Designing a financial reporting model for cultural heritage assets based on data theory

Over the past 25 years, financial reporting of heritage assets has become a major problem for public sector entities that own these assets. Under new public management practices, these entities are required to report to stakeholders on the pattern of disclosure of the economic value of all assets under their control. While there is extensive previous literature on how to calculate cultural heritage assets and whether heritage assets are sufficiently different, there are few cases that report on cultural heritage assets from an alternative, financial and non-financial perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to design a conceptual model for financial reporting of cultural heritage assets in Iran. This research is a qualitative research that was conducted using an approach based on data theory of the foundation. The statistical population included experts and experts in the field of accounting, members of the Iranian Association of Accountants, who were selected as a participant in the study using a purposive sampling approach. Data were collected through interviews using the general guidance method and in a semi-structured manner. In order to obtain the validity and reliability of the data, two methods of reviewing the participants as well as reviewing the non-participating experts in the research were used. The central category is the evaluation of cultural heritage assets, which is presented in two dimensions: the asset-liability matching approach and the non-asset-liability matching approach.