Search results for "Accountability"
showing 10 items of 146 documents
The Evaluation of Public Managers’ Performances in the Light of Italian Public Administration Reform
2011
One of the most important element in the analysis of public administration’s performances is the management. In fact it is the connection point between objectives (fixed at political level) and the system of outputs and outcomes, achieved by public personnel at different levels. This is the main reason why during the last decades, the reform of Italian public administration has concentrated on improving public action performances, by a regulation of public management and the connected introduction of two key words: autonomy and accountability. This means that managers should be endowed of greater autonomy in the execution of their managerial activities and, at the same time, they are fully …
When texts become action. The institutional circuit of early childhood intervention
2017
Building on ideals of social cohesion, equality of opportunities and socio-economic benefits, there has been an increasing awareness in Norway of kindergarten employees’ responsibility to initiate ...
University Rankings: The Many Sides of the Debate
2014
Abstract Within the context of bourgeoning institutions that rank higher education institutions, this paper examines the merits and demerits of university rankings and diverse ranking methodologies. It explores and presents recent developments and diversification of international rankings and highlights their general trend towards more broadly balanced and multidimensional criteria. The paper concludes that like any other complex endeavour, rankings have their pros and cons but the latter does not justify their abandonment. What is required is public education that builds a discerning user who can optimally gain from the use of rankings while avoiding their pitfalls. The original version of…
The effectiveness of rural versus urban nonprofit organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo
2017
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a country with high natural resources, but it has suffered from decades of civil wars and social turmoil, being heavily aid-dependent. In the DRC, several Nonprofit Organisations (NPOs) are major players in fighting poverty and enhancing welfare. This research aims to analyse the effectiveness of small NPOs in improving poor peoples’ lives through health, education, and economic activities. Two NPOs working in the DRC, one in a rural and the other in an urban area, are compared by researching the aid sites and surveying 201 households (aid beneficiaries). Our case observations and the survey results facilitate analysing the mission accomplishment, e…
Market trends in Spanish higher education
1997
Abstract Higher education in Spain broke away from its close dependency on the State in the last decade. In this paper we analyze the steps undertaken by the Spanish higher education system which has allowed market influences to grow in recent years. We analyze the historical framework and legal changes which have facilitated market trends in higher education. We consider the influence of these market trends on the financial and organizational structure of universities. We conclude that, though the steps are still hesitant, market-like elements are increasingly affecting every aspect of higher education life.
Can Auditors Be Independent? – Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Client Type
2012
Recent regulatory initiatives stress that an independent oversight board, rather than the management board, should be the client of the auditor. In an experiment, we test whether the type of client affects auditors’ independence. Unique features of the German institutional setting enable us to realistically vary the type of auditors’ client as our treatment variable: we portray the client either as the management preferring aggressive accounting or the oversight board preferring conservative accounting. We measure auditors’ perceived client retention incentives and accountability pressure in a post-experiment questionnaire to capture potential threats to independence. We find that the type …
Researching European Union Agencies: What Have We Learnt (and Where Do We Go from Here)?
2017
This review article, with a clear political science and public administration bias, takes stock of the existing literature on EU agencies and suggests a future research agenda. The article reviews studies on EU agencies' organization, tasks, proliferation and location in the political-administrative space. Whether the advent of EU agencies tends to underpin a basically intergovernmental, transnational or supranational order has potentially huge consequences for the distribution of power across levels of government, for the degree of policy uniformity and pooling of administrative resources across countries, for the role of genuinely European perspectives in the policy process, and for accou…
Visibility estimates of budgetary burden and benefit in European countries
2000
Intermediate territorial levels of government in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain are different regarding their basic institutions, devolved powers, revenue and public expenditure systems, public revenue equalization mechanisms, accountability, public performance management, and financial control bodies. In spite of the complexity derived from these different characteristics, this paper presents some indicators which permit the creation of time and space fiscal visibility measurements and comparisons. It also advances systematic estimates on visibility for intermediate subsystems of public revenue and expenditure now in force in these European countries. Policy implications seem str…
Budget burden and benefit visibility of European central level governments
2001
Central levels of government in European Union member countries are different regarding their basic institutions, powers, fiscal systems, accountability, public performance management, financial control bodies, and the like. In spite of this, the economic operation of such levels of government should be analyzed, evaluated, and compared from an efficiency viewpoint. This paper presents general indicators to systematically assess the burden and benefit visibility of public budgets of the International Monetary Fund member countries and specific estimates for the central subsystems of public revenue and expenditure now in force in such European countries. An important policy implication of th…
The EU's New Economic Governance Framework and Budgetary Decision‐Making in the Member States: Boon or Bane for Throughput Legitimacy?*
2021
The euro crisis has sparked changes in the EU's economic governance framework and a crisis of legitimacy across the union. While the institutional repercussions of the crisis have been studied before, the democratic impact at the national level has received much less attention. This paper aims to fill this gap, focusing on the procedural changes that the EU's new economic governance (NEG) framework has brought to national budgetary decision-making. Building upon the Varieties of Democracy framework, the paper adds empirical nuance and conceptual clarity to the notion of 'throughput legitimacy' and its components: openness, inclusiveness, transparency and accountability. Detailed case studie…