The Impact of Performance Audit on Public Sector Organizations: The Case of Estonia

The legitimacy of audit technologies is inevitably linked to a knowledge base. Even though it has been pointed out that the agreements on how to measure and verify certain operations are only temporal, empirical studies on change in audit are rare. This paper reports a detailed empirical study of change in performance audit within social services in Sweden. The paper complements previous research since this paper is not about making new things auditable but about challenging existing technologies within a field. We observe how the new ‘sharp’ control‐based model – realized through measures of prioritizing, focusing and standardizing – was related to new demands on ‘facts’ about the audit object. The effect was that many things in this new situation became unauditable; they audited more, but actually scrutinized less. The paper also contributes to existing literature on the role of ‘sharp’ control‐based audit in the social sector. With a ‘soft’ and ‘fuzzy’ object, as is often the case in many parts of the public sector, it is difficult to produce hard, convincing evidence that holds true in different settings.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transforming social sector auditing – they audited more, but scrutinized less

Kastberg

Österberg

2017

“…Since Van Loocke and Put () conducted their review, several other empirical impact studies have been published, including Morin (, ), Raudla, Taro, Agu, and Douglas (), Reichborn‐Kjennerud (), Reichborn‐Kjennerud and Johnsen (), and Torres et al. ().…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Supreme audit institutions in a high‐impact context: A comparative analysis of performance audit in four Nordic countries

Johnsen¹,

Reichborn-Kjennerud²,

Carrington

et al. 2019

Self Cite

This article analyses survey data regarding the impact of supreme audit institutions’ (SAIs) performance audit on public administration in four Nordic countries. Regression analysis with pooled data from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden indicates that performance audits have positive impacts on usefulness, changes, improvements and, to some extent, accountability, as perceived by auditees who have experienced the audits. The results show that some of the factors that earlier research found important for the impact of performance audits in some countries were insignificant for all the four Nordic countries, but that SAIs’ legitimacy, audit quality and consequences of media attention were important factors.

“…Following are a few points on the operationalization of “impact.” In this article, impact is measured as the number of recommendations that is implemented by the actor. Other research has taken a similar approach (e.g., Hatherly & Parker, ; Kostadinova, ; Milgrom & Schwartz, ; Morin, ; Raudla, Taro, Agu, & Douglas, ; Torres, Yetano, & Pina, ; Weets, ). At the same time, Pollitt et al.…”

Section: Methodology and Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of supreme audit institutions and ombudsmen in Belgium and The Netherlands

Acker

Bouckaert

2018

This article investigates the impact of the audit and ombud process on the implementation of recommendations made by supreme audit institutions and ombudsmen in Belgium and the Netherlands. Based on previous findings, the focus lies on influential internal and external factors in determining the effectiveness of the audit and ombud investigations. The article concludes that the impact of the process and factors often mentioned in the literature are less significant than found in other research. Political factors, such as coalition agreements and politicians trying to save face, seem to be much more influential in explaining the implementation rate.