions emerge directly from the empirical evidence and the SCPA Framework. First, ICAG should be mandated, in consultation with the Institute and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), to revise its professional examination syllabi to include comprehensive IPSAS accrual competencies and to expand CPD requirements related to IPSAS for all members in public sector practice. Second, the government, in partnership with development partners including the World Bank and the African Development Bank, should establish a funded GIFMIS accrual-functionality enhancement programme with a clear implementation timeline and measurable deliverables. Third, Parliament should amend the Public Financial Management Act (2016) to include an explicit IPSAS adoption mandate with a phased compliance schedule, enforceable compliance milestones, and designated penalties for non-compliance at entity head level. Fourth, the Ministry of Finance should secure a multi-year budget line for IPSAS implementation support, providing all public entities \u0026mdash; particularly local government assemblies and small statutory bodies \u0026mdash; with predictable funding for training, system upgrades, and technical assistance. Fifth, a dedicated IPSAS Implementation Secretariat with cross-ministerial authority should be established to coordinate, monitor, and publicly report on implementation progress, creating the accountability and visibility needed to sustain political commitment across electoral cycles. This study has several limitations that should inform the interpretation of findings and the design of future research. The reliance on self-reported perceptions introduces potential social desirability bias, particularly regarding political will and leadership challenges, where practitioners may moderate their responses to avoid perceived institutional risk. The sampling strategy \u0026mdash; which relied primarily on ICAG and AAPS professional networks \u0026mdash; may over-represent reform-engaged practitioners who are more aware of and invested in IPSAS adoption than the average public sector employee, introducing a potential selection bias. The cross-sectional design precludes causal inference: while the study documents perceptions at a single point in time, it cannot establish whether changes in barriers or enablers drive changes in implementation outcomes. Future research should employ longitudinal designs to track implementation progress, experimental or quasi-experimental methods to evaluate the effectiveness of specific interventions, and qualitative in-depth interviews with political actors and senior policymakers to complement the frontline practitioner evidence provided here. Empirical testing of the SCPA Framework across multiple developing country contexts \u0026mdash; particularly comparative studies spanning Anglophone and Francophone West Africa \u0026mdash; would also extend the generalisability of the findings and illuminate how linguistic and colonial-institutional heritage shapes the practitioner agency gradient in different national reform environments.\u003c/p\u003e "},{"header":"Abbreviations","content":"\u003cp\u003eAll abbreviations and acronyms used in this study are compiled in \u003cstrong\u003eTable 6\u003c/strong\u003e to facilitate clarity and improve readability.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTable 6.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/strong\u003eAbbreviations and acronyms used in this article\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"602\"\u003e\n \u003cthead\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbbreviation\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFull Form\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/thead\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAAPS\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAssociation of Accountants in the Public Services\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eACCA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAssociation of Chartered Certified Accountants\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eANOVA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAnalysis of variance\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCIMA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eChartered Institute of Management Accountants\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCIPFA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eChartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCPD\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eContinuing professional development\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCPA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCertified Public Accountant\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eERP\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEnterprise resource planning\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEU\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEuropean Union\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eFMIS\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eFinancial management information system\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGIFMIS\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGhana Integrated Financial Management Information System\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIAA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInternal Audit Agency\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eICAG\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInstitute of Chartered Accountants–Ghana\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIMF\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInternational Monetary Fund\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIPSAS\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInternational Public Sector Accounting Standards\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIPSASB\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInternational Public Sector Accounting Standards Board\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMDA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMinistry, department, or agency\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePAC\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePublic Accounts Committee\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePDIA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eProblem-Driven Iterative Adaptation\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePEFA\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePublic Expenditure and Financial Accountability\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePFM\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePublic financial management\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePFM Act\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePublic Financial Management Act (Act 921 2016)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eRQ\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eResearch question\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSD\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eStandard deviation\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSOE\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eState-owned enterprise\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n \u003c/table\u003e\n\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003ch2\u003eDeclaration of Competing Interest\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eClinical Trial Number\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClinical trial number: not applicable\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHuman Ethics, Consent to Participate, and Consent to Publish\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEthical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Controller and Accountant General\u0026apos;s Department, Middle Belt, Kumasi, Ghana. All participants provided informed consent prior to participation. Consent to publish anonymized data was also obtained.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDeclaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the manuscript preparation process.\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuring the preparation of this work the authors used Cursor version 2.4.37 to write and edit the Python 3.12 script used for data analysis. After using this tool/service, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the published article.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eFunding\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis research received no specific external funding.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConceptualization, E.O-D., H.A. and G.O.F.; methodology, G.O.F.; software, G.O.F.; validation, E.O-D., H.A. and G.O.F.; formal analysis, E.O-D., H.A. and G.O.F.; investigation, E.O-D. and H.A.; resources, E.O-D, H.A. and G.O.F.; writing\u0026mdash;original draft preparation, E.O-D., H.A. and G.O.F; writing\u0026mdash;review and editing, E.O-D, G.O.F. and H.A.; supervision, G.O.F. All authors have read and agreed to the publication of the manuscript.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eAcknowledgement\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors would like to thank the Department of Forest Engineering, Forest Management Planning, and Terrestrial Measurements, Faculty of Silviculture and Forest Engineering, Transilvania University of Brasov, for providing some of the equipment needed for this study.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAbu Haija AA, Alqudah A, Abdallah L (2020) Key success factors in implementing international public sector accounting standards. 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Inf Resour Manag J 35:1\u0026ndash;25. \u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://doi.org/10.4018/irmj.298973\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"10.4018/irmj.298973\" targettype=\"DOI\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYaokumah W, Biney E (2020) IFMIS project implementation in Ghana's government. Int J Inf Technol Proj Manag 11:1\u0026ndash;15. \u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://doi.org/10.4018/ijitpm.2020010102\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"10.4018/ijitpm.2020010102\" targettype=\"DOI\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"capacity building, implementation barriers, multi-front reform, policy recommendations, public financial management, thematic analysis","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9341751/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9341751/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eThe adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) in Ghana is characterized by substantial policy commitment but only partial implementation progress. Understanding practitioner perspectives is essential for designing effective support strategies. This study investigates the barriers to and enablers of IPSAS implementation from the perspective of 400 Ghanaian public sector practitioners. A mixed-methods design was employed, integrating quantitative analysis of structured survey items\u0026mdash;using analysis of variance (ANOVA), t-tests, and chi-square tests\u0026mdash;with thematic coding of open-text responses. Qualitative data were coded inductively and validated against a deductive framework. Thematic analysis identified six evenly distributed systemic challenges: training and capacity deficits (22.0%), system incompatibility (19.7%), complexity of IPSAS standards (19.7%), lack of political will (19.1%), inadequate resources (18.8%), and legal or regulatory gaps. Practitioner recommendations closely mirrored these constraints, prioritizing capacity building (41.4%) and stronger political will (21.5%). Quantitative analyses confirmed a broad consensus, finding no statistically significant differences in perceptions across professional roles, educational attainment, or gender. These findings demonstrate that IPSAS implementation barriers are multidimensional. Consequently, this study proposes the Systemic Constraint and Practitioner Agency Framework. This integrative theoretical model distinguishes between practitioner-actionable constraints, such as human capital and political advocacy, and institutional-level constraints, including technology and legal frameworks. To achieve substantive IPSAS compliance, policymakers must avoid isolated interventions and instead prioritize coordinated, multi-front reforms distributed simultaneously across practitioner, organizational, and institutional tiers.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Systemic Constraints and Practitioner Agency: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of International Public Sector Accounting Standards Implementation in Ghana","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-04-08 08:44:03","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9341751/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"5d926729-5605-4bd3-9048-fb422156afec","owner":[],"postedDate":"April 8th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-04-27T03:53:18+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-04-08 08:44:03","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-9341751","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-9341751","identity":"rs-9341751","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}