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The purpose of this paper is to report a pilot project on quality control in China's government department (AQSIQ), based on an extended EFQM excellence model.

After careful comparisons, the EFQM Excellence Model was selected as the fundamental framework for further practice and analysis. The original Excellence Model was extended into three‐section style in the ongoing Super‐ministry Reform. The extended model includes decision‐making, implementation, and supervision. With a brief introduction on AQSIQ in current reform, the first quality control practice in China was investigated in terms of responsibilities, standards, supervision, and assessment. Achievements from quality control were obtained after analysis.

The extended Excellence Model enabled AQSIQ great achievements. This paper finds that, with the guidance under this extended model, a unified leadership with reallocation in people, policy, and partnership has significantly promoted the performance in decision‐making. Further, with regard to principle of simplicity as the key basis of process reengineering, the two‐way innovation and learning feedback mechanism in this model have simplified the process and enhanced knowledge process in the government. Finally, efficiency being the main focus in performance reassessment was also accomplished by this quality practice.

The initial success of AQSIQ has practical and managerial values. On the practical side, the implications in the AQSIQ case that are embodied in the ongoing Super‐ministry Reform in China help to shape fundamental quality control framework in China's government sectors. Two probable managerial enlightenments are for the theory of process engineering and the quality control in theoretical dimension. Therefore, this extended excellence model could further spread into other departments with careful considerations.

This is the first paper to research the first quality control practice in China's government department.

The purpose of this paper is to re-test the determinant factors of the quality of financial statements and performance of the government by adding contextual factors, such as personal factor, system/administrative factor and political factor, that may affect the quality of financial statement information and performance of the government. Personal factor is proxied to the competencies that affect the quality of financial statements and performance. Social administrative factor is proxied on the regulations and presentation of quality financial statements.

The analysis unit in this study was conducted at the organizational level. The research object was in South Sulawesi Province. This was a descriptive and verificative research with survey technique. Based on the objectives of the research, this is an explanatory research. The research method used was explanatory survey with quantitative approach. The population of this research was proxied to the Regional Unit Organization (Organisasi Perangkat Desa) which compiled the financial statements in South Sulawesi Provincial Government consisted of 803 units of Local Government Agencies (Satuan Kerja Perangkat Daerah). The purposive sampling technique was chosen under the following criteria: the regional government whose financial statement has been audited by Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan; the regional government whose financial accountability report has been evaluated by Indonesia’s Agency for Financial and Development Supervision (Badan Pengawasan Keuangan dan Pembangunan). In line with the criteria mentioned above, the minimum samples required for 26 observations/indicators are 5×26=130 respondents. The sample size met the minimum sample requirement of 5 for each group (cell) (Hair et al., 2006, p. 112).

Personal factors competence affects the financial statements quality. The high personal factors competence will affect on the high financial statements quality. System/administration factors regulation affect the financial statement quality. The high system/administration factors regulation will affect on the high financial statements quality. Political factors affect the financial statements quality. The high political factors will affect on the high financial statements quality. Personal factor competence has no direct effect on the performance. The high personal factor competence will not affect the high or low of the performance. However, there is a significant indirect effect between personal factor competence on performance through the financial statements quality which means that higher personal factor competence will lead to higher performance through financial statements quality. System/administration factor regulation is not directly affects the performance. The high system/administration factor regulation will not affect on the high or low of the performance. However, there is a significant indirect effect between system/administration factor regulation on performance through the financial statements quality which means that higher the system/administration factor regulation will lead to higher performance through financial statements quality. Political factors is not directly affects the performance. The high political factors will not affect the high or low of the performance. However, there is a significant indirect effect between political factors on performance through the financial statements quality which means that the higher the political factor, it will leads to higher performance through the financial statements quality. Financial statements quality affects the performance. The high financial statements will affect on the performance.

The research issues raised are the increasing public demands for the government services and accountability, while on the other hand the government is faced with the report and financial quality that are below the expectation. This issue is a national strategic issue, leading this research to aim at providing guidelines that can help the regional government to formulate operational policies and strategies of the quality improvement of financial statement and performance of the regional government.

Prior research addresses relationships between audit attributes and perceptions of both audit quality and auditee satisfaction in the private sector. This study extends such research to local government audits, where audit quality has been questioned. Additionally, this study investigates the effect of auditor size on perceived audit quality and satisfaction. 302 finance directors surveyed positively associated auditor expertise, responsiveness to client, professionalism, understanding of client systems, and study of internal controls with perceived audit quality. Furthermore, auditee satisfaction was positively related to auditor expertise, responsiveness to client, audit manager involvement, understanding of client systems and study of internal controls. Big 5 firms were not associated with higher levels of perceived audit quality or auditee satisfaction, despite charging significantly higher audit fees.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the citizen perception of quality of service with respect to the Government’s citizen service delivery system of Karnataka and conduct an investigation to determine the major factors which affect the quality of Government service delivery system in the state of Karnataka in India.

Primary data related to variables affecting citizen service satisfaction are collected using a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was designed based on literature review and consulting officers associated with public service delivery system in the state of Karnataka.

The study found that the five factors “Responsiveness,” “Tangibility,” “Predictability,” “Reliability” and “Perceptiveness” are primary determinants of the quality of citizen/government services.

Right to Service Act has been adapted by 24 states and 5 union territories in India. It is highly impossible to study the progress of Right to Service Act in each and every state of India. In this paper, the author has made a detailed study of state of Karnataka, which has the highest in-time service disposition rate −95.06%, highest number of institutions −99 and highest number of services −1,115 services under Right to Service Act in India and generalized the results for other states.

This research enables government institutions/organizations to enhance their understanding of citizen service quality and perception of government services. The citizen satisfaction gauging parameters can provide useful direction to the design, implementation and management of government services.

Government/citizen services include services provided by each and every department of the government. The services covered here begin from birth of individual as birth certificate service till the death of individual which includes death certificate, and in between this life cycle of an individual, important events such as service related to caste certificate, marriage certificate, service verification for job, property or Khatha certificate are included under government services, covering services related to all the major events of one’s life. The improved level of service quality can enhance service satisfaction among citizens resulting in good governance.

The paper addresses quality of Government services for the first time in the state of Karnataka, India using a carefully designed research study. This paper is of value to research scholars in the area of government service quality in India and other countries where government services are delivered either under Right to Services Act, in stipulated time frame or through citizen charters.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the information quality of e-government websites by university-education citizens of Bangladesh. It also investigated citizens' demographic and Internet related variables associated with perceived information quality ratings and the validity of the underlying factor structure of information quality dimensions.

An online survey was conducted to assess information quality of e-government websites among a sample of university-educated citizens in Bangladesh. Descriptive statistics were obtained to examine respondents' ratings on information quality of these websites on a five-point Likert scale. A multiple linear regression model was applied to determine the effect of demographic and Internet use variables associated with information quality ratings on e-government websites. Finally, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to determine the underlying factor structure of information quality dimensions.

The findings revealed that the ratings on most information quality items were close to 4.00 on a five-point scale, indicating a generally high information quality of Bangladesh e-government websites. Out of 20 information quality dimensions, value-added and authority were the two top-rated information quality dimensions while security, completeness, reliability, advertisement, relevance and ease of use were the least rated dimensions. The results of multiple regression suggested that gender, age and the device used for accessing the Internet were significantly associated with information quality of e-government websites. The CFA results indicated that information quality dimensions corroborate the factor structure of information quality dimensions used in earlier studies, although the model fit statistics were not fully validated.

The focus of this study was confined to university-educated citizens in Bangladesh. Therefore, the results of this study may not be generalized to other demographic groups in Bangladesh or elsewhere.

This paper can provide guidelines for developing high-quality, informative and citizen-centric e-government websites and suggest ways on how these websites can be evaluated for information quality.

This study is the first to examine the information quality of e-government websites from the citizens' perspective in Bangladesh. The findings of this paper can assist responsible government agencies in making the websites more informative and useful for a diverse group of users.

In addressing the housing deficits for the less privileged citizens, the South African government began constructing social housing after coming to power in 1994. However, the construction of these houses is bedevilled with many issues; prominent among them are poor quality of the constructed houses. This study seeks to develop a quality management framework for achieving quality and efficiency in public-sector housing construction, a hallmark of the country's procurement goals.

Telephone interviews were conducted with construction professionals involved in constructing government social houses across South Africa, chosen randomly. The data gathered were analysed using the content analysis method.

The study found that the most significant cause of poor quality government-constructed social housing is multifaceted, categorised into project management-related, procurement-related, contractor-related, corruption-related and political-related.

Failure to develop and implement a quality management framework on government-constructed social housing leads to poor quality social housing.

The study has identified quality-related issues and has developed a Quality Management (QM) framework for the stakeholders involved in the construction of the houses to guide them in the project implementation process to ensure project success and quality standards.

Scholarly research on e-procurement has been limited and, like e-government, e-procurement has been researched primarily from the perspective of adoption/non-adoption. This paper aims to focus on public administration employees’ perceptions of the quality of národní elektronický nástroj (NEN) – the Czech national e-procurement tool they are required to use.

The paper is based primarily on statistical analysis of data obtained through two questionnaire surveys addressed to contacts from of all Czech central state administration bodies using NEN; 175 completed questionnaires were gathered in 2020 and 128 in 2022 and subjected to statistical analysis in SPSS.

NEN was launched as fully operational in August 2015. The research indicates that in 2022 there were still important gaps in the quality of NEN as perceived by public employees.

The paper has important practical implications for e-procurement policymakers. It shows that making the e-procurement system compulsory is not sufficient. The government needs to guarantee that it would be competitive with tools that would otherwise be preferred. Otherwise, the application of the digital-by-default principle may lead to institutionalisation of services that are not user-friendly. This has important implications for e-government/e-procurement management and change management.

Little is known about public employees’ perceptions of the quality of e-government and e-procurement. Although e-procurement is an area where the digital-by-default principle was implemented rather early, the quality of e-procurement has still received limited attention in research.

Electronic government (e-government) has been suggested as an important tool to improve public services and enhance citizens’ trust in government. Several studies have examined the relationship between e-government service quality, satisfaction and trust in government with conflicting results. This conflict reveals the need for additional examination of the process relating e-government service quality to trust in government. This study aims to introduce a theoretical approach that considers a crucial factor, which is perceived government effort. The model proposes that perceived e-government service quality first leads to satisfaction, which in turn increases perceived effort that finally translates into trust in government.

This study proposes and tests a conceptual model that examines the relationship between e-government service quality, satisfaction, perceived effort and trust in government. The model is tested using mediated regression analyses and Hayes’s PROCESS macro. Data were collected from an online survey of 723 individuals who interacted with e-government services in Kuwait.

The results supported the proposed theoretical model and particularly confirmed the mediating role of perceived effort in the link between e-government service quality and trust in government.

The findings improve the understanding of the behavioral process linking satisfaction with citizen’s trust in the government.

The model introduces a crucial yet previously overlooked factor to the trust-building effect of e-government, which is perceived effort. This factor is particularly important in electronic services that inherently lack face-to-face interaction between citizens and government representatives.

The Colombian Government launched an e-government initiative in 2008 to facilitate communication among the government, citizens and organizations. Considering the high level of mistrust of citizens and businesses toward governmental institutions, the government must ensure the security of the information handled and provided by online users. Results to date have not been adequate in the usage of e-government systems. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the level of online security affects usage and impacts the cost-effectiveness and quality of the operations and, consequently, the operational effectiveness of organizations using e-government systems.

Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the antecedents and outcomes of operational effectiveness. To this end, 440 usable questionnaires were collected from managers and personnel from Colombian organizations using e-government systems.

According to the findings, there is a positive predictive relationship between online security and the dimensions of electronic government effectiveness. Furthermore, neither online security nor any of the dimensions of electronic government effectiveness affect the operational costs of organizations. Nonetheless, the quality of information has a positive effect on the quality of operations. As a result, through the quality of the information, online security has an indirect impact on the quality of operations.

The authors used a convenience sample, carefully selecting respondents based on their operations and practice knowledge and implementation of online security processes. Besides, compared to previous research conducted in developed nations, the sample size is relatively small. Because the survey is based on responses from official companies, it must also be taken into account that over 50% of Colombian labor is informal. Furthermore, Colombia is a nation with a high level of mistrust. When considering these factors, generalizability to all industrial sectors is questionable. Nevertheless, the findings of this study offer relevant information that indicates the need for more extended and comprehensive quantitative research.

Improvements in organizations that use e-government systems, based on the benefits that high-quality information brings to operational performance – cost and quality – will help them survive and become more sustainable and competitive. Furthermore, this study supports the assertion that aspects like online security are critical in promoting information and communication technology uptake and user acceptance in transition and rising economies like Colombia.

There is still a scarcity of information on assessing the effectiveness of electronic government systems and their impact on the quality and cost of operations in organizations that use them. Additionally, Colombia, as a country with low levels of trust between citizens, organizations and government, still lacks information about the impact of online security on the effectiveness of its operations.

Many recent studies have highlighted the importance of quality of governance and institutions for economic performance. According to New Institutional Economics, the quality of governance and institutions is a fundamental precondition for sustained increases in prosperity, well-being, and territorial cohesion. The quality of governance influences people’s health, their access to basic services, social trust, and political legitimacy. Governance encompasses the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised, and its performance can be measured. In this chapter we use the World Bank’s measure Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI). The aim of the chapter is to highlight the variation of the quality of government between regions of Scandinavia and South East Europe and to analyse recent changes in South East Europe. Not surprisingly, Scandinavian regions outperform all other EU regions in quality of government, and the situation has been stable over time. In South East Europe, the situation has improved, although at a slow pace. Whereas the rule of law and government efficiency seem to be steadily increasing, the fight against corruption has been less successful.