The practical relevance of public sector accounting research: time to take a stand

This article discusses three major themes that challenge researchers to focus more on practice-relevant public sector accounting research: How to combine practice-oriented research with being an impartial scholar? Which types of research themes have practical relevance? How can research contribute to societally-relevant issues?

Researchers need to identify their niche in doing practice-relevant public sector accounting research in a way that shows they are quite different from consultants. Promising themes for practice-relevant research are design-focused interventionist and evaluative research. Practitioners are encouraged to take notice of research in their field of interest; researchers need to make their studies accessible to practitioners via specific media, such as professional journals or web-logs.