The scope and intensity of policy transfer has increased in recent years as developing countries have drawn on public sector reform programmes based on new public management practices originally ...designed in western democracies. However, there is mounting evidence that to be successful, reform programmes must be adapted to local contexts. This article demonstrates that national government control of policy transfer can enable localisation which in turn enhances the effectiveness of public reforms. Analysis of the Position Classification System - which sought to enhance accountability, efficiency and professionalism in the civil service in Bhutan - highlights two conditions that enable domestic control of the policy transfer process: strong internal motivation for engaging in policy transfer and the establishment or adaptation of institutions to manage processes of policy transfer. We conclude that when these conditions apply, a developing country can engage in successful voluntary policy transfer and retain control of the process.
This paper reviews Nigeria’s experience with economic reforms and outlines major policy measures that have been implemented. The paper also addresses three main issues in the public sector of the ...Nigeria economy, namely, problems in the management of public expenditure, constraints in the implementation of policy reforms to overcome the management problems and prospects of successful implementation of policy reforms, it concludes that given the level of performance of the reform effort, its success may depend on the reform of the public sector financial reporting system by adopting an accounting system that is suitable for measuring performance.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This article examines organizational change in national ministries responsible for higher education in light of public sector reforms. The article suggests an analytical framework based on ...authority/autonomy and capacity developments, paying special attention to the creation of agencies. Empirically, this is exemplified by two cases: the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Research, and the Ministry of Education and Research in Norway, each in relation to two subordinate agencies. Both ministries initiated structural governance reforms for their national higher education systems in the early 2000s. The results of this study indicate that although similar intentions were driving the reforms in both countries, the way in which the ministries transformed was somewhat different. In Austria, the reduction in ministerial capacity, an absent agency structure, and increased institutional autonomy might have created a potential policy vacuum in system-level governance right after the new higher education law was introduced in 2002. In Norway, ministerial capacity remained stable, while central agencies experienced substantial capacity growth and influence.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the transparency and completeness of government financial reporting in sub-Saharan African countries by assessing the extent of compliance with IPSAS ...disclosures and to investigate the impact of the strength of public management systems (SPMS) and accounting education on this level.
Design/methodology/approach
This research develops a self-constructed disclosure index from content analysis and applies panel regressions for a sample of 60 sub-Saharan African government entities during the period 2014–2017.
Findings
The study results indicate that IPSAS disclosure levels significantly vary across sub-Saharan African governments. They reveal a positive effect of the SPMS and accounting education on the extent of compliance with IPSAS in this region.
Practical implications
The study findings are of interest to practitioners, researchers, government policy makers, supervisory authorities and professional bodies. By focusing on the effect of the SPMS and accounting education on IPSAS disclosure level, this paper leaves room for future research to investigate other relevant factors associated with the compliance with these standards whether in sub-Saharan Africa or in other parts of the world.
Originality/value
This paper gives new insights into the assessment of the quality and transparency of government financial reporting in sub-Saharan Africa by examining the extent of compliance with IPSAS in this region. It is the first to investigate the impact of the SPMS and accounting education on this level.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore inter-organizational interactions that might result in prolonged decoupling between central governments' ideas and local governments' practices during ...the reform of an institutional field (i.e. healthcare).Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a qualitative study of the centrally directed reform of the healthcare financing system in Ukraine and focusses on practices and reform ideas from 1991 to 2016.FindingsThe findings show that, for more than 25 years, local governments, as providers of healthcare services, faced two major problems associated with drawbacks of the healthcare financial system: line-item budgeting and fragmentation of healthcare funds. Over 25 years, central government's attempts to reform the healthcare financing system did not comprehensively or systematically address the stated problems. The reformers' ideas seemed to focus on creating reform agendas and issuing new laws, instead of paying attention to challenges in local practices.Practical implicationsThis article has two main points that are relevant for practitioners. First, it calls for greater involvement from local actors during all stages of public sector reforms, in order to ensure the relevance of developed reform strategies. Second, it points to potential challenges that central governments may face when conducting healthcare financing system reforms in transitional economies.Originality/valueThe paper's contribution is twofold: it outlines reasons for problematic implementation of healthcare financing system reform in Ukraine and explains them through a “reverse decoupling” concept.
The present paper argues that recent research on public sector reforms offers few contributions to the body of knowledge on this topic because it adds little to the conclusions drawn during the first ...generation of research in this area. Although these later studies have often been context-specific and have explored the details of the process of change in some depth, it is rather difficult to compare their results or to make reasoned judgements of the comprehensiveness and centrality of the analysed change. Although most public sector reforms that affect hospitals, schools or social services are initiated and designed by national governments, individual case studies of local administrations often fail to capture the generic traits of nationwide reforms. However, public sector change cannot be approached as if it comprises collections of nominally independent local events. The present paper argues for two new approaches to the study of public sector change: (i) the systematic categorization of the different forms of governmental intervention under study and (ii) analysis of the ways in which these forms of intervention are linked and interact. Based on extensive empirical research, this paper suggests a generic classification of these forms of intervention that can be used in empirical research on comprehensive public sector change. Consequently, five interventions in public sector organizations are suggested, namely political intervention, intervention by laws and regulations, intervention by audit and inspection, intervention by management and intervention by rationalizing professional practice. The model is particularly well suited to the longitudinal analysis of complex public sector reforms. This approach provides a conceptual tool to distinguish between interventions based on different forms of knowledge and to investigate how they are linked to each other vertically and horizontally. We demonstrate the usefulness of the model by analysing two empirical examples of reforms in which a variety of interventions were imposed at the local level, through legislation as well as a spectrum of voluntary measures proposed by government agencies, by national associations for local and regional councils and by other national or regional actors.
This study explores how public sector reform discourses are reflected in Russian central government budgeting. Through the lenses of institutional logics, Russian central government budgeting is ...considered to be a social institution that is influenced by rivaling reform paradigms: Public Administration, New Public Management (NPM), the Neo-Weberian State, and New Public Governance. Although NPM has dominated the agenda during the last decade, all four have been presented in "talks" and "decisions" regarding government budgeting. The empirical evidence illustrates that the implementation of management accounting techniques in the Russian public sector has coincided with and contradicted the construction of the Russian version of bureaucratic governance, which is referred to as the vertical of power. Having been accompanied by participatory mechanisms and a re-evaluation of the Soviet legacy, the reforms have created prerequisites for various outcomes at the level of budgeting practices: conflicts, as in the UK, and hybridization, as in Finland.
Governments have depended on public sector reforms to enhance accountability, openness, and effectiveness in government operations. This study aims to investigate whether the deployment of one of the ...products of such reforms namely the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) in Nigeria's public sector has resulted in timely salary payments and the avoidance of financial leakages. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) constitutes the theoretical basis of the study. This study uses mixed-method research design. The population of the study is 676 with a sample size of 251. Secondary and primary sources of data are used. The qualitative data are evaluated with descriptive evaluation, whereas the quantitative data are analysed with Chi-square. The study reveals that the introduction of IPPIS has resulted in prompt salary payments and the avoidance of financial leakages in Nigeria's Public sector. The report advocates that policy learning and the provision of relevant facilities, such as e-governance tools, help in the full implementation of IPPIS and improve government operations. The research contributes to the expanding body of research on public sector reform through e-governance.
Following a highly disordered series of reforms, Italian universities will adopt accrual accounting by the end of 2016. This article studies the case of two universities where the new accounting ...system was introduced early (2013). The aim is to identify the main drivers of resistance to change and determine the types of organizational behavior that can counter this resistance. The results show a positive correlation between overcoming resistance to change and implementing specific organizational practices that may soften its effect. Surprisingly, the article found that resistance was stronger in the university where the situation was less complex.
Corporate branding requires organizations to focus on uniqueness and differentiation. At the same time, public institutions must provide equal services in order to gain legitimacy. Hence, corporate ...branding in the public sector organizations has to handle two concerns simultaneously - securing legitimacy and building reputation. We examine this tension through interviews with communication managers in Norwegian hospitals. Despite large investments in techniques borrowed from corporate branding, the informants were reluctant to talk about branding. Instead, they were more oriented towards the universal character of their hospitals. Four explanations are put forward for why branding has an ambiguous position in Norwegian hospitals.
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