Making sense of the users of public sector accounting information and their needs

• Purpose: This article intends to dismantle the complex issue of ‘use of accounting infor-mation’ by pointing to different groups of information users, diverging interests and needs of these user groups and various influential factors on the usability and the actual use of accounting information.
• Design/methodology/approach: Literature review and conceptual reflections.
• Findings: The review of recently published articles on the issue of ’use of accounting in-formation’ presents an actual picture of the academic debate on purposes of use, user types, needs of various user groups and factors influencing the usability and the actual use of accounting information. The subsequent conceptual reflections deal with so far less regarded user groups, with options to strengthen the user perspective in financial reporting, with approaches for engaging users in the content of accounting documents, with interre-lations between user needs, usability and use intensity, including various antecedents of the different variables of the information-use issue.
• Research implications: Promising routes for future research are presented.

• Practical implications: The article emphasizes the importance of paying more attention to the specific information needs and the motivations of various stakeholder groups generally interested in using financial information.
• Originality/value: The article presents results of reviewing recent literature on the issue of ‘use of accounting information’ and provides some insight into specific aspects of this issue.