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Impact of performance audit on the Administration: a Belgian study (2005-2010)

Ella Desmedt (IDEA Consult, Brussels, Belgium)
Danielle Morin (Accounting Studies, HEC Montreal, Montreal, Canada)
Valérie Pattyn (Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, The Hague, The Netherlands)
Marleen Brans (KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, Leuven, Belgium)

Managerial Auditing Journal

ISSN: 0268-6902

Article publication date: 6 March 2017

4171

Abstract

Purpose

This study of the impact of Belgian Court of Audit on Federal Administration for the 2005 to 2010 period aims to highlight the auditors’ influence on the management of governmental organizations through the performance audits they have been conducting since 1998. A set of ten variables allows us to measure the three types of uses of performance auditors’ work by auditees: instrumental, conceptual and strategic use.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was sent out to a total of 148 respondents identified by the authorities of the targeted organizations; 47 usable questionnaires were completed (32 per cent response rate).

Findings

The Court of Audit’s impact on the audited entities did not provoke radical changes in the auditees’ organizational life, but the intervention of the auditors was nevertheless noticeable. The nature of the impact was rather conceptual than strategic or instrumental. And the negative consequences on auditees anticipated in the literature were not observed.

Research limitations/implications

Given the five-year period covered by the study which was made in 2014 (four years after 2010), it had to deal with the mortality of respondents and the loss of organizational memory.

Practical implications

The study gives more accurate insights about the influence that Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) actually exert on audited Administrations through their performance audits.

Originality/value

Because SAIs have been mandated to evaluate the government’s economy, efficiency and effectiveness for almost 40 years in the Western democracies, it is mandatory that their actual ability to influence Administrations be documented more abundantly and independently by academic researchers.

Keywords

Citation

Desmedt, E., Morin, D., Pattyn, V. and Brans, M. (2017), "Impact of performance audit on the Administration: a Belgian study (2005-2010)", Managerial Auditing Journal, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 251-275. https://doi.org/10.1108/MAJ-04-2016-1368

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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