The Role of Accounting and Public Policies in Sustaining The Traditional Performing Art: An Empirical Study of Government-Community Collaboration

This study investigates how financial variables, such as financial report transparency (FRT), ‎financial accountability (FA), and financial management (FM), affect the sustainability of the ‎traditional Bantengan performance in Greater Malang, Indonesia. It further examines the role ‎of accounting practices as a bridge for collaboration between local performing art ‎communities and regional governments in promoting cultural sustainability. This study ‎employed a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design. The quantitative phase involved ‎‎150 respondents from Bantengan communities across three regions: Malang City, Batu City, ‎and Malang Regency. A case study approach was used to explore contextual dynamics in ‎financial reporting practices and institutional collaboration between communities and local ‎governments. The data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) via ‎WarpPLS. The study found that only FA had a significant direct effect on the sustainability ‎of Bantengan; the two other variables, FRT and FM, showed no direct impact. The mediating ‎role of local government was found to be statistically weak. The accounting practices ‎performed by the Bantengan communities, despite their role in maintaining transparency and ‎trust among members, remain informal and are not yet utilized as formal instruments of ‎collaboration. In practice, local government policies are needed to encourage the ‎implementation of participatory financial reporting systems that are appropriate to the cultural ‎and institutional context of traditional arts communities. This study provides a novel ‎perspective on how socially grounded accounting practices based on local cultural values can ‎support the sustainability of traditional performing arts. It emphasizes the need for integrated ‎approaches that bridge community-based accounting systems with inclusive public policy ‎frameworks for cultural heritage preservation‎.