Tiền là Tiên là Phật: Investigating the persistence of corruption in Vietnam

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anh Dao Vu
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
The Public

<p>This research aims to examine the persistence of corruption in the public sector in Vietnam and explain why anti-corruption measures have been unsuccessful. It seeks to capture people’s lived experience of corruption in Vietnamese society and their perception of the failure of anti-corruption measures. It demonstrates what government officials and ordinary citizens think about corrupt practices and how they explain corrupt behaviour. The research also draws a clearer picture of Vietnam’s anti-corruption system, the weaknesses of the Anti-Corruption Law (ACL) and its implementation, from insiders’ perspectives. The research illuminates some factors identified in the literature that need to be better understood when dealing with corruption: historical, cultural, economic, administrative and political factors.  This project situated Vietnam’s anti-corruption strategy within Jon Quah’s analytical framework, which identifies elements he argues are needed for an effective anti-corruption strategy in any country. Those elements include a set of formal, legal, and institutional instruments, and the need for political will, especially from governmental leaders.  A qualitative approach is applied to examine corruption in the public sector in Vietnam. The main data was gathered by in-depth, semi-structured interviews and from official documents. Different groups of participants - specialists in the anti-corruption field including politicians, high-ranking government officials, journalists, academics, international organisations, and NGOs - were interviewed. Vietnamese citizens also were interviewed; all had experienced corruption in their daily life.  The findings suggest an institutional anti-corruption framework, while necessary, cannot adequately deal with the multi-factor causes of corruption in Vietnam. Moreover, “political will” is not only about providing Anti-Corruption Agencies with enough resources, nor about their institutional arrangements, but also about politicians being willing to support the institutions they have created and to reinforce their effectiveness by making hard political decisions. The essential elements of political will in fighting corruption involve not only the institutional framework (the top-down approach) but also society as a whole (the bottom-up approach).  The thesis concludes that corruption in the public sector in Vietnam is the product of a complex mix of state institutions, elite political behaviour, social, cultural, economic and management factors. These are at the root of the corruption problem in the country, but they have not been seriously addressed. The current anti-corruption system needs to be reformed if it is to become more effective. Policy attention also needs to shift to the design of effective incentives for the populace to resist succumbing to bribe demands. This “citizen resistance” will, in fact, make governments more accountable for taking effective action against both grand and petty corruption.</p>

Tiền là Tiên là Phật: Investigating the persistence of corruption in Vietnam

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anh Dao Vu
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
The Public

<p>This research aims to examine the persistence of corruption in the public sector in Vietnam and explain why anti-corruption measures have been unsuccessful. It seeks to capture people’s lived experience of corruption in Vietnamese society and their perception of the failure of anti-corruption measures. It demonstrates what government officials and ordinary citizens think about corrupt practices and how they explain corrupt behaviour. The research also draws a clearer picture of Vietnam’s anti-corruption system, the weaknesses of the Anti-Corruption Law (ACL) and its implementation, from insiders’ perspectives. The research illuminates some factors identified in the literature that need to be better understood when dealing with corruption: historical, cultural, economic, administrative and political factors.  This project situated Vietnam’s anti-corruption strategy within Jon Quah’s analytical framework, which identifies elements he argues are needed for an effective anti-corruption strategy in any country. Those elements include a set of formal, legal, and institutional instruments, and the need for political will, especially from governmental leaders.  A qualitative approach is applied to examine corruption in the public sector in Vietnam. The main data was gathered by in-depth, semi-structured interviews and from official documents. Different groups of participants - specialists in the anti-corruption field including politicians, high-ranking government officials, journalists, academics, international organisations, and NGOs - were interviewed. Vietnamese citizens also were interviewed; all had experienced corruption in their daily life.  The findings suggest an institutional anti-corruption framework, while necessary, cannot adequately deal with the multi-factor causes of corruption in Vietnam. Moreover, “political will” is not only about providing Anti-Corruption Agencies with enough resources, nor about their institutional arrangements, but also about politicians being willing to support the institutions they have created and to reinforce their effectiveness by making hard political decisions. The essential elements of political will in fighting corruption involve not only the institutional framework (the top-down approach) but also society as a whole (the bottom-up approach).  The thesis concludes that corruption in the public sector in Vietnam is the product of a complex mix of state institutions, elite political behaviour, social, cultural, economic and management factors. These are at the root of the corruption problem in the country, but they have not been seriously addressed. The current anti-corruption system needs to be reformed if it is to become more effective. Policy attention also needs to shift to the design of effective incentives for the populace to resist succumbing to bribe demands. This “citizen resistance” will, in fact, make governments more accountable for taking effective action against both grand and petty corruption.</p>

Leadership of change in South Africa public sector turnarounds

2018 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mampe Kumalo ◽  
Caren Brenda Scheepers
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
Organisational Change ◽  
Director General ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Financial Consequences

PurposeOrganisational decline has far-reaching, negative emotional and financial consequences for staff and customers, generating academic and practitioner interest in turnaround change processes. Despite numerous studies to identify the stages during turnarounds, the findings have been inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to address the gap by defining these stages, or episodes. The characteristics of leaders affect the outcome of organisational change towards turnarounds. This paper focusses, therefore, on the leadership requirements during specific episodes, from the initial crisis to the full recovery phases.Design/methodology/approachA total of 11 semi-structured interviews were conducted with executives from the public sector in South Africa who went through or were going through turnaround change processes and 3 with experts consulting to these organisations.FindingsContrary to current literature in organisational change, this study found that, in these turnaround situations, leadership in the form of either an individual CEO or director general was preferable to shared leadership or leadership distributed throughout the organisation. This study found four critical episodes that occurred during all the public service turnarounds explored, and established that key leadership requirements differ across these episodes. The study shows how these requirements relate to the current literature on transactional, transformational and authentic leadership.Practical implicationsThe findings on the leadership requirements ultimately inform the selection and development of leaders tasked with high-risk turnaround change processes.Originality/valueFour episodes with corresponding leadership requirements were established in the particular context of public sector turnaround change processes.

Accrual Basis Landscape: The Absence of Political Will in Preventing Dysfunctional Behaviour in Indonesia

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 77-83
Author(s):  
Syarifuddin Syarifuddin
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Accrual Accounting ◽  
The Public ◽  
Creative Accounting ◽  
Critical Phenomenology ◽  
Accrual Basis

Objective - This research aims to reveal the failure of accrual accounting to create good governance and clean government in local governments in Indonesia. Additionally, the research seeks to examine the increase in accrual based rapid growth in Indonesia and the instance of corruption among government officials. Methodology/Technique - In connection with this objective, the study explains the practical perspective of political intervention during the adoption of accrual accounting and examines the role of the community in the implementation of accrual accounting using a critical phenomenology method. Findings - The findings of this study show that accrual-based accounting encourages deviant behaviour within the public sector and hence, good governance and clean government cannot be achieved. Accrual basis in this regard becomes a means for actors to conceal fraud by exploiting the weaknesses of accrual-based accounting to allow for creative accounting. Novelty - This study uses a qualitative method to describe the implementation of accrual-based accounting in local governments in Indonesia, which is a new approach to this phenomenon. Type of Paper: Empirical Keywords: Accrual; Accounting; Public Sector; Good Governance; Clean Government; Indonesia. JEL Classification: M10, M14, M19

Managing E-Governance

2013 ◽  
pp. 204-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianluca Misuraca ◽  
Gianluigi Viscusi
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Value Drivers ◽  
Digital Innovation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Digital Governance ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Practical Recommendations

This chapter presents and discusses the application of an analytical framework for managing digital innovation initiatives in the public sector. The chapter positions e-Government and digital innovation initiatives in the public sector within the broader framework of e-Governance (i.e. governance aided by ICT). It first introduces the conceptual framework on which the discussion is based, and then proposes a higher order conceptualization of the relationship between e-Governance and its underpinning value drivers of performance, openness and inclusion. In particular, the analysis focuses on the role that these value drivers plays in the enactment of digital governance initiatives such as the ones related to open government and smart cities. To this end, the chapter discusses its application to initiatives carried out in Barcelona and Tallinn. A typology of e-Governance ‘attitudes’ is then identified to provide evidence of further specific interventions required for an appropriate management of similar initiatives in other countries. The chapter concludes by highlighting the policy implications for administrative reform and offering practical recommendations for implementing digital governance initiatives.

Integrated reporting and change: evidence from public universities

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Iacuzzi ◽  
Andrea Garlatti ◽  
Paolo Fedele ◽  
Alessandro Lombrano
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Integrated Reporting ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Creation Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
A Value ◽  
Service Logic ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The University

PurposeThis paper aims to set out the case for integrated reporting (IR) and its potential to lead to change in the public sector by examining it in practice and analyzing the challenges associated with its implementation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper investigates the role of IR in the public sector through the development of a theoretical framework applied to a case study focused on the University of Udine in Italy.FindingsIR can be considered more as an incremental than a groundbreaking transformation of existing arrangements and approaches. The analysis revealed that the vagueness, complexity and intrinsic discrepancy between the IR concept and its operationalization brought the University of Udine to challenge and debate the IR approach and ultimately, to reconceptualize and implement its own version that better fitted its strategic aims, its intended audience and its status as a public entity.Research limitations/implicationsThe application of the findings to other contexts should be further investigated, while the analytical framework should be applied to different settings and could be enriched to add knowledge and sharpen the paradigms of integrated thinking and value co-creation. Moreover, the interviews focused on people directly involved in the preparation of the integrated report, excluding other stakeholders. Further research could explore their perceptions of IR and focus on their understanding of the IR as well as the value co-creation process.Practical implicationsThe findings provide decision makers with insights about how IR can be promoted to enhance its impact on value co-creation. The key processes to be considered for a public organization are integrated thinking and value co-creation, while the key aspects to be investigated in an integrated report for the public sector are materiality and stakeholder engagement. Yet, the IR framework is missing indications on how to account for stakeholders' inputs, outputs and outcomes in a value co-creation process, which is fundamental in a public service logic.Originality/valueThe results shed further light on two fundamental phenomena in the public sector, namely, integrated thinking and value co-creation. The paper also answers the call for more empirical research on IR's rhetoric and practice and on its concrete role in the value creation process.

scholarly journals Managing divided loyalties in the emerging profession of community engagement

2019 ◽  
pp. 144078331987924
Author(s):  
Helen E Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Unique Role ◽  
The Public

Community engagement practitioners design, deliver, report and evaluate processes which invite the community to influence decision-making. It is a unique role, with practitioners serving two masters: the organisations that employ or contract them and the communities whose views they are engaged to elicit. In balancing these interests, practitioners experience a number of tensions in their work, and employ a variety of methods to address them. This article draws on a series of 20 semi-structured interviews with senior practitioners and finds that these tensions mainly relate to: the need to serve both the community and the engagement sponsor, their position in either the public sector or as a private consultants to the public sector, and the constraints and behaviours of public institutions. They way in which they manage these is relatively ad hoc, although it is often informed by principles and position.

Getting innovations out of interactions in the public procurement context

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (12) ◽  
pp. 2051-2065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Melander ◽  
Ala Pazirandeh Arvidsson
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Business Model ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Business Model Innovation ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Demand And Supply ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Product Service

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a seller can use interactions to respond to public procurement needs for innovation when the buying side is restricted by public procurement regulations. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected data using qualitative semi-structured interviews of different empirical examples, in which private–public interactions of four different high-technological products are studied. Two products belong to the defence industry and two to the civil industry. Findings The findings point to three types of innovations in public procurement: product, service and business model. The empirical examples further indicate, as suggested in previous studies, that innovation is hindered by regulations that limit interaction between suppliers and the public. In addition, the empirical examples indicate that firms mobilize actors in their network when the buyer is restricted in regard to interaction. The findings also add to the IMP literature by comparing interactions in the three types of innovations in the public procurement context. Originality/value Public procurement is an area where innovations are lagging behind, compared with private procurement. Research points to limited interaction between actors as an obstacle to innovation in public sector collaborations. This paper extends the literature on how organizations interact in the setting of public procurement. The authors identify demand and supply triggers for three types of innovations: product, service and business model innovation.

scholarly journals Enhancing Public Sector Productivity in Ghana: A Qualitative Study

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Kwame Asamoah ◽  
Alex Osei-Kojo ◽  
Emmanuel Yeboah-Assiamah
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Political Will ◽  
The Public ◽  
Regular Monitoring ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
Increase Productivity

In recent times, there have been calls on public sector workers to increase productivity in the public sector of Ghana. This comes against the backdrop that productivity in Ghana’s public sector appears to be consistently declining. While this seems to be the situation, it appears there is paucity of literature on the actual causes of productivity and how it can be improved in Ghana. Using secondary data and content analysis, this paper examines the phenomenon of low productivity in the public sector and recommends measures for improvement. Findings of the study revealed that poor remuneration systems in the public sector, political interference, and bureaucratic inertia are among the causes of low productivity in the public sector. The study recommended that public sector productivity could be enhanced through the establishment of a flexible bureaucracy, improvement in remuneration, regular monitoring and evaluation of the performance of the public sector and appointment of personnel based on merit. Political will as effective leadership are considered useful instruments to propel productivity in the public sector.

Sustaining the Future of the Public Sector: Insights into a Swedish Municipality’s Dealing with Knowledge Management and Succession Planning

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (02) ◽  
pp. 1650012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Durst ◽  
Guido Bruns
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Succession Planning ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Ageing Workforce ◽  
The Public ◽  
Analysis And Evaluation ◽  
Executive Staff

The ageing workforce soon leads to a number of retirements in government organisations that will put the knowledge basis at risk. Addressing this point the present study provides an analysis and evaluation of a Swedish municipality’s dealing with the aspects of knowledge management and succession planning against the background of demographic developments and the increased relevance of knowledge. It reports findings based on semi-structured interviews conducted with executive staff of the municipality. Results of data analysed show that the municipality is far from being ready to master the challenges ahead. To date the municipality follows a sporadic approach rather than a strategic and planned one when addressing the issue of succession planning. Indeed, the findings suggest that a muddling through approach prevails. Based on the findings some suggestions were derived that may help both municipalities facing similar circumstances as well as policy makers drafting suitable policies.

Political will and public will for climate-smart agriculture in Senegal

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric D. Raile ◽  
Linda M. Young ◽  
Adama Sarr ◽  
Samba Mbaye ◽  
Amber N.W. Raile ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Scaling Up ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Study Country ◽  
Smart Agriculture

Purpose Agriculture must transform as climate change progresses. The international community has promoted climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as a set of solutions. Previous analyses of opportunities for scaling up CSA have not looked closely at building political and social support for policies, practices and programs. The purpose of this paper is to fill that gap in the case study country of Senegal. Design/methodology/approach The study applies the conceptual definitions, operationalizations and assessment targets from the political will and public will (PPW) approach to social change. Semi-structured interviews and documents constitute the sources of data and information. Findings The analysis identifies opportunities to generate political will for supplying an enabling environment for the widespread adoption of CSA. On the public will side, the analysis identifies opportunities to generate and channel demand for CSA. Research limitations/implications Researchers investigated some definitional components more completely than others due to resource and access constraints. Further, the context specificity of the components limits generalizability of certain findings. Social implications Social structures may need to change for successful adoption of certain CSA innovations, but improved agricultural outcomes are likely to result. Originality/value This examination of crucial elements for scaling up CSA efforts constitutes the most extensive application of the PPW approach to date, thus providing an example of this generalizable method.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document