Since the 1980s, public sector entities have been exposed to accounting reforms under an umbrella of New Public Management (NPM). The main purpose of adoption of accounting reforms is to increase efficiency in decision-making by producing useful accounting information. However, it is argued that the adoption of accounting reforms by public sector entities in developing countries is attributed to the seeking of financial legitimacy, rather than increasing organisational efficiency (Mzenzi, 2013; Mkasiwa, 2011; Adhikari and Mellemvik, 2011; Tambulasi, 2007; Sarker, 2006). Therefore, it is the interest of this study to research the use of accounting information by public sector entities in developing countries. This study is based on an interpretative approach and employs an exploratory case study strategy with two cases (LGAs) in order to accomplish four specific objectives. The roles and responsibilities of LGAs and their multiple actors in delivering public services to the citizens, and their roles in budgetary decision-making attributed by the adopted accounting practices, represent the major motivation of this study. Institutional theory and its three branches, which are Old Institutional Economics (OIE), New Institutional Sociology (NIS) and New Institutional Economics (NIE), were used in the process of developing the initial model, and the overall interpretation of findings. The findings of this study revealed three dimensions of instrumental-conceptual use, which included conceptual use, decision relevant, and recommendations use of accounting information in decisions related to estimations and collections of own source revenue. Furthermore, the study’s findings showed that legitimating use was the main dimension of the symbolic use of accounting information in the budget approval, as well as in the decision about estimating and collecting revenue from external sources. It further identified 22 factors influencing the use of accounting information in the budget decision-making processes. The study findings also revealed that instrumental-conceptual use of accounting information increases both an organisation’s budget efficiency as well as its external financial legitimacy. On the other hand, the symbolic use of accounting information decreases the organisation’s budget efficiency and the actual external financial legitimacy but increases the promised external financial legitimacy. This is attributed, mainly, by external institutional pressures that result in decoupling behavior in the use of accounting information in budgetary decision-making processes. In addition, the findings revealed that budget efficiency and acquired financial legitimacy are interdependent. This means that the high financial legitimacy acquired can indicate high budget efficiency in the situation the instrumental-conceptual use exists than the symbolic legitimating use of accounting information. The study proposes a model of the determinants of the use of accounting information in budget decision-making processes for budget efficiency and external financial legitimacy. It informs reformers, practitioners, policy-makers and researchers about the necessary measures to undertake to make sure that NPM reforms, especially accounting reforms, enhance both efficiency and financial legitimacy in the public sector organisations through the use of accounting information.

L’objectif de cette recherche était de comprendre la perception de l’utilité del’information comptable dans l’optique d’une prise de décision et de l’évaluation durisque de crédit aux entreprises. Le questionnement d’actualité centré sur la qualité del’information comptable dans le contexte des récents scandales financiers nous ainterpellé sur la nécessité de comprendre ce qu’il en est dans le contexte camerounais.Pour ce faire, nous avons conceptuellement proposé un modèle issu de la revue de lalittérature et ajusté par une recherche exploratoire (16 entretiens).Méthodologiquement, les observations issues de l’expérience (134 répondants) sontopérationnalisées à l’aide des analyses de corrélation et de régression. Les résultatsindiquent que pour la dimension prise de décision, le lien est, statistiquementsignificatif entre les qualités globales de l’information comptable, l’utilisation del’information comptable, la taille de l’entreprise et, son utilité perçue. Par contre, pourla dimension évaluation du risque de crédit, la variable utilisation de l’informationcomptable n’est pas statistiquement un élément significatif de son utilité perçue. Lesrésultats nous font observer que si l’information comptable est jugée utile, elle est plusestimée pour la dimension de la prise de décision que pour celle de l’évaluation durisque de crédit. Par ailleurs, il est apparu que c’est la grande entreprise qui possèdeune utilité perçue plus favorable en regard de ces deux dimensions. / Objective of this research was to understand the perception of the usefulness ofaccounting information in the perspective of decision making and assessment of creditrisk for companies. Recently, related to some notorious financial scandals, the qualityof accounting information has been seriously questioned. This has challenged us toexamine what is going on in this respect in the Cameroonian context.376In order to do so, we have conceived a model starting from a literature survey andadjusted it on the basis of an exploratory research (16 interviews). Methodologically,the observations from the experiment (134 respondents) are operationalized usingcorrelation and regression analyzes. The results indicate that, in the decision makingprocess, the links between overall quality of accounting information, the use ofaccounting information, the company's size and the perceived usefulness isstatistically significant.However, for the assessment of credit risk, the use of accounting information is notstatistically significant as a variable factor of its perceived usefulness. We observe asresults that, if accounting information is considered useful, it is rather in terms ofdecision making in terms of the evaluation of credit risk. Furthermore, it was foundthat in big corporations business high quality accounting information is perceived asuseful in both dimensions.