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This article addresses recent calls in the literature for advancing our understanding of public affairs consultants and their role conceptions. By testing and further exploring self-perceptions of public affairs consultants the study aims to offer new insight into how consultants define and view their occupational role.

The study draws on a nationwide survey with public affairs consultants in Sweden.

Four main role conceptions were identified (advocate, do-gooder, expert and intermediary). Further, the study tests how personal and professional characteristics correlate with different role conceptions, by viewing professional experience and consultants' selection of clients. Data also suggest that consultants' background in politics does not promote any specific role perception. Finally, the findings also show that how consultants choose clients is a divider in the industry, where some act as passive intermediaries while other take a more active role in their choice of clients.

The findings enhance our understanding of public affairs as a field, and specifically about the modelling of professional roles amongst consultants. The empirical results in this study show how contemporary role typologies needs to be extended to better capture the specificities of consultants' roles in public affairs. By addressing the issue of how consultants choose clients the study engages with the complex debate of whether consultants ought to act as objective or subjective agents and hence join the conversation on ethics in public affairs.

This paper aims to determine the essential “collective goods” which a foreign multinational enterprise (MNE) must have before production can start in a remote area of an emerging economy, and to consider the alternative governance modes available to procure or create these goods.

This purpose is examined conceptually and theoretically. First, the concept of “collective goods” is presented, followed by a consideration of the traditional “buy, ally or make” contractual approaches available to obtain goods and services. These approaches are repositioned in the context of an “emerging economy” so that alternative “ordering systems” as well as “non-contractual” means of obtaining things have to be considered in the context of internalization and reciprocity theories.

It is difficult to obtain collective goods in remote areas of emerging economies where private ordering prevails and even succeeds but at high transaction costs and with substantial government intervention. However, the use of non-contractual modes of exchange such as reciprocity is available to facilitate exchanges between market MNEs and nonmarket state offices and civil-society associations such as non-governmental organizations with which collaboration is necessary but which cannot be acquired or controlled by MNEs. However, market firms can use philanthropy and lobbying to obtain the help of these nonmarket actors who know how to operate under private and state-ordering systems.

Theoretical implications: Internalization theory explains why MNEs are able to obtain collective goods by providing them “in-house”, while reciprocity theory exemplifies how non-contractual modes of exchange can substitute for the traditional but contractual “buy, ally and/or make”.

Managerial implications: In terms of the organizational structure of the subsidiary of an MNE operating in an emerging economy, it appears that the line functions of procurement, engineering and production may rely more on contractual exchanges with foreign suppliers, while the staff functions of public affairs, government relations and human resources may be more adept at using reciprocal exchange with local suppliers.

The provisioning of the collective goods when a firm builds its facilities in a remote and underdeveloped part of an emerging economy has hardly received any research attention nor have the non-contractual ways – such as reciprocity – available in the context of private ordering to obtain these goods.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his 2018 State of the Nation Address, stated that “Thieves who are stealing public funds should be arrested and prosecuted”, and called for lifestyle audits of public-sector employees. The gross misuse of COVID-19 relief funds by public officials indicated the urgent need to execute these audits as an anti-corruption measure. This paper aims to provide a review of the existing state of affairs with regard to the application of lifestyle audits in South Africa.

This paper critically analyses the literature available on the current position of South Africa concerning lifestyle audits in the public sector, based on the mandates of some of the anti-corruption agencies that could be responsible for the conducting and processing of such audits.

South Africa has only recently seen a framework for applying lifestyle audits, developed by the Department of Public Service and Administration. Although these first steps in developing a standard practice are laudable, the practical process of dealing with misconduct and/or criminal matters remains to be seen. It is recommended that South Africa consider a legislative approach to dealing with unlawfully obtained wealth by either criminalising the act of illicit enrichment (per the United Nations Convention Against Corruption) or creating an Unexplained Wealth Order, as seen, for example, in the UK.

South Africa is in dire need of addressing corruption in the public sector. Despite lifestyle audits being called for, the lack of proper implementation is negating any positive outcomes. Therefore, alternative solutions should be investigated.

This paper aims to fill a gap in the existing literature by shedding the light on four main issues. First, the relationship between child-at-risk protection and sustainable development and the key factors contributing to the failure or success of child-at-risk protection systems. Second, the main characteristics and limitations of the current institutional arrangements of the child-at-risk protection system in Egypt. Third, the budget allocations to child protection-relevant entities in Egypt. Fourth, the way forward to enhance the effectiveness of the child-at-risk protection system in Egypt.

The methodology used in this paper is of a qualitative nature. The authors relied on desk review of the international and national reports (including the un-published ones) and the relevant literature on the topic. Additionally, the authors reviewed the relevant laws and regulations and analyzed the fiscal data extracted from Egypt’s State budget. Also, semi-structured interviews were conducted with some officials from the different governmental entities covered by the study.

From the institutional perspective, the authors find that the current child-at-risk protection system in Egypt needs effective institutional arrangements, as it is attributed with the limited activation of the child protection committees, lack of coordination mechanisms and overlapping mandates with regards to case management. Hence, the authors propose two institutional approaches that could help in enhancing the performance of the current system. While the first approach has decentralized nature, the other is centralized. From the fiscal perspective, the authors analyze the trend and composition of the budget allocations to the child protection-relevant entities in Egypt. They show that such allocations are relatively small especially when items not related to child protection are excluded.

The paper analyzes the main characteristics and limitations of the current institutional arrangements of the child-at-risk protection system in Egypt. Moreover, it proposes two alternative institutional approaches to deal with such limitations and enhance the effectiveness of the current system. The paper also provides an analysis of the budget allocations to the child protection-relevant entities in Egypt. These issues have not been addressed sufficiently in the Egyptian context.

This research aims to investigate the impact of the use of social media on the organizational form and function in selected local governments of Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

This research used quantitative and qualitative methods. The researchers not only conducted comparative– explanatory studies among the three ASEAN cities but also used multiple-informant and secondary data analyses. All variables are operationalized into indicators and transformed into a questionnaire in three languages: English, Indonesian and Thai. Primary data for the research were collected using a cross-sectional survey conducted in Bandung City, Indonesia; Iligan City, the Philippines; and Pukhet City, Thailand.

This research found that social media use has not yet affected the internal organizational processes in the three cities. Also, social media use is not appropriated as a space for citizen–government interaction. It is used for only information dissemination to the public; social media seems to have been used for only collecting information from citizens but not for involving them in the decision-making process.

This research covers only three cities in the ASEAN countries, and the findings cannot be generalized to others. Moreover, this research looks at the supply-side dimension or government organization side only. However, the findings confirm that findings of previous research studies that social media use in the local government is only for information dissemination.

Legal bases for social media use could be an urgent matter to address to advance more fundamental changes in government processes.

There is no prior comparative study on the use of social media by local governments in the ASEAN countries. Social media owing to its sense of personalization or sense of community improves communication between citizens and government better than e-government sites; however, as articulated by Mirchandani et al. (2008), social media may hinder rather than facilitate the delivery of services (Mirchandani et al., 2008). This is due to the absence of a legal basis of its use, as well as agreements on the manner of its use, which prevents full integration of social media into the governance process, particularly in the cases of the cities of Iligan, the Philippines, and Phuket, Thailand.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the issues and variables that influence the bureaucracy’s role and work in the transitional period, which is known with its complexity, uncertainty, instability, ambiguity and asymmetry. This paper highlights the transition from theoretical perspective, giving examples from the Polish experience in transition.

This paper describes the changing roles of public bureaucracies in transitional periods by highlighting their ecology with the transitional period and analyzing the determinants of bureaucracy’s role and functions in terms of participation in policy-making policies, providing consultations to executives and elected officials, working as a mediator in communication and acting as an active participant in the development process giving examples from Poland. Finally, it highlights the way the bureaucracy manages its functions and the internal and external variables that constitute various levels affecting this role in the transition.

Bureaucracy is supposed to function naturally and stably in an unstable environment (transition) as its success in doing these functions and helping the new regime to exceed the transition and achieve its goals depends on many variables (bureaucracy capabilities and skills, history, power, experience, the nature of politics and bureaucratic functions, political support, policy environment, knowledge, cohesion, etc.). Most of these variables were demonstrative in the case of Poland.

This paper will be useful for scholars and policymakers interested in public administration role in the time of transition, especially countries that recently have been experiencing the transition.