Impact of natural disaster on public sector corruption

This paper uses inter-country panel data from 1990 through 2010 to examine how the occurrence of natural disasters affects corruption within the public sector. For a closer analysis, disaster is classified into various categories, including general floods, other floods, tropical storms, other storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides. Furthermore, this paper explores whether natural disasters have different impacts on corruption levels in developed and developing countries. The study reveals a number of novel findings. (1) Natural disasters that cause substantial damage increase public sector corruption in both developing and developed countries. (2) Natural disasters have a greater impact on public sector corruption in developed countries than in developing countries. (3) In developed countries, natural disaster frequency has a significant impact on the level of corruption. Hence, foreseeable disasters increase corruption in general. In developed countries, an incentive may exist to live within disaster-prone areas because of the potential for disaster compensation payments.     

The impact of public sector accounting reform on corruption: Causal evidence from subnational Indonesia

It is widely believed that the adoption of quality public sector accounting practices can assist in reducing corruption. In theory, accounting reform, especially the shift from cash-to accrual-based methods, leads to the production of much improved financial information, which ultimately can be used by citizens to hold government more accountable and limit corruption. Empirical evidence from cross-country analyses appears to support the theoretical predictions. We investigate the impact of accounting practices on corruption among districts in Indonesia. We use external financial audits to measure the adoption of reforms and the number of corruption case court convictions as our proxy for corruption. We estimate Poisson regression models using instrumental variable techniques to identify the causal effects of adopting accrual-based accounting procedures on corruption. We show that the employment of improved accounting methods is strongly associated with declining corruption. However, after accommodating the endogeneity of accounting practices, we determine that reform adoption has no effect on corruption.     

Decentralisation and corruption: evidence from drinking water sector

This article presents empirical findings regarding the relationship between decentralisation of provision of water supply and corruption in provision of services. The current policy advice from the international agencies of aiming for decentralisation as an end in itself is questioned. The conventional wisdom that decentralisation brings management closer to the service recipients and is therefore likely to reduce corruption is also disputed. Drawing on a large database from two large Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the interaction between various actors is analysed. We find that the level of corruption in water supply agencies run by local governments is higher than that in the agencies run by the regional government. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Towards virtuous and ethical organisational performance in the context of corruption: A case study in the public sector

With the increasing number of ethical violations reported across the public sector, the emphasis on ethics and values in governance is on the rise. Corruption is widely accepted as a form of unethical behaviour that can have detrimental effects on organisations as well as society at large. Research calls for empirical studies focusing on the contextual factors surrounding corruption. Based on the Contextually Based Human Resource Theory and using the case study method, this paper examines the role of context through a systematic analysis of corruption in a public sector organisation. We integrate corruption and human resource literature to understand employee behaviour, employee relations, HRM strategies, and organisational outcomes in the context of organisational corruption.     

A socio‐cultural approach to public sector corruption in Africa: key pointers for reflection

The public sector of many African countries is notoriously corrupt; cultural inclinations and socialization processes largely have a tendency to lead public officials into actions that may amount to corrupt practices. Providing seven (7) key pointers for reflection, this study explores public sector corruption in African countries by examining the interplay between culturally acceptable norms and professional expectations of public officials. The public official, by these two unparalleled expectations, tends to walk on a tight rope which often results in ethical dilemma and conflict of interest. The study adopts Riggs' prismatic‐sala model and uses the case of Ghana and traditional proverbs to explain the cultural context within which Ghanaian public official ought to operate. How can one combine these cultural expectations with professionalism? To what extent does the ‘collectivity culture’, ‘culture of gift giving and acceptance’, ‘extended family system’, ‘ethnic loyalty’ and ‘unfettered respect of the aged’ downplay professional bureaucratic and ethical principles? Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public sector corruption and major earthquakes: A potentially deadly interaction

Recent studies have identified various negative effects of public sector corruption. We add to these by considering the association between corruption and deaths due to major earthquakes. After developing a brief theoretical model of the relation between these two variables we test the proposition by analyzing 344 quakes occurring between 1975 and 2003. The empirical model takes into account the endogeneity of corruption and controls for factors, such as earthquake frequency, magnitude, distance from population centers, and a country’s level of development which influence quake destructiveness. The results indicate that public sector corruption is positively related to earthquake deaths.     

Public sector unions and public spending

This study examines the influence of public sector unions on the expansion of the public sector. Based on public goods theory, our paper models how unions influence the supply of and demand for public sector activities. On the demand side, public sector unions are special interests which advocate public sector expansion to policy makers; on the supply side, they exert pressure to maintain and expand monopoly powers. Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that a positive relationship exists between public sector unionism and public spending.     

Public employees and public sector reform implementation

Conventional wisdom says that reforms that aim at improving the productivity of the public sector face opposition from public sector employees, and for this reason, tend to be poorly implemented. These claims are not backed by much hard evidence. This paper seeks to fill some of that gap by investigating why an educational reform containing explicit accountability elements is poorly implemented across Norwegian municipalities about four years after the reform has passed the parliament. The empirical analyses provide evidence that municipalities with a large share of public employees are less likely to implement the reform. The relationship seems to be causal. A reduced-form approach is applied, which prevents conclusions about the mechanisms through which the public employees exercise their influence. However, some preliminary analyses indicate that school leaders hold more negative attitudes towards the reform in municipalities with a large share of public employees, potentially indicating that regulatory capture is an issue: school leaders tend to sympathize more strongly with teachers in such environments.     

Controllership in the public sector.

Ineffective or incompetent controllership is, perhaps, the most common managerial failure found in the public sector. This failure affects outcomes and achievements in every area of public policy--often profoundly. Controllers design and operate management control systems. The effectiveness of alternative control system designs depends upon the cost and production behavior of the good or service in question. But control strategies are seldom consciously or effectively matched to circumstances. As a consequence, public programs are too often simultaneously overcontrolled and out of control.     

Explaining the size of the public sector

This paper aims at providing an explanation for the size of the public sector based on the idea of “social insurance”. The main assumption made is that the public sector is less efficient but also less volatile than the private sector. The “demand-driven” level of the public sector that is derived as the one that maximizes the utility of the representative employed consumer depends positively on the variance of private output. An increase in the size of the public sector has a positive effect on expected employment and a negative effect on expected consumption. The size of the public sector set by the government which maximizes the probability of being re-elected will be higher than the “demand-driven” level if voters' preferences for employment is higher than the consumption loss associated with public employment.     

The twin faces of public sector design

Design thinking has become a popular approach for governments around the world seeking to address complex governance challenges. It offers novel techniques and speaks to broader questions of who governs, how they govern, and the limits of rational instrumentalism in policy making. Juxtaposing design thinking with an older tradition of policy design, this article offers the first critical analysis of the application of design thinking to policy making. It argues that design thinking does not sufficiently account for the political and organizational contexts of policy work. Design thinking also errs in universally privileging one particular policy style over others, and fails to account for the reality of policy mixes. Despite these deficiencies, it is argued that design thinking can inform and enrich governance by helping policy designers produce more adaptable designs, better appreciate the behavioral dynamics of public sector design, and leverage networked approaches to social problem solving.     

The provocative public sector: Domestic political protest and public sector growth in the OECD, 1965–1982

The results shown in Tables 1 through 8 above are consistent in that %GG is repeatedly shown to be significant whether making cross-national comparisons of DPP or predicting intra-national variations over time. Therefore, Hypotheses 1a and 1b are confirmed. The confirmation of Hypotheses 2a and 2b shows that, taking into account public sector size, government growth is most provocative in countries where it represents a major socio-economic change (i.e., where the public sector is small). Government growth has a neutral impact where the role of the public sector is long-established (i.e., where the public sector is large).Hypotheses 3a and 3b posited that average and annual rates of economic growth would be inversely associated with domestic protest. These hypotheses, too, were confirmed. The belief that economic growth rates would clearly provide the margin of affordability for public sector growth was not confirmed, as the coefficient of the interaction term (%GG*%GDP) was not statistically significant.     

Australia's Northern Territory perspectives of public sector reform

This article analyses the forces driving reform of the Northern Territory Public Sector over the past 20 years. It spans an era in which the NT, a ‘small State’ moved from colonial-style dependency on external governments to self-government, with corresponding shifts in the public service. Included is an analysis of the demise of old civil service traditions and their replacement with modern methods of policy development and implementation. It scrutinizes the impact of politicians and politics on the public sector. It examines new legislation currently governing the public sector and the role played by the Public Service Commissioner in leading the reform movement through all its stages—from the analysis of weaknesses in earlier legislation to the passage of new legislation which encapsulates the philosophy behind a modern and effective public sector. It looks at what subordinate legislation is needed by a public service to add substance to a primary Public Sector Employment & Management Act. It analyses the main functions of the Act and highlights the roles and relationships of politicians with the Public Service Commissioner and the Chief Executive Officers of various government departments. Finally, it attempts to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the Act after three years of operation. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

The meaning of strategy in the public sector

Strategic management remains under-theorised in the public sector, because the issues it raises straddle three distinct but related fields of analysis—the political, the policy-related and the managerial. At the theoretical level, making progress requires teasing out all three potential dimensions of the term. In the practical sense, there is a need to define a roomier organisational 'space' (and time frame) within which strategy can be formulated.
The article argues for a more ambitious conceptualisation of the place of strategic thinking in the public sector, one that combines the agency's need to sustain its position in its bureaucratic and political environment, with the 'strategic conversation' that is needed to link the political and the bureaucratic executives.     

Training and public sector reform: an integrated approach

This article is partly a response to McCourt and Sola ( 1999 ), who raised a number of important observations about the role and limitations of training in promoting public sector reform in Tanzania. In particular, their discussion of the relationship between individual and organizational change is referred to. The article outlines a possible alternative to the straight training approach to capacity building, and suggests it as a possible model for the kind of OD intervention mentioned in McCourt and Sola, The author describes a programme of capacity building for rural district councils in Zimbabwe, which tried to avoid the mistakes of earlier public sector training programmes. In discussing ways of integrating human resource development into programmes of capacity building and public sector reform, the article adds to the debate about process and blueprint approaches as discussed in this journal by Cook, ( 1997 ), Blunt ( 1997 ) and others. The article concludes with an attempt to assess some of the achievements and failures of the training programme after the initial three years. It draws attention to some of the external factors in the programme operating environment which combine with the internal coordination and management aspects, in determining the overall achievement of such a complex programme. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Deteriorating public and private sector relations in Central America

The Central American countries are divided by profound political differences. Yet surprising similarities exist in the changing relations between the public and private sectors. Throughout the region, public and private sectors lock into a vicious circle. The inability of the state to provide order and social harmony creates disincentives for the private sector to invest or even to continue existing levels of production. The government responds by increasing its responsibilities at the expense of the private sector. In doing so it assumes risks the private sector refuses, but further alienates the private sector nonetheless.