scholarly journals Transforming the public sector: 1998–2018

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (8) ◽  
pp. 2211-2252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irvine Lapsley ◽  
Peter Miller
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Interdisciplinary Studies ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Sector Research ◽  
Public Sector Research

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an evaluation of public sector research in the 1998–2018 period. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses the extant literature of this era to study the theorisation of, and the findings of, public sector research. Findings This is a vibrant field of a study in a wide range of study settings and with many interdisciplinary studies. The influence of new public management is pervasive over this period. There are numerous instances of innovations in study settings, in key findings and the approach taken by investigators. Research limitations/implications This is not a comprehensive review of all literature in this period. Practical implications This study also explored the relevance of academic research of this era to policymaking by governments. Originality/value This paper offers a distinctive critique of theorisation of public sector accounting research. It reveals the dominant theoretical reference points in use during this period and observes the increasing tendency for theoretical pluralism to investigate complex study settings.

scholarly journals Exploring past, present and future trends in public sector auditing research: a literature review

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgia Mattei ◽  
Giuseppe Grossi ◽  
James Guthrie A.M.
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Reforms ◽  
New Public

Purpose Public sector auditing research has changed rapidly over the past four decades. This paper aims to reveal how the field has developed and identify avenues for future research. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a structured literature review following Massaro et al. The sample comprises papers on public sector auditing published in accounting and public sector management journals between 1991 and 2020. Findings The present analysis highlights that academic research interest in public sector auditing has grown and become more diverse. The authors argue this may reflect a transformation of the public sector in recent decades, owing to the developing institutional logics of public sector reforms, from traditional public administration to new public management and now new public governance. Originality value This paper offers a comprehensive review of the public sector auditing literature, discussing different perspectives over time. It also outlines the various public sector reforms introduced over the period of the study. In reviewing the existing literature, the authors highlight the themes for future research and policy settings.

scholarly journals A register of public-sector research organizations as a tool for research policy studies and evaluation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedetto Lepori
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Evaluation Studies ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
Research Organizations ◽  
New Public ◽  
Public Sector Organizations ◽  
Public Sector Research

Abstract This article presents the conceptual and methodological design of a register of public-sector organizations, as well as a preliminary delineation of such organizations in Europe. Conceptual and methodological issues are discussed, as well as the potential usage of the register for interlining datasets and analysis. The significance of the register for research policy and evaluation studies is also discussed, as related with changes associated with New Public Management reforms.

scholarly journals Accounting and the post-new public management

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 255-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ileana Steccolini
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Accounting Research ◽  
Societal Relevance ◽  
New Public ◽  
Public Sector Accounting

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect various pathways for public sector accounting and accountability research in a post-new public management (NPM) context. Design/methodology/approach The paper first discusses the relationship between NPM and public sector accounting research. It then explores the possible stimuli that inter-disciplinary accounting scholars may derive from recent public administration studies, public policy and societal trends, highlighting possible ways to extend public sector accounting research and strengthen dialogue with other disciplines. Findings NPM may have represented a golden age, but also a “golden cage,” for the development of public sector accounting research. The paper reflects possible ways out of this golden cage, discussing future avenues for public sector accounting research. In doing so, it highlights the opportunities offered by re-considering the “public” side of accounting research and shifting the attention from the public sector, seen as a context for public sector accounting research, to publicness, as a concept central to such research. Originality/value The paper calls for stronger engagement with contemporary developments in public administration and policy. This could be achieved by looking at how public sector accounting accounts for, but also impacts on, issues of wider societal relevance, such as co-production and hybridization of public services, austerity, crises and wicked problems, the creation and maintenance of public value and democratic participation.

scholarly journals New public management and the rise of public sector performance audit

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 280-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee D. Parker ◽  
Kerry Jacobs ◽  
Jana Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
New Public ◽  
Performance Audit ◽  
Performance Auditing ◽  
Strong Control

Purpose In the context of global new public management reform trends and the associated phenomenon of performance auditing (PA), the purpose of this paper is to explore the rise of performance audit in Australia and examines its focus across audit jurisdictions and the role key stakeholders play in driving its practice. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a multi-jurisdictional analysis of PA in Australia to explore its scale and focus, drawing on the theoretical tools of Goffman. Documentary analysis and interview methods are employed. Findings Performance audit growth has continued but not always consistently over time and across audit jurisdictions. Despite auditor discourse concerning backstage performance audit intentions being strongly focussed on evaluating programme outcomes, published front stage reports retain a strong control focus. While this appears to reflect Auditors-General (AGs) reluctance to critique government policy, nonetheless there are signs of direct and indirectly recursive relationships emerging between AGs and parliamentarians, the media and the public. Research limitations/implications PA merits renewed researcher attention as it is now an established process but with ongoing variability in focus and stakeholder influence. Social implications As an audit technology now well-embedded in the public sector accountability setting, it offers potential insights into matters of local, state and national importance for parliament and the public, but exhibits variable underlying drivers, agendas and styles of presentation that have the capacity to enhance or detract from the public interest. Originality/value Performance audit emerges as a complex practice deployed as a mask by auditors in managing their relationship with key stakeholders.

scholarly journals Heritage reporting by the Australian public sector

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 612-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peir Peir Woon ◽  
Bikram Chatterjee ◽  
Carolyn J. Cordery
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Reporting Requirements ◽  
New Public ◽  
Proposed Model

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the future development of heritage reporting in Australia. Public sector reporting of heritage has been a long-standing issue, due to shortcomings in (sector-neutral) for-profit-based financial reporting standards. Australia’s sector-neutral approach does not meet public sector users’ information needs. The authors develop a heritage reporting model to balance community and other stakeholders’ interests and address prior critiques. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews heritage reporting requirements in Anglo-Western Countries, and analyses commentaries and research publications. It evaluates the existing reporting requirements in the context of new public management (which focusses on information and efficiency) and new public governance (NPG) (focussing on balancing interests and quality). Findings The paper proposes an NPG-based heritage reporting model which includes indicators of performance on the five UNESCO (1972) dimensions and operational guidelines issued by UNESCO (2015). These are identification, presentation, protection, conservation and transmission. The proposed model is consistent with the notion of US SFFAS 29 (the standard for Federal entities). Not all heritage must be capitalised and hence attachment of monetary value, but detailed disclosures are necessary. Research limitations/implications The authors expect the proposed heritage reporting model to better serve users of heritage information compared to the present Australian Accounting Standards Board 116: Property, Plant and Equipment. Originality/value The authors’ proposed model of heritage reporting attempts to answer Carnegie and Wolnizer’s (1995, 1999) six questions, addresses decades of concerns raised in previous literature and provides a new perspective to heritage reporting based on NPG that should better serve users’ needs.

scholarly journals The compassionate organisation

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poul Erik Flyvholm Jørgensen ◽  
Maria Isaksson
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Critical Time ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Uk

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test whether organisations in the public domain have embraced a corporate type of discourse, mirroring the private sector’s preferred orientation towards expertise, or whether they maintain their traditional discourse of goodwill towards the publics they serve. At a critical time for the public sector with inadequate funding and dominance of New Public Management approaches, will it be more motivated to portray itself as expert and efficient rather than altruistic? Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies a rhetorical framework to provide a detailed analysis of organisational value statements posted on the web sites of public and private organisations. The research considers the value priorities of 50 organisations in the UK and Scandinavia in order to gauge the extent of convergence between the two sectors’ preferred discourses. Findings – The research shows that the public sector sticks to its guns in maintaining a web-transmitted values discourse which forefronts goodwill towards its clients. It also shows that the public and private sectors take different approaches to goodwill. Originality/value – Strategists and communication specialists are encouraged to contemplate the extent to which their organisation’s projected web image equates their desired image to avoid alienating important public audiences and reinforce levels of trust. The current framework brings attention to the complex nature of goodwill and may be employed to better balance a discourse of organisational expertise against a discourse of goodwill in planning authentic value statements.

scholarly journals Creating public value through smart technologies and strategies

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 438-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Ignacio Criado ◽  
J. Ramon Gil-Garcia
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Public Value ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Management Paradigms ◽  
Smart Technologies ◽  
Societal Problems

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue about generation of public value through smart technologies and strategies. The key argument is that smart technologies have the potential to foster co-creation of public services and the generation of public value in management processes, based on the collaborative, social and horizontal nature of these smart technologies. Understanding these processes from a public management perspective is the purpose of this paper and the rest of the special issue. Design/methodology/approach The approach to this paper is a theoretical and conceptual review, whereas practical implications both for scholars and practitioners arise from the review of the literature and the conceptual approximation to the notion of smartness in technologies and government. This approach is rooted in the potential of the latest smart technologies and strategies to transform public administrations and to better understand and cope societal problems. Findings The conceptual and theoretical perspective of this paper offers ideas for future developments. The content of this paper shows that new smart technologies and strategies will shape, and will be shaped by, the future of public organizations and management. This paper illustrates the process of change in public value generation over time, as a result of different public management paradigms (from traditional public administration to new public management), but also different types of technologies (from mainframes to websites and social media and beyond). The empirical evidence of the articles of this special issue supports this conclusion; that open and collaborative innovation processes developed under this emergent technological wave could become encouraging transformative practices in the public sector. Research limitations/implications The theoretical and conceptual nature of this paper needs further empirical research to validate some of the discussed assumptions and ideas. Originality/value Although this paper is oriented to present the main contents of the special issue, it also provides an original approach to the theme of public value generation using smart technologies and strategies in public sector management.

Performance auditing and neoliberal governmentality: future research directions

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarek Rana ◽  
Dessalegn Getie Mihret ◽  
Tesfaye T. Lemma
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Neoliberal Governmentality ◽  
New Public ◽  
Concurrent Development ◽  
Performance Auditing ◽  
The Individual

Purpose This paper aims to interpret the role and professional issues of public sector performance auditing (PA) as a mechanism of neoliberal governmentality in the New Public Management (NPM) era by drawing on a Foucauldian conceptual lens to chart directions for future research. Design/methodology/approach The study uses the Foucauldian concepts of visibility and identity to interpret PA against the background of neoliberal imperatives of public sector management. Findings As the growing emphasis on PA in recent decades can be understood as driven by the concurrent development of neoliberal and NPM rationalities, the relatively underexploited concepts of visibility and identity allow further inquiry into important PA issues. This paper identifies avenues for future research under the following three themes: the issue of visibility in neoliberal governmentality and potential for auditors-general to expand the domain of influence of National Audit Offices through the PA role; the potential for PA as a unified distinct specialisation; and the neoliberal idea of professional identity as the individual expert and its interplay with the potential emergence of PA as a distinct function within the accounting profession. Research limitations/implications This conceptual paper is anticipated to stimulate future PA research. Key areas in this respect include the position and authority afforded to PA and the possibility of transformation in auditors’ conception of their professional worldview. Originality/value This paper charts direction for future research by interpreting PA using Foucauldian concepts of visibility and identity that remain to be exploited in PA research.

scholarly journals New public management a re-packaging of extant techniques?

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-429
Author(s):  
Martin Quinn ◽  
Liz Warren
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Investment Project ◽  
Content Type ◽  
New Public ◽  
Minimal Research ◽  
Similar Elements ◽  
Large Investment

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore, if, similar to other management initiatives, new public management may be a repackaging of already existent concepts. Emerging in the 1970s and 1980s as an innovative way to manage public sector elements, new public management affected both the ownership and management of public sector companies, services and utilities. Minimal research has been undertaken previously, using historic archival sources of public entities, to explore if elements of the concept originated prior to the 1970s. Design/methodology/approach This research draws on archival records from a publicly owned electricity company, covering about three decades from 1946, during which a large investment project was undertaken by the company. This study draws on key tenets of what is today called new public management, examining prior research to ascertain if similar elements were present in the case organisation. Findings When reviewing the progress of the investment project, many of the key elements of new public management emerged, even during the early part of the project. Originality/value There is little historical research on the origins of new public management, and the findings here suggest that it may not be entirely new. While this does not at all invalidate existing research, it suggests that new public management may be to an extent a repackaging of previously extant techniques. This opens up possibilities for future historic research in terms of how and why it was repackaged, and also what was/was not repackaged.

scholarly journals Intellectual heritages of post-1990 public sector accounting research: an exploration

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 2077-2110
Author(s):  
Hans-Jürgen Bruns ◽  
Mark Christensen ◽  
Alan Pilkington
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Accounting Research ◽  
Loosely Coupled ◽  
New Public ◽  
Public Sector Accounting ◽  
Cumulative Knowledge

PurposeThe article's aim is to refine prospects for theorising in public sector accounting (PSA) research in order to capture the methodological benefits promised by its multi-disciplinarity.Design/methodology/approachThe study primarily employs a bibliometric analysis of research outputs invoking New Public Management (NPM). Applying a content analysis to Hood (1991), as the most cited NPM source, bibliographic methods and citation/co-citation analysis for the period 1991 to 2018 are mobilised to identify the disciplinary evolution of the NPM knowledge base from a structural and longitudinal perspective.FindingsThe analysis exhibits disciplinary branching of NPM over time and its imprints on post-1990 PSA research. Given the discourse about origins of NPM-based accounting research, there are research domains behind the obvious that indicate disciplinary fragmentations. For instance, novelty of PSA research is found in public value accounting, continuity is evidenced by transcending contextual antecedents. Interestingly, these domains are loosely coupled. Exploring the role of disciplinary imprints designates prospects for post-NPM PSA research that acknowledges multi-disciplinarity and branching in order to deploy insularity as a building block for its inquiries.Research limitations/implicationsCriteria for assessing the limitations and credibility of an explorative inquiry are used, especially on how the proposal to develop cumulative knowledge from post-1990 PSA research can be further developed.Practical implicationsA matrix suggesting a method of ordering disciplinary references enables positioning of research inquiries within PSA research.Originality/valueBy extending common taxonomies of PSA intellectual heritages, the study proposes the ‘inquiry-heritage’ matrix as a typology that displays patterns of theorisation for positioning an inquiry within PSA disciplinary groundings.

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