The Frames of Performance Auditors - theory and original research method of the Belgium SAI

• Authors: Vital Put , Adri De Brabandere

Abstracts

EN

Frames are mental models that determine, often subconsciously, how we understand reality. There is little research on the frames in which (performance) audit work is drenched. This article tries, through some case studies, to gain more insight into the frames performance auditors have about social problems and their solutions, about management and policy making, about audit evidence and so on. The research shows that auditors adopt the government’s policy frame on social problems and the solutions pursued, and on the role that the involved actors (government, market, etc.) have in it, although sometimes with subtle comments. Auditors start from a strongly rational frame of how government should behave, sometimes enriched with e.g. elements from systems thinking. They believe that societies and government organizations are, to a large extent, engineerable. Auditors have a realist view of knowledge acquirement; they believe that objective knowledge is possible.

Keywords

EN

performance audit; frames; Belgian Court of Audit; education policy; penitentiary policy; policy and management failures

• Publisher: Najwyższa Izba Kontroli
• Journal: Kontrola Państwowa
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 68
• Issue: 5 (412)
• Pages: 27-36

Dates

published

2023

Contributors

author

Vital Put

• College of the Belgian Court of Audit

author

Adri De Brabandere

• College of the Belgian Court of Audit

References

• Allison, G.T.: The Essence of Decision. Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1971.
• Astley, W.G., Van de Ven, A.H.: Central Perspectives and Debates in Organization Theory, “Administrative Science Quarterly” No 2/1983.
• Barry, C.L., Brescoll, V.L., Gollust, S.E.: Framing Childhood Obesity: How Individualizing the Problem Affects Public Support for Prevention, “Political Psychology” No. 3/2013.
• Bemelmans-Videc, M.L., Fenger, H.J.M.: Harmonizing Competing Rationalities in Evaluating Governance, “Knowledge, Technology & Policy” Issue 2/1999.
• Bolman L.G., Deal, T.E.: Reframing Organizations. Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, Seventh Edition, Jossey-Bass, 2021.
• Bouckaert, G., Peters, B.G., Verhoest, K.: Resources, Mechanisms and Instruments for Coordination, [in:] The Coordination of Public Sector Organizations-Shifting Patters of Public Management, Palgrave Macmillan 2010.
• CCAF, Better Integrating Root Cause Analysis into Legislative Performance Auditing: A Discussion Paper, 2014.
• Chapman, J.: System failure: Why governments must learn to think differently, DEMOS 2004.
• Clark, I.D., Swain, H.: Distinguishing the real from the surreal in management reform: suggestions for beleaguered administrators in the government of Canada, “Canadian Public Administration” Npo. 4/2005.
• d’Haenens, L., de Lange, M.: Framing of asylum seekers in Dutch regional newspapers, “Media Culture Society” vol. 23/2001.
• Dryzek, J.S.: The Politics of The Earth. Environmental Discourses, Oxford University Press 2021.
• Dunford, R.W., Palmer, I.C.: Claims about frames: practitioners’ assessment of the utility of reframing, “Journal of Management Education” No. 1/1995.
• Elmore, R.F.: Organizational Models of Social Program Implementation, Public Policy 1978.
• Entman, R.M.: Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm, “Journal of Communication” Issue 4/1993.
• Farmer, D.J.: Public Administration in Perspective: Theory and Practice Through Multiple Lenses, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe 2010.
• Frameworks Institute: Aging, Agency, and Attribution of Responsibility: Shifting Public Discourse about Older Adults, 2015.
• Goffman, E.: Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, Northeastern University Press, Boston1974.
• Husserl E.: Idee czystej fenomenologii i filozofii fenomenologicznej, 1913.
• Institute for Public Policy Research, Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better? 2006.
• Joris, W., d’Haenens, L., Van Gorp, B.: The euro crisis in metaphors and frames: Focus on the press in the Low Countries, “European Journal of Communication” Vol. 5/2014.
• Kant, I.:, Krytyka czystego rozumu, 1781/1787.
• Kells, S.: The Seven Deadly Sins of Performance Auditing, Implications for Monitoring Public Audit Institutions, “Australian Accounting Review” No. 59/2011.
• Kuran, T., Sunstein, C.R.: Availability Cascades and Risk Regulation, “Stanford Law Review” No. 4/1999.
• Laloux, F.: Reinventing Organizations. A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, Nelson Parker 2014.
• Leeuw, F.L., Furubo, J.E.: Evaluation Systems: What Are They and Why Study Them? “Evaluation” No. 2/2008.
• Le Grand, J.: The Other Invisible Hand: Delivering Public Services through Choice and Competition, Princeton University Press 2007.
• Moeys, H.: Subsidiary Social Provision Before the Welfare State. Political Theory and Social Policy in Nineteenth-Century Belgium, Ph Thesis, KU Leuven 2017.
• Morgan, G.: Paradigms, metaphors and puzzle solving, “Administrative Science Quarterly” Issue 4/1980.
• Morgan, G.: Images of organization, Sage Publications, 2006.
• New Economics Foundation: Ramy gospodarki: Historia oszczędzania, 2013, p. 38.
• Pollitt, C., Girre, X., Lonsdale, J., Mul, R., Summa, H., Waerness, M.: Performance or Compliance. Performance Audit and Public Management in Five Countries, Oxford University Press 1999.
• Put, V.: De bril waarmee auditors naar de werkelijkheid kijken. Over normen die rekenhoven gebruiken bij het beoordelen van de overheid, die Keure, Brugge 2006.
• Put, V.: Norms in performance audits: some strategic considerations [in:] Lonsdale, J., Wilkins, P., Ling, T. (eds.), Performance Auditing: Contributing to Accountability in Democratic Government, Edward Elgar, 2011.
• Peters B.G, Pierre J.: From evaluation to auditing and from programs to institutions: Causes and consequences of the decline of the program approach. Governance 2020.
• Radcliffe, V.S.: Competing Rationalities in ‘Special’ Government Audits, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 1997.
• Rohrbaugh, J.: The Competing Values Approach, in: Hall, R.H., Quinn, R.E., (eds.), Organizational Theory and Public Policy 1983. 3
• Scott, W.R.: Organizations. Rational, Natural and Open Systems, Prentice Hall 2003.
• Schön, D.A., Rein, M.: Frame Reflection, Basic Books1994.
• Schneider, M.R., Eggert, A.: Embracing Complex Causality with the QCA Method: An Invitation, “Journal of Business Management” No. 1/2014.
• Senge, P.: The Fifth Discipline (second edition), Deckle Edge 2006.
• Siemiatycki, M.: Academics and Auditors: Comparing Perspectives on Transportation Project Cost Overruns, “Journal of Planning Education and Research” 2009.
• Svärdsten, F.: The ‘front stage’ of substance auditing: A study of how substance auditing is presented in performance audit reports, “Financial Accountability & Management: No. 2/2019.
• Waring, C.G., Morgan, S.L.: Public Sector Performance Auditing in Developing Countries [in:] World Bank, Performance Accountability and Combating Corruption 2007.
• Bank Światowy, Umysł, społeczeństwo i zachowanie, Raport na temat rozwoju na świecie, Waszyngton 2015.
• Weiss, C.R.: Where Politics and Evaluation Research Meet, “Evaluation Practice” No. 1/1993.

Identifiers

DOI

10.53122/ISSN.0452-5027/2023.1.27

Biblioteka Nauki

20874587