Does organizational design of supreme audit institutions matter? A cross-country assessment

Blume, Lawrence E.; Voigt, Stefan

doi:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2010.07.001

Cited by 101 publications

(128 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

112

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Some studies indicate positive but modest impact of performance audit on public administration (Morin, ; Raudla, Taro, Agu, & Douglas, ), the public debate (Reichborn‐Kjennerud, ) and the implementation of the auditors’ recommendations in some countries (Acker & Bouckaert, ). Other studies question its functioning, especially in the Napoleonic, court system (Blume & Voigt, ; Morin, ; Torres, Yetano, & Pina, ). Yet, other studies indicate positive impacts for accountability and usefulness (Reichborn‐Kjennerud, ), making changes (Reichborn‐Kjennerud & Johnsen, ) and improvement for the public administration (Reichborn‐Kjennerud & Vabo, ), at least in some countries.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evaluating audit, being a daunting research task, evidently poses challenging issues regarding research methods. Most studies have used surveys of auditees in individual countries measuring perceived impacts (see, for example, Morin, ; Reichborn‐Kjennerud, ). Many have used interviews of auditees (for example, Pierre & Licht, ) and some have combined surveys with interviews (Abu Hasan et al., ) or conducted interviews of auditors (Lapsley & Pong, ; Pierre & Licht, ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Public sector audit in contemporary society: A short review and introduction

Johnsen

2019

Financ Acc Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article gives a short review of recent research on public sector audit, and then introduces six articles in a special issue on public sector audit in contemporary society. Many countries have developed their audit institutions and expanded the audit activities in particular since the 1980s. New public management and the theory of the ‘audit society’ explain much of this development well, also in some international organizations, but some countries have also experienced a contraction in the audit activities in the public sector. Moreover, literature on public sector audit outside the Anglo‐American and North European contexts, and especially from Africa, Asia and Latin‐America, is limited. There are big variations in how audit institutions are organized, in what they produce, in their relations to stakeholders and media, and in their impacts on organizations and society. Overall, auditors are little active in the fight against corruption, and the Napoleonic court system for organizing supreme audit institutions seems to be little effective. The audit institutions in the Anglo‐American and Nordic accountability regimes seem to be relatively effective, but the recent research show that auditors' independence and relevance are persistent challenging issues in public sector audit.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Public sector audit in contemporary society: A short review and introduction

Johnsen

2019

Financ Acc Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Jurisdictional systems traditionally focus on compliance, with detailed rules and regulations, but there is often less focus on wider financial management issues relating to the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness (the three e's) of expenditure (Blume & Voigt, ). In the jurisdictional model, the SAI is a court and its members are judges who can impose penalties or corrections on audited officials who are normally held personally liable for the sums involved should an unauthorized or illegal payment be made.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Juggling between ex‐ante and ex‐post audit in Greece: A difficult transition to a new era

Kontogeorga

2018

Int J Auditing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Supreme audit institutions (SAIs) contribute decisively to the quality and efficiency of financial management in each country. Over the last few years, SAIs have adopted new approaches to government auditing, which has led to a fundamental change of the public finances control model. However, the Hellenic Court of Audit still follows a traditional model of preventive audit in almost all transactions of public entities without parallel performance audit. This paper looks at which audits are deemed effective by auditors and auditees. The research result shows that both categories converge on the view that the existing system needs to be modernized, despite difficulties that seem to delay progress. This article will be relevant to other SAIs that are in a transitional period.

show abstract

“…However, the experiment found no effect on the quality of publicly provided preventive and primary health care services, measured using client satisfaction surveys, nor on local compliance with national guidelines for the conditional cash transfer program Bolsa Família, measured in terms of beneficiary recruitment and enforcement of conditionalities. Additional evidence suggests the effectiveness of SAIs may be moderated by organizational features [23–26], and the degree of electoral competition in the polity [27]. These determine the objectivity, independence, and autonomy of the SAI.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do federal and state audits increase compliance with a grant program to improve municipal infrastructure (AUDIT study): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

O¹,

García²

2014

BMC Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundPoor governance and accountability compromise young democracies’ efforts to provide public services critical for human development, including water, sanitation, health, and education. Evidence shows that accountability agencies like superior audit institutions can reduce corruption and waste in federal grant programs financing service infrastructure. However, little is know about their effect on compliance with grant reporting and resource allocation requirements, or about the causal mechanisms. This study protocol for an exploratory randomized controlled trial tests the hypothesis that federal and state audits increase compliance with a federal grant program to improve municipal service infrastructure serving marginalized households.Methods/DesignThe AUDIT study is a block randomized, controlled, three-arm parallel group exploratory trial. A convenience sample of 5 municipalities in each of 17 states in Mexico (n=85) were block randomized to be audited by federal auditors (n=17), by state auditors (n=17), and a control condition outside the annual program of audits (n=51) in a 1:1:3 ratio. Replicable and verifiable randomization was performed using publicly available lottery numbers. Audited municipalities were included in the national program of audits and received standard audits on their use of federal public service infrastructure grants. Municipalities receiving moderate levels of grant transfers were recruited, as these were outside the auditing sampling frame – and hence audit program – or had negligible probabilities of ever being audited. The primary outcome measures capture compliance with the grant program and markers for the causal mechanisms, including deterrence and information effects. Secondary outcome measure include differences in audit reports across federal and state auditors, and measures like career concerns, political promotions, and political clientelism capturing synergistic effects with municipal accountability systems. The survey firm and research assistants assessing outcomes were blind to treatment status.DiscussionThis study will improve our understanding of local accountability systems for public service delivery in the 17 states under study, and may have downstream policy implications. The study design also demonstrates the use of verifiable and replicable randomization, and of sequentially partitioned hypotheses to reduce the Type I error rate in multiple hypothesis tests.Trial registrationControlled-trials.com Identifier ISRCTN22381841: Date registered 02/11/2012Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-912) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

Does organizational design of supreme audit institutions matter? A cross-country assessment

Cited by 101 publications

References 16 publications

Public sector audit in contemporary society: A short review and introduction

Public sector audit in contemporary society: A short review and introduction

Juggling between ex‐ante and ex‐post audit in Greece: A difficult transition to a new era

Do federal and state audits increase compliance with a grant program to improve municipal infrastructure (AUDIT study): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About