Analysis of Changes in External Accountability and Accounting in Privatized Industries: A Case Study of British Gas

This study investigates the consequences of regulation for organizational and accounting change in privatized industries by means of a case study of the gas industry, with particular emphasis on issues of accountability and the role of accounting information. The paper extends Stewart and Ranson's (1988) discussion of the distinctive conditions which apply to public and private sector organizations by highlighting an important interim phase in relation to privatized industries, where public service obligations coexist to varying degrees with private sector objectives. The extension of their framework of public and private sector models to include a new 'commercial' model provides the basis for an analytical framework encompassing the three cultures — that is, public service, commercial and competition — which is used to understand organizational change in the gas industry.     

Indirect Causes And Effects In Policy Change: The Brent Spar Case

This article discusses the occupation of an oil-related structure called the Brent Spar in the British sector of the North Sea by Greenpeace protesters in 1995. Shell intended to 'dump' the buoy in the deep North Atlantic. The aftermath of the occupation and associated publicity was a change of policy about the disposal of the Spar by Shell, Europe's largest multinational company. The article considers alternative explanations for policy change – most importantly the influential propositions by Baumgartner and Jones (1993). The general importance of their work means that the opportunity is taken to set out their themes at some length, but the particular case suggests that their notion of change stemming from a redefinition of the problem may only imperfectly fit sudden policy changes of the Brent Spar type. The article argues that their 'venue shopping' concept better illuminates the case – but the significant venue change was geographical – i.e. from Britain to Germany – rather than institutional – i.e. from a policy community to an issue network. The case study superficially accords with an influential body of literature in the 1980s and 1990s that sees outcomes as changing through the mobilization of a wider range of participants in issue networks, but it is argued that there is no automatic link between an expanded roster of participants and outcomes if the decisive decision-making power is retained in the original closed system. The case study suggests there can be an illusion of an issue network when the dominance of a policy monopoly is publicly challenged – but where decision-making power is retained among original participants.     

Cultural Aspects Of Europeanization: The Case Of The Scottish Office

This article takes an in-depth look at the cultural implications of membership of the European Union (EU) for a UK government department. As part of a broader examination of how Europeanization, in its various forms, has affected a range of Whitehall departments, Bulmer and Burch (1998) concluded that the cultural element of change in the UK has been limited in the sense that existing administrative traditions within government departments have not undergone any radical reorientation. The purpose here is to test the validity of these conclusions and in more general terms afford detailed consideration to an area of Europeanization which has tended to be neglected in the academic discourse. This is achieved by way of employing interview and documentary-based source material relating to the area of cultural change as it affected a particular UK department, the Scottish Office. In the event, the piece concludes that the detail of the Scottish Office case can be used to confirm Bulmer and Burch's general observation that cultural Europeanization has not manifested itself to any great extent within UK government departments in the sense that it has entailed wide-reaching changes to administrative approaches and working practices. More generally, the empirical basis of the analysis provides fresh insights into how specific matters, such as training and secondments, have impacted upon the work of civil servants in the UK.     

Urban Governance And Policy Networks: On The Urban Political Boundedness of Policy Networks. A French Case Study

The paper analyses the changes within two policy domains in one French city. The aim is not so much to demonstrate the role of policy networks but to stress the importance of their articulation within a given political space. The paper does not conclude on the emergence of a new type of network governance but rather shows how urban political élites have deliberately encouraged the formation of policy net-works in Rennes. That strategy makes sense in their attempt to strengthen an urban collective actor. Policy networks therefore should not be analysed autonomously as their impact is largely shaped by the interest and collective goals of the existing regime of governance in Rennes.     

Utilizing FDI to Stay Ahead: The Case of Singapore

A country of 5 million people in 710?km², Singapore has built itself into an integral part of global markets with living standards that are among the highest in the world. The purpose of this article is to apply a capabilities-based approach to understand how a small, resource-scarce country dependent on global markets has done so well. The core of Singapore??s success has been the continuous updating and expanding of domestic social capabilities to meet the needs of foreign companies. Government policies were hypersensitive to providing conditions for foreign firms to be successful. Foreign firms investing in Singapore by now have helped close the income gap with advanced economies and are on the way to closing the innovation gap. Singapore demonstrates that with deliberate attention to building skills, institutions and infrastructure, it is possible for a small country to upgrade skills and to move up the production-value chain with primary reliance on foreign direct investment (FDI). Cultivation of private Singaporean firms has been secondary but may be the next step needed to sustain progress, both to respond to increased competition from China and others, and to build a knowledge-based economy.     

从坎昆峰会看外交政策中的公共议程博弈

2010年11月29日至12月11日,联合国气候变化谈判峰会在墨西哥坎昆举行。这次峰会是近年来国际社会为防止气候变化而共同努力的一个组成部分。尽管坎昆峰会在国际社会关注度和期待值上,     

On The Nature Of Audit Judgements: The Case Of Value For Money Studies

The National Audit Office (NAO) undertakes Value For Money (VFM) studies, which are used as the basis of evidence in hearings of the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts. VFM studies are therefore integral to the process of accountability of public bodies to Parliament for their use of resources. This paper examines the production of VFM studies by the NAO, and in particular the ways in which audit teams arrive at their judgements. It introduces a theoretical frame-work which highlights: (i) the interplay of intuitive and analytical thinking as VFM teams assemble and interpret data and, (ii) the ways in which teams use three distinct types of judgement criterion in studies, based on the use of multiple empirical indicators about some event, the logical coherence of the auditee's behaviour, and consensus about 'what actually happened'.     

Policy Network Creation: The Case of Energy Efficiency

What can broadly be described as a policy community has been established with the central purpose of co-ordinating policy implementation in the field of energy efficiency in domestic buildings. A complete understanding of the processes of policy network formation cannot be achieved in this case without a thorough analysis of the construction of cognitive structures which influence the behaviour of actors and underpin the policy network. Discourse analysis is an effective means of studying cognitive structures. An understanding of the creative and unpredictable role of agents such as ministers is also important, suggesting that the study of policy network formation can be enlightened by a historical institutionalist approach that involves a role for agency as well as structural influences. The formation of the energy efficiency policy network is studied in the context of a critique of an earlier 'economic' institutionalist case study of policy network formation.     

Political Manipulation Or Feedback In English Local Authorities’ Standard Spending Assessments? The Case Of The Abolition Of The Inner London Education Authority

The focus of attention in this article is on the major shift in Education Standard Spending Assessments, and with it central grants, in favour of Inner London which first took place in 1990, and has persisted since then. This coincided both with the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority and the transfer of education responsibilities to the Inner London Boroughs, and the introduction of the poll tax. The objective of this article is to test whether this shift in favour of Inner London was due to political manipulation or, instead, was another example of the long-established technical characteristic of 'feedback' in spending needs assessments in the English local finance system. A test is devised which distinguishes between these two explanations and involves the use of an Inner London dummy variable. The results provide strong evidence of political manipulation. The implications of this finding are considered.     

Policy Transfer Over Time: A Case of Growing Complexity

The article indicates that policy transfer has played an important role in the development of policy and legislation in Australia. Indeed, much of what is regarded as Australian policy is borrowed, usually in small part, but sometimes in its entirety, from elsewhere. One of the implications of this view is that Australian policy making processes are often, at least in part, dynamic, policy processes that draw upon a number of sources, both domestic and international. The focus of this article is upon the sources of transfer in the Australian context, both domestic and international, and how the sources drawn upon by Australian state and federal governments have changed over time. The article also indicates that on the evidence available the Australian experience with transfer can be divided into a number of phases. The first, from European colonisation to approximately the middle of the nineteenth century, the second from roughly the middle of the nineteenth century to federation at the beginning of the twentieth century, the third from the establishment of the Australian federation in 1901, to the Second World War, and the fourth phase, from the Second World War to the present.     

Policy Alienation of Public Professionals: A Comparative Case Study of Insurance Physicians and Secondary School Teachers

Currently, there is an intense debate on the pressures facing public professionals in service delivery. Several studies show increasing discontent among professionals toward policies they have to implement. In this article, we aim to contribute to this topic by analyzing this discontent of public professionals in terms of “policy alienation.” The policy alienation concept is used to frame the experiences of professionals in a coherent theoretical framework. We have used a qualitative comparative case study of Dutch insurance physicians and secondary school teachers to study the factors that influence the degree of policy alienation across different domains. Our article shows that facets of New Public Management are important in explaining the pressures on public professionals implementing public policies. However, others factors are also prominent, and the degree of the implementers' professionalism seems especially important. These insights help in understanding why public professionals embrace or resist the implementation of public policies.     

Policy Network Transformation: The Implementation Of The Ec Directive On Packaging And Packaging Waste

Policy network analysis has been criticized for failing to adopt a sufficiently dynamic approach to the study of policy-making processes. There have been, however, a number of studies illustrating how policy networks change, recognizing that they are not static entities but respond to changes in the policy environment. This article applies policy network analysis to the negotiation of plans to implement the 1994 EC Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive in the UK and provides a further contribution to the literature on the formation and transformation of policy networks. The analysis reveals significant changes in the structure and operation of the policy network during the period studied. The reasons for such changes confirm those put forward by other policy network analysts, such as the power of the actors involved and conflicts between them. Other reasons include the role of the government and the tight schedule laid out by the directive.     

Competitive Tendering In Local Government: A Review Of Theory And Evidence

The introduction of compulsory competitive tendering in UK local government reflected conventional public choice theories of bureaucracy. These theories suggest that competition for service contracts will lead to lower expenditure and higher efficiency. Extensions and criticisms of the classical public choice model yield very different conclusions. First, the problems of bureaucratic supply are less severe than originally assumed, and secondly competition may itself generate new problems such as transaction costs, erosion of trust between principals and agents, and rent seeking. The impact of competition on spending and efficiency is therefore indeterminate, and must be established empirically. However, studies which evaluate the effects of competitive tendering in local government are few in number, cover a limited range of services, and are methodologically flawed. Therefore neither the initial imposition of competitive tendering by the Conservatives, nor its planned abolition by Labour, can be traced to a solid foundation of theoretical or empirical support. Theoretical and methodological problems that need to be resolved by further empirical studies are identified.     

Compulsory Competitive Tendering And Local Government Financial Services: An Analysis Of The Views Of Local Government Accountants In The North West Of England

Between 1979 and 1997, successive Conservative governments sought to reduce the scale of public sector activity and to introduce competition in the provision of public sector services. A central feature of this policy was the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT). CCT was initially confined to blue collar services but, by means of the Local Government Act 1992, it was extended to white collar, professional services, including financial services. However, though potentially extremely significant, the support for and implications of such a policy are issues which have been inadequately researched. Because of this, research has been under-taken into financial services CCT and has included a questionnaire survey of 300 professionally qualified accountants employed in 17 local authorities in the North West of England, drawn from county councils, district councils and metropolitan authorities. The article presents the findings of the survey, with a particular focus on the views of accountants on CCT in general and financial services CCT in particular. In addition, it provides evidence that the CCT process, irrespective of views on CCT and its appropriateness for specific activities, has changed culture and attitudes in the case of local government finance professionals.     

Improving Industrial Policy Intervention: The Case of Steel in South Africa

We contribute to the lack of tools to support efficient industrial policy-making, especially in the mineral beneficiation policy literature. To address this vacuum, we adapt the product space analysis approach to incorporate an input-output value chain lens. This framework is applied to the case of steel in South Africa to derive novel insights regarding the (in)efficiency of implementing a downstream linkage-based beneficiation policy. Our dynamic analysis approach allows for interactions with the rest of the product space. We find that a ‘leap-frogging’ approach to development within the value chain may be more optimal than a strict beneficiation based industrial policy.