The Auditing of Public Policy and the Politics of Auditing: The U.S. GAO and Israel's State Comptroller

Grasso, Patrick G.; Sharkansky, Ira

doi:10.1111/0952-1895.00149

Cited by 22 publications

(29 citation statements)

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“…This is mainly attributed to a number of factors, including involvement of an external auditor in policy development, lack of clear evaluation criteria and the political sensitivity of such an audit focus (Broadbent and Laughlin, 2003;Grasso and Sharkansky, 2001). More importantly, for an external audit to contribute to accountability, requires, among other things, effective implementation of the audit recommendations.…”

Section: Prior Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

External auditing and accountability in the Tanzanian local government authorities

Mzenzi

Gaspar

2015

Managerial Auditing Journal

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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.

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Section: Prior Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

External auditing and accountability in the Tanzanian local government authorities

Mzenzi

Gaspar

2015

Managerial Auditing Journal

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“…In practice, SAI independence has to be judged in terms of degrees (Ahlbäck, 1999;Gendron and Cooper, 2001;Grasso and Sharkansky, 2001;Power, 1997). Since SAIs are part of the state apparatus, they can never be completely independent from government.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Evaluating the degree of SAI independence empirically, it is useful to distinguish between organisational and functional independence (Grasso and Sharkansky, 2001;Power, 1997 With respect to what areas to audit, the standard today is to rely on risk-based sampling.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Institution Building with Limited Resources: Establishing a Supreme Audit Institution in Rwanda

Isaksson

Bigsten

2012

World Development

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Abstract:This study is about institution building with limited resources. Through a case study of the establishment of a supreme audit institution (SAI) in Rwanda, we examine the tensions between institutional first-best benchmarks and local operational constraints in a developing country institution-building process. More specifically, our aim is to investigate the potential tradeoffs between the programmatic ideal of SAI independence and operational constraints in terms of staff capacity in the development of a supreme audit oversight function in Rwanda.Drawing on data from document studies and key informant interviews, the empirical results suggest that capacity constraints -within the institution as well as among its major stakeholdersnegatively affect important aspects of SAI functional independence, but also that there are arguments for compromising the programmatic ideal of SAI independence in order to effectively tackle operational constraints in terms of staff capacity.JEL classification: D02, H83, O16, O55.

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“…(Grasso & Sharkansky, 2001), particularly as auditing is increasingly seen as the solution to an ever-widening range of public policy problems (Scott, 2003).…”

Section: Regulator Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regulatory requirements: the requirement to comply with restrictions imposed by law (Grasso & Sharkansky, 2001). …”

Section: Ra Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors Impacting the Adoption and Operation of Corporate Governance Reform in Australian State Government Departments

Ramage¹,

Armstrong²

2009

The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture, and Change Man

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Corporate governance reforms are increasingly common in public sector organisations.Despite the scope of recent and ongoing public sector change, the processes used to adopt and operate public sector corporate governance reform are not clearly documented. In some cases there is evidence of reform failure.This study sought to identify and describe the variables associated with corporate governance change in Australian state government departments, particularly the factors that impact on the adoption and operation of reform. Concepts associated with scientific management (rational/technocratic influences) and organisational culture (political/cultural influences), and their impact on change, were combined to produce a framework that was tested in two phases.Phase one focused on the collection of qualitative data relating to corporate governance reform in the Victorian Department of Human Services. The second phase involved the collection of quantitative data from chief executives and senior executives in all Australian state government departments. The qualitative data collected in phase one was used to validate the conceptual framework which was then further tested using quantitative methods during phase two.Phase one and two findings were consistent with the conceptual model. In particular, a factor analysis of phase two results identified the adoption of change being influenced by leadership capability; external improvement drivers; internal improvement drivers; organisational politics; the capacity of an organisation to interpret knowledge; and changes in an ii organisation's operating environment. The operation of reform was influenced by continuity of leadership; actions taken to embed change and build supportive attitudes to change; management of organisational politics; and the capacity of an organisation to understand change.The immediate implication of this research is the definition of a new model to manage corporate governance change. The rational/scientific and political/cultural factors identified by this project provide an integrated approach that can be drawn upon by change actors. It acknowledges the significance of the rational/scientific and political/cultural factors that come into play during corporate governance reform.This study has filled a gap relating to how public sector organisations go about making corporate governance changes and provides customised and practical recommendations for future corporate governance reforms in Australian state government departments. These include giving priority to corporate governance reform training (the research found that only around one in two senior officers had been trained in corporate governance reform) and further strengthening organisational leadership (leadership was identified as a critical factor at both the adoption and operation stages of corporate governance reform).This research provides new insight into understanding corporate governance change in an Australian public sector context and provides a model to more effectively manage...

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The Auditing of Public Policy and the Politics of Auditing: The U.S. GAO and Israel's State Comptroller

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

External auditing and accountability in the Tanzanian local government authorities

External auditing and accountability in the Tanzanian local government authorities

Institution Building with Limited Resources: Establishing a Supreme Audit Institution in Rwanda

Factors Impacting the Adoption and Operation of Corporate Governance Reform in Australian State Government Departments

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