Changes in accounting system of universities: will policy makers and public managers become more aware of financial effects of their decisions?”

The starting point of this paper is to deepen the purpose of the accounting reform in Italian universities and its critical aspects. During the global financial crisis, public finance has been at the center of any political tension because people suffer from increased tax imposition, loss of governmental services and loss of employment. Investigating for what purposes policy makers and public managers use accounting information mean to understand that they primarily use accounting information to develop knowledge of their work environment, rather than as an input into specific decision-making scenarios.In many studies the phrases ‘‘use or non-use”, ‘‘how”, and ‘‘actually used” demonstrate that the researchers at least considered the possibility that managers may not use accounting information, that its role may be limited or a new one with other possibilities