If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution of external auditing to accountability in the Tanzanian local government authorities (LGAs). Design/methodology/approach -This paper uses content analysis of the external audit reports of the LGAs for the past ten years. Corroborative evidence was gathered through interviews with external auditors, councillors, Parliamentary Committee members and selected internal auditors of the LGAs. Findings -The study finds that external auditing had marginally contributed to the enhancement of accountability within the LGAs. This is mainly attributed to the limited scope and failure of the responsible officials to address audit recommendations. In the light of agency theory, the findings suggest that external auditing has not sufficiently enabled the stakeholders to hold LGAs' officials accountable. Practical implications -The findings indicate that external auditing can enhance accountability when the scope is widened to provide relevant information and also when audit recommendations are implemented by responsible officials. Originality/value -Most studies of external auditing and accountability have focussed on the developed countries; this is one of the few papers which explores the phenomenon in the context of emerging economies.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate performance measurement practices in the Tanzanian Local Government Authorities (LGAs). It seeks to understand the performance measurement practices in the context of new public management (NPM) (Hood, 1991(Hood, , 1995. Specifically, the paper focuses on the annual performance assessment (the local government development grant system), which operated in the Tanzanian LGAs as a base for accessing grants from the central government. Design/methodology/approach -The study executed a grounded theory strategy for data collection and analysis. Fieldwork was undertaken in three Tanzanian LGAs. Findings -The findings revealed how performance measurement practices were involved in the process of managing legitimacy, and consequently, in the acquisition of grants from the central government. Dialogue and learning about the performance measurement exercise and the production and manipulation of evidence were the two strategies employed by LGAs in the management of legitimacy. Practical implications -In practice, efficiency in organizations may be achieved through the appropriate design of systems, and by understanding, and addressing problems which emerge during their implementation. Learning is a significant strategy used by actors, and this needs to be taken into consideration by reformers when designing and implementing reforms. Originality/value -The paper contributes to existing research by providing a framework for managing legitimacy. The framework supports and extends Oliver's (1991) typology of strategic responses to institutional processes and Suchman (1995) legitimation strategies. It identifies dialogue and learning as other forms of significant strategy in actors responses to institutional pressures. The study also provides additional evidence of the responses to the accounting changes and the NPM reforms.

PurposeThe paper aims to investigate how the governance practices of public-sector entities (PSEs) in Tanzania are shaped by competing institutional logics and strategies used to manage the logics.Design/methodology/approachIn the paper, empirical evidence was gathered through documentary sources, non-participant observations and in-depth interviews with members of boards of directors (BoDs), chief executive officers (CEOs), internal and external auditors, senior executives and ministry officials. The data were analyzed using thematic and pattern-matching approaches.FindingsThe paper shows that bureaucratic and market logics co-exist and variations in governance practices within and across categories of PSEs. These are reflected in CEO appointments, multiple roles of CEOs, board member appointments, board composition, multiple board membership, board roles and evaluation of board performance. External audits also foster market logic in governance practices. The two competing logics are managed by actors through selective coupling, compromise, decoupling and compartmentalization. Despite competing logics, the bureaucratic logic remains dominant and is largely responsible for variations between the underlying logics and governance practices.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that public-sector reforms in emerging economies (EEs) must account for the fact that governance practices in PSEs are shaped by different institutional logics embedded in socioeconomic, political and organizational contexts and their corresponding management strategies.Originality/valueFew previous studies explicitly report relationships between institutional logics and the governance practices of PSEs in EEs. The current study is one of few empirical studies to connect competing institutional logics and the associated management strategies, as well as governance practices in EEs in the context of public-sector reforms.

This paper examines the interaction between auditing and the trust relationship between external auditors and members of management in the context of Tanzanian Local Government Authorities (TLGAs).The study employs an interpretive research methodology. The empirical data was gathered through in-depth interviews with the auditors and the members of management from the two TLGAs. Other sources of data included review of relevant documents and observation. The study found that trust relationship between the auditors and management play a crucial role in the auditing process. It has also revealed that both the auditors and members of management employed various strategies to manage mutual trust perceptions in the course of auditing. This influenced audit procedures as well as outcomes.The study contributes to the empirical auditing literature on trust, particularly in the context of public sector entities. The findings show that trust relationship between auditors and client's management is likely to influence efficiency in the auditing process.

This paper explores accountability in local government authorities (LGAs) in Tanzania from the perspectives of different stakeholders. The purpose was to examine the participants' understandings and practice of accountability in the context of the LGAs. The study used an interpretive methodology and data were gathered through in-depth interviews, documentary review, and observation particularly in meetings. The research involved five groups of participants, namely, the local and central government executives, councilors, external auditors, and members of the parliamentary committee responsible for the accounts of LGAs. The respondents described accountability in terms of relationships between parties, whereby one party has both specified and unspecified responsibilities and a duty to demonstrate discharge of the same to the other interested parties. Accountability was mainly associated with the power of the accountee to hold the accountor to account. Six typologies of accountability relationships were observed. These include subordinate-superior/managerial, executive-councilor, political, public, professional, and administrative. The study also found a tendency to pay more attention to the perceived 'sensitive accountees' and a poor sense of public accountability and accountability to councilors amongst the local government executives. The local government participants who were considered to play less important roles and/or were less powerful were perceived to have limited need for both accounting and other information related to the discharge of accountability. JEL Classification: H8341 http://www.iises.net/proceedings/43rd-international-academic-conference-lisbon/front-page