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This study aims to assess the status of current practices of accountability and its relationship with the practices of integrity system, internal control system and leadership qualities in the public sector of Malaysia.

This study collected primary data from 109 departments and agencies under 24 federal ministries in Malaysia. The data were analysed under descriptive statistics, ordinal regression and structural equation modelling (SEM). Several diagnostic tests were conducted to check the validity and reliability of data and models, such as Cronbach alpha test, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test, Shapiro–Wilk test, internal consistency reliability, indicator reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity.

The regression and SEM results show that the practices of integrity system and leadership quality had statistically significant positive relationship, but the practice of internal control system showed mixed relationship with the practices of accountability.

The findings of the study will help the policymakers to ensure better accountability in the public sector in Malaysia and other countries.

This is an original study based on primary data to examine the current practices of accountability and its relationship with the practices of integrity system, internal control system and leadership qualities in the public sector of Malaysia.

This research paper comparatively reviews online accountability practices in public, private and nonprofit organizations, using the hospital industry as a case of analysis.

The authors conducted a quantitative content analysis of 240 US hospital websites, sampled from the 2016 American Hospital Association (AHA) database. Online Accountability Practices (OAP) instrument was utilized, and it included five dimensions as follows: accessibility, engagement, performance, governance and mission.

There were statistically significant differences in online accountability practices among the three sectors. Nonprofit organizations were leading the way in their overall online accountability practices. They were more likely to score higher on engagement, performance and mission dimensions. We explain this finding through the prism of multiple accountabilities, guided by the stakeholder theory. Private organizations had the lowest scores on every online accountability dimension, except for accessibility. Consistent with previous literature, private organizations were more likely to make information accessible in the online sphere, but not necessarily meaningful or reliable for evaluating organizational performance. Public organizations had the strongest scores within the governance dimension, placing importance on disclosing organizational leadership and sharing information on their governance structures.

This project contributes to theory building on accountability in the online environment. It argues that the distinction between two forms of accountability (functional and holistic) is applicable in the online environment, while accessibility and performance dimensions of online accountability closely align with the functional (hierarchical) form of accountability, and a more holistic approach to accountability includes dimensions like engagement, governance and mission. In addition, this project is the first of its kind to apply the stakeholder theory to accountability practices in three sectors of the economy and how the stakeholder theory provides guidance as a basis of understanding the forms of accountability (functional and holistic) that are most likely aligned with organizations in three sectors of the economy.

The results of this study point to a number of implications for hospital patients, families, hospital administration, healthcare professionals and policymakers. These implications can be broadly divided into two groups as follows: policy implications and management implications. Policy implications pertain to the national dialog and interorganizational deliberations of sector-wide policy to enrich accountability practices; while management implications are concerned with local, intraorganizational discussions among administrators and organizational leaders on formulating specific strategies and tactics.

This research paper contributes to empirical studies on organizational accountability in the online environment. It enriches our understanding of how organizations in different sectors present themselves to the public.

The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in accountability as the provision and control of education moved from private nonprofit organisations to a public sector provider.

Analysis of nineteenth century archival documents from significant primary educational providers in a major early New Zealand settlement.

The nonprofit education provider utilised public meetings including public examinations, whose effect was to develop trust based on the education values it shared with its community of stakeholders. It also published financial reports which, along with inspections and statistical returns, were preferred once the government became the education provider. Such publications and inspections indicated bureaucracy and control. Nevertheless, government funding, rather than the nonprofit organisation’s dependence on its community, made education provision sustainable.

It has been suggested that the differences between public sector and private sector accounting and accountability are not always sharply defined (Carnegie and Napier, 2012). However, this case study shows that a change of education provider did lead to a marked difference in accountability. While theory suggests that public sector accountability should enhance democracy, the party best meeting this brief was the nonprofit provider, with the public sector provider preferring hierarchical accountability. It could be argued that funding dependence drove these different approaches as community accountability was traded for financial security.

Distinctive study of accountability practices to external stakeholders, in a mid-nineteenth century education context.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how public sector accounting has changed and is changing due to public governance development.

This paper conducts a traditional literature review based on selected studies in the fields of accounting, public administration and management. The aim of the review is to explain how diverse forms of public governance influence the fate of public sector accounting, including accountability, performance measurement, budgeting and reporting practices.

Public governance is developing into more inclusive but also complex forms, resulting in network, collaborative and digital governance. Consequently, the focus and practices of public sector accounting have changed, as reflected in new types of accountability, performance measurement, budgeting and reporting practices.

Drawing upon literature from different fields enables a deeper understanding of the changes in public sector accounting. Nevertheless, the intention is not to execute a systematic literature review but to provide an overview and resolve the scattered body of knowledge generated by previous contributions. The areas of risk management and auditing were not included and deserve further attention.

This paper discusses the need to continually redefine and reassess public sector accounting practices, by recognising the interdependencies between different actors, citizens and digital technologies.

Contemporary organisational landscapes offer opportunities for hybrids to thrive. Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are one thriving hybrid form incorporating the use of resources and/or structures from both public and private sectors. The study examines the impact of such a hybrid structure on governance and accountability mechanisms in a context of institutional complexity.

This study uses an approach that draws on institutional logics and hybridity to examine governance arrangements in the PPP policy created for the delivery of UK schools. Unusually, it employs a comparative case study of how four local governments implemented the policy. It draws on a framework developed by Polzer et al. (2017) to examine the level of engagement between multiple logics and hybrid structures and applies this to the delivery of governance and accountability for public money.

The Polzer et al. framework enables a study of how the nature of hybrids can vary in terms of their governance, ownership and control relations. The findings show how the relationships between levels of engagement of multiple logics and hybrid structures can impact on governance and accountability for public money. Layering and blending combinations led to increased adoption of private sector accountability structures, whilst a hybrid with parallel co-existence of community and market logics delivered a long-term governance structure.

The paper examines the operation of hybrids in a complex education PPP environment in only four local governments and therefore cannot provide representative answers across the population as a whole. However, given the considerable variation found across the four examples, the paper shows there can be significant differentiation in how multiple logics engage at different levels and in varying combinations even in the same hybrid setting. The paper focuses on capital investment implementation and its evaluation, so it is a limitation that the operational stage of PPP projects is not studied.

The findings have political relevance because the two local government bodies with more robust combinations of multiple logics were more successful in getting funds and delivering schools in their geographical areas.

The study extends Polzer et al.'s (2017) research on hybridity by showing that there can be significant differentiation in how multiple logics engage at different levels and in varying combinations even in what was planned to be the same hybrid setting. It shows how in situations of institutional complexity certain combinations of logics lead to differentiation in governance and accountability, creating fragmented focus on the related public accountability structures. This matters because it becomes harder to hold government to account for public spending.

This study examines unexplored horizontal accountability types between public, private and third sector actors within a hybrid organization. The case organization was applying a novel alliance model to generate service paths for heterogeneous clientele consuming cultural, educational, health and social services. It was first to do so in Finland.

This research is on a case study that used documents and interviews to examine the design of the horizontal accountability. The descriptive analysis focused on identifying what type of formal accountability system was designed (i.e. who is the account holder, and who is accountable and for what and why).

An imbalanced accountability system was identified because accountability obligations were unevenly distributed between public, private and third sector actors. The private sector was the most accountable for performance, and the third sector (i.e. voluntary sector) was the least accountable. As account holders, the public, private and third sector actors were judging their conduct as account providers. This created a biased horizontal accountability system. The hybrid's accountability system was dynamic because the contracts made to establish the hybrid included opportunities to change horizontal accountability if future changes to the external environment affect too drastically the potential to achieve the hybrid's goals.

Three new concepts are proposed for studying dysfunctional accountability systems: dynamic, biased and horizontally imbalanced accountability.

This paper uses a stakeholder approach to examine how the role of accounting and the status of accountants changed over a 30 year period (1970 to 2000) in a major Australian government trading enterprise. Data are gathered from semi‐structured interviews with organizational participants and documentation. The study provides support for the importance of stakeholders in shaping organizational processes and practices, including accounting practices, and for the effects of changes in stakeholder constituency and agenda on such practices. The study also provides evidence of the roles accounting and accountants may play in implementing a stakeholder agenda, including both instrumental and symbolic roles, and how the status of accountants may rise and fall commensurate with those roles.

The paper aims to explore whether different models of public sector audit exist in China without adhering to the goals and objectives of public sector audit systems in democratic jurisdictions.

The study is based on a single embedded case study involving multiple methods of data collection including public documents, semi-structured interviews and site visits. The research methods and the analytical framework of the study draw on the concepts of political competition, public sector accountability and audit independence.

The study finds that the Chinese National Audit Office’s (CNAO) objectives derive from the neo-classical economic discourse and not from ideas of public accountability, as is the case in democratic parliamentary jurisdictions. The study finds that public sector audit in China functions in ways which are similar to that of internal audit. The CNAO may provide limited political and public accountability for Chinese public officials indirectly by enhancing their managerial accountabilities.

The study goes against the prevailing view that supreme audit institutions which are part of the executive will lead to poor accountability of the public sector and increased public sector corruption.

The study suggests that enhancing managerial accountability in non-democratic (and pseudo-democratic) jurisdictions through public sector audit can by itself be of significant benefit. Further, such enhancements may also strengthen public sector accountability.

This paper fills a research gap by exploring public sector audit independence in a developing country with a unitary system of government.

Takes an exploratory approach to the development of an accountability framework for environmental performance of the Australian Commonwealth public sector. Explains that the aim of the environmental performance accountability framework is for the various stakeholders to understand the actions of Commonwealth public sector organizations and consequences of those actions for ecological systems; to become familiar with the trends and changes in trends in public sector environmental performance; and to place stakeholders in a position to promote change when performance is not acceptable. Examines three interrelated strands of literature. Identifies key institutional stakeholders in the Commonwealth public sector. Synthesizes the literature related to public sector transformation, and reviews the flourishing literature on environmental accounting and reporting, and links it to the concept of environmental accountability. Drawing on this literature, explores interrelationships between three characteristics of environmental performance at the federal level in the Australian public sector: criticality of natural capital; information uncertainty; and regulatory response. Examines environmental accountability dimensions of each of these characteristics. Concludes by making three policy recommendations: first, measurement of environmental performance should focus on criticality of natural capital and informational uncertainty as bounded by the precautionary principle; second, the measures of criticality of natural capital and informational uncertainty should determine the extent of direct accountability to parliament for each public sector organization’s environmental performance; and, finally, a third party attestation of reported information is needed. Also makes some suggestions for extending this exploratory research.

This chapter examines organisational change processes that occur when accountability demands from powerful external stakeholders change. It investigates, firstly, whether these external accountability demands impact on the performance management systems of two different types of organisations. Secondly, it considers whether the goals for improved performance contained within the external accountability demands are realised. The chapter derives its primary insights from analysing in-depth interviews with managers working in a private sector company and in public sector organisations. The analyses reveal complex organisational responses. In the public sector case study, the organisations tended to reorient their performance management systems towards the external accountability demands; whilst in the private sector organisation, pressures from falling share prices forced managers to focus their decision making on the preferred performance measures contained in shareholders’ accountability demands. However, whilst there is some evidence of performance management system changes, the desires for improved performance subsumed by the external accountability demands are not necessarily realised through the performance management system changes.