1、2420 汉字， ,1640 单词 ,9300 英文字符 出处： Johnsen , Meklin P, Oulasvirta L, et al. Performance auditing in local government: an exploratory study of perceived efficiency of municipal value for money auditing in Finland and NorwayJ. European accounting review, 2001, 10(3): 583-599. 外文翻译 Performance auditing i
2、n local government:an exploratory study of perceived efficiency of municipal value for money auditing in Finland and Norway Author: Age Johnsen,PenttiMeklin,JarmoVakkuri There was an unambiguous, positive attitude to performance audit among the three Norwegian informants. Performance audit was not r
3、egarded as an unnecessary mandatory task, but some instrumental task with the purpose of improving the municipal management. In particular it was regarded as an important and efficient tool for control and reform of the public sector. Performance auditing was regarded as a part of a double-loop lear
4、ning process. The chief administrative officer of the county did, however, point to dysfunctions, which could reduce the chief administrative officers legitimacy. He, in this respect , specifically mentioned the possibility of the councils political opposition taking certain parts of the audit repor
5、t out of context and maximizing the political gain from this, in particular with the active use of media. He furthermore held it as undesirable that the auditors report due to a clause in the municipalact, should promptly be reported to the council control committee. By this clearance procedure he t
6、hought that the principle of contradiction was breached. This principle states that the part which is concerned, should have the ability to become acquainted with the content of the document before reporting in order that misconceptions and faults could be corrected. Our informants estimated that 15
7、?20% of the resources were used in performance auditing, but that 40?50% was desirable. Our finds are relatively similar to an earlier Norwegian study of desired and factual use of resources on performance auditing Schwanitz, 1997. She reported results indicating that in 1995 only 13% of the Norwegi
8、an municipal auditors resources were used in performance auditing. According to her survey the municipal auditors claimed that the desired level of performance auditing should constitute 30% of the total resources. The performance audit intended functions the 3Es were only partly achieved. The two c
9、hief administrative officers thought the main reason for this could be poorly performed audits, mainly due to lack of competence among the auditors. However, they both pointed out that there had been a noticeable improvement of the audits in later years. The informant from the municipal audit, on th
10、e other hand, thought that if the resources had been adequate according to the audit tasks, the quality of the auditing would have been satisfactory. The municipal audit had traditionally been inclined towards checking the books and had not had the necessary premises for knowing the risks inherent i
11、n the political system. To facilitate this challenge, the municipal audit had also recruited employees with backgrounds and education diverging from the traditional auditing discipline. This recruitment strategy, combined with the establishment of larger auditors through mergers between former singl
12、e municipal audit departments in order to strengthen the performance competence, seemed to have been an effective action for changing and enhancing the auditors competence. The municipal chief administrative officer mentioned that his municipality had started co-operation with four neighboring munic
13、ipalities on the establishment of a merged, district municipal auditor, precisely due to the task of improving the quality of the performance auditing. The chief administrative officer also described a performance audit project of nursing services, which was unsuccessful. The reason for this seemed
14、to have been problems of method and that those conducting the project overplayed the conclusion relative to their finds. In so far as there were audit reports of good quality, these were, according to the two chief administrative officers, used actively. The county chief administrative officer had t
15、he strong impression that the reports first of all were used by the management leadership and by the politicians. Lower in the organizational hierarchy there was little interest in the work of the municipal auditor. He mentioned that poor quality of the audit reports could be a possible reason for t
16、his lack of interest lower down in the organization. The municipal chief administrative officer, on the other hand, had a strong perception that the reports, where they were available, were used by the whole organization. However, he mentioned that there was a tendency for top management to be the m
17、ost active user group. The chief audit officer said the information which is revealed from performance auditing was meant for the decision-makers and the auditees. These were, according to him, also the same groups which used the reports. The municipal chief administrative officer pointed out that t
18、he marginal utility of performance audits most likely was larger than the marginal utility of traditional financial audit. With the use of sampling and the more recent development in audit information technology, this could be likely. On our question if the performance audit was performed to the det
19、riment of traditionalfinancial audit, the informants answered that the resources were fixed. The extension of the scope of operation from mainly financial audit to also conduct performance audit, had led to a reduced emphasis on financial auditing. To this it was added that the situation demanded in
20、novation and new way of thinking on the behalf of the auditors regarding the auditors effectiveness, efficiency, work organization and management. Thus, allegedly, also the municipal auditors could improve their performance. Regarding our two propositions on decoupling and symbolic use of informatio
21、n, the results in general did not warrant us to state that there were widespread symbolic and decoupled use of performance audit, rather on the contrary. It is in this respect necessary to devote attention to the link between performance audit information and the ambiguity of goals in local governme
22、nt. The ways of using audit information are related with the conceptions of auditors, auditees and other stakeholders on the methods of decreasing uncertainty and goal ambiguity and enhancing the legitimacy of public services. Both the cases of Finland and Norway provided some evidence for that. It
23、seems to be fair to conclude that performance auditing has specific instrumental functions in local government. Moreover, performance audit reports are used, albeit somewhat differently than might have been expected, by the symbolic and decoupling propositions. Compared to financial statement auditi
24、ng, performance auditing has a more conspicuous connection to both performance improvement and day-to-day management processes in the municipalities and counties. Particularly, our third proposition mimetic isomorphism under uncertainty therefore is judged to be supported by the findings of this stu
25、dy. Based on our data and judged by the relatively high emphasis on management by objectives and prominent position of private accounting firms in the Finnish municipal audit market, it seems likely that performance audits in Finland were relatively more of the management consultancy style. In Norwa
26、y, especially due to the low degree of involvement of the auditees in the clearance process, the performance audits seemed to be more inclined to the public accountants style compared to the Finnish case. We think our study has two major implications for theory and practice in enhancing the understa
27、nding of how performance audit in political institutions may have important instrumental and political functions. First, it is necessary to pose a question as to what extent performance audit can be a part of the process of determining correct and incorrect goals for local government. This is one of
28、 the prominent future dilemmas in performance auditing. What if there are no explicit goals to audit? As was discovered in the Finnish case, this is part of the realm in performance auditing. Not necessarily all the issues that are ex post considered important from the viewpoint of three Es, service
29、 quality, equity, justice or other relevant evaluation criteria, have been regarded as such ex ante. Often there are many issues that are of no specific substance at the time when principals make their decisions on priorities and resource allocations, but that are extremely important at the time whe
30、n auditing occurs. The problem in the intertemporal comparison of preferences makes, not only the decision-making processes of local government, but especially the auditing of those activities and decisions, complicated March, 1978, 1988. The emphasis on value for money clearly magnifies the importa
31、nce of understanding the processes of goal setting in local governments from the auditing perspective. This applies both to performance measurement and auditing of local government activities and to the use of audit results in improving the performance of local authorities. Thus, seemingly decoupled
32、 structures in uncertain and ambiguous contingencies should not be judged exclusively as static decoupled or symbolic phenomena, but rather be studied in a dynamic, evolutionary and political perspective Nelson and Winter, 1982； Baieretal., 1986. Second, performance auditing in local government in i
33、ts modern form may still be relatively new. Over time, one may expect more loosely coupled but still highly rational use of performance auditing information. By this we mean that due to the institutional context under which different actors employ performance audits, different actors may use this ki
34、nd of information rationally according to their specific circumstances. For example: the political ruling coalition, the majority, could select and disclose performance information when and if it confirms value for money. Simultaneously, the political opposition, the minority, and the media could se
35、lect and use information strategically when and if information shows low value for money. Both of these uses are politically rational and, furthermore, use of information externally which is coupled to structures internally in the municipalities and counties. While such processes may increase the le
36、vel of conflict and reveal different ideologies, this could be exactly what management models in political institutions should do, intended or unintended Brunsson, 1989. However, if it is so that performance auditing in local government could work in such a rational and coupled way as we have depict
37、ed above, this may, in the longer run, also lead to a possible performance auditing success paradox. The logic in the performance audit success paradox is that even though performance auditors could be relatively successful agents for society at large as principal in providing performance information as a collective good and thus function as watchdogs for democracy and transparency, the society is not a homogenous entity. The citizens have different preferences and the different political parties and interest groups have their different manifestos and agendas.
