scholarly journals Financial controls to control corruption in an African country: insider experts within an enabling environment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Hopper ◽  
P Lassou ◽  
T Soobaroyen
Keyword(s):  
African Country ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Accounting Systems ◽  
Enabling Environment ◽  
Government Accounting ◽  
Public Sector Organizations ◽  
Accounting Changes ◽  
Suitable Environment

© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd This study analyses an implementation of a government accounting reform in Benin directed at redressing fraudulent and corrupt practices. Although reforms to improve public administration and to mitigate corruption in Africa often have disappointing outcomes, our case study involving systems for payment of supplier invoices, payroll matters, and debt certificates had encouraging findings. The systems reduced inefficiencies and corrupt practices. An “enabling environment” (its main elements being emancipatory space, empowered participation, and ethical leadership) encouraged the deeper involvement of committed, expert, and ethical local civil servants in establishing effective financial controls. In the context of anticorruption reforms, this illustrates that public sector organizations in Africa should not invariably be regarded as monolithic bureaucratic top-down entities, staffed by civil servants who are either passive “bystanders,” purely self-interested “players,” or insufficiently expert, and hence in need for more training, and of imported, expensive, accounting systems implemented by foreign consultants. In contrast, the paper argues that, within a suitable environment, granting indigenous experts enough latitude to enact incremental yet substantive accounting changes at the local level may be more effective.

scholarly journals Financial controls to control corruption in an African country: insider experts within an enabling environment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Hopper ◽  
P Lassou ◽  
T Soobaroyen
Keyword(s):  
African Country ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Accounting Systems ◽  
Enabling Environment ◽  
Government Accounting ◽  
Public Sector Organizations ◽  
Accounting Changes ◽  
Suitable Environment

© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd This study analyses an implementation of a government accounting reform in Benin directed at redressing fraudulent and corrupt practices. Although reforms to improve public administration and to mitigate corruption in Africa often have disappointing outcomes, our case study involving systems for payment of supplier invoices, payroll matters, and debt certificates had encouraging findings. The systems reduced inefficiencies and corrupt practices. An “enabling environment” (its main elements being emancipatory space, empowered participation, and ethical leadership) encouraged the deeper involvement of committed, expert, and ethical local civil servants in establishing effective financial controls. In the context of anticorruption reforms, this illustrates that public sector organizations in Africa should not invariably be regarded as monolithic bureaucratic top-down entities, staffed by civil servants who are either passive “bystanders,” purely self-interested “players,” or insufficiently expert, and hence in need for more training, and of imported, expensive, accounting systems implemented by foreign consultants. In contrast, the paper argues that, within a suitable environment, granting indigenous experts enough latitude to enact incremental yet substantive accounting changes at the local level may be more effective.

scholarly journals La dimension pragmatico-discursive du français en contact

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Drescher
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
African Country ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Direct Interaction ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Local Contact ◽  
Medical Issues ◽  
Mitigation Technique

The aim of this paper is two-fold : First it argues for a stronger consideration of the pragmatic and discourse level in research on language contact. Secondly it contributes to the pragmatics of a specific regional variety of French, namely Cameroonian French. Starting with a picture of the complex linguistic landscape of this multilingual African country, the paper stresses the importance of the pragmatic and discourse level by raising some of the crucial theoretical and methodological issues that a broader, usage-based view on language contact has to cope with. First it suggests that pragmatic and discourse conventions may be influenced by the local contact languages and secondly it emphasizes that they may not be specific to a language, but be shared by a much larger and encompassing community of discourse. A case study of Cameroonian radio phone-ins where callers seek advice on medical issues points out some of these conventions. Here the participants establish a specific participation framework that avoids direct interaction between caller and expert while the host is set in as a mediator. This global mitigation technique then allows for quite direct realisations of the advice at a local level.

scholarly journals Studying the Factors Which Delay Management Accounting Changes (Case Study of Iranian Manufacturing Firms)

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 176
Author(s):  
Akbar Allahyari ◽  
Morteza Ramazani
Keyword(s):  
Management Accounting ◽  
Accounting System ◽  
Delay Management ◽  
Accounting Systems ◽  
Independent Variables ◽  
Management Accounting Systems ◽  
Industrial Markets ◽  
Accounting Changes ◽  
Descriptive Survey

Firms competing in industrial markets face technological changes and more demands of customers as the competition increases based on market globalization. All these changes affect firms' management accounting systems. This leads firms to change their management accounting system in which some factors make delay in the progress of management accounting changes. Researcher accounts seven factors which make delay in management accounting changes as follow: 1.Lack of accounting employees 2.Lack of competition resources 3.Management stability 4.Problems in management 5.Lack of accounting power 6.being assured of meeting legal requirements 7.Lack of independence from parent companyResearch tries to study these factors. Research method in this paper is descriptive-survey in which researcher has been benefited from questionnaire and interview techniques. In questionnaire testing, Friedman test has been used to exam the uniformity of variables and then kruskal-wallis test to evaluate the effect of firm size on research independent variables

A Case Study on North Korean Government Accounting System : Based on University’s Textbook in North Korea

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 123-156
Author(s):  
Sung-Man Yoon ◽  
Mi-Ok Kim ◽  
Yi-bae Kim ◽  
Hyung-Rok Jung
Keyword(s):  
North Korea ◽  
Accounting System ◽  
Korean Government ◽  
Government Accounting

Are They Ready for Their Close-Up? Civil Servants and Their Portrayal in Contemporary American Cinema

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle C. Pautz ◽  
Laura Roselle
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Case Study Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Narrative Forms

Perceptions of government and civil servants are shaped by a variety of factors including popular culture. In the public administration literature the significant role that film and other narrative forms have on citizens’ perceptions is duly noted, and there is ample research on politicians and military heroes in film, but a focus on civil servants remains largely elusive. Among the sparse literature centered on civil servants are studies that employ a case study approach or focus on a few films. In contrast, our research employs a large sample of 150 films. These films comprise the top ten box-office grossing films from 1992 through 2006; therefore we examine the films most likely to have been seen by a majority of movie-watching Americans. More than 60 percent of the films in our sample portray government as bad, inefficient, and incompetent. However, the data on more than 300 civil servants yield intriguing findings. Surprising, in light of the negative depiction of government, is the positive depiction of individual civil servants. Half of civil servants were positively portrayed, and only 40 percent were negatively depicted. Americans may view government negatively, but they see in film positive depictions of how individual civil servants can and do make a positive difference.

Progressive Law, Activism, and Lawyering in an Age of Preemption

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-267
Author(s):  
Rashmi Dyal-Chand
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Global Supply Chain ◽  
Environmental Movements ◽  
Improve Working ◽  
Detailed History ◽  
History Of ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Core Questions

Preemption is one of the most important legal doctrines for today’s progressives to understand because of its power to constrain progressive policymaking and social movement lawyering at the state and local level. By examining the detailed history of a decades-long campaign by the labor and environmental movements to improve working conditions in an industry at the heart of the global supply chain, Scott L. Cummings’s Blue and Green: The Drive for Justice at America’s Port (2018) provides a case study about the doctrine and impacts of preemption. The study also inspires lawyers and activists alike to reexamine core questions of factual relevance, representation and voice, and precedent.

scholarly journals Decomposition Analysis of the Evolution of the Local Energy System as a Tool to Assess the Effect of Local Actions: Methodology and Example of Malmö, Sweden

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 461
Author(s):  
Isabel Azevedo ◽  
Vítor Leal
Keyword(s):  
Local Level ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Decomposition Analysis ◽  
Specific Effect ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Local Energy ◽  
Total Change ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Change Mitigation

This paper proposes the use of decomposition analysis to assess the effect of local energy-related actions towards climate change mitigation, and thus improve policy evaluation and planning at the local level. The assessment of the impact of local actions has been a challenge, even from a strictly technical perspective. This happens because the total change observed is the result of multiple factors influencing local energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, many of them not even influenced by local authorities. A methodology was developed, based on a recently developed decomposition model, that disaggregates the total observed changes in the local energy system into multiple causes/effects (including local socio-economic evolution, technology evolution, higher-level governance frame and local actions). The proposed methodology, including the quantification of the specific effect associated with local actions, is demonstrated with the case study of the municipality of Malmö (Sweden) in the timeframe between 1990 and 2015.

scholarly journals Characterising Local Knowledge across the Flood Risk Management Cycle: A Case Study of Southern Malawi

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1681 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Šakić Trogrlić ◽  
Grant Wright ◽  
Melanie Duncan ◽  
Marc van den Homberg ◽  
Adebayo Adeloye ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Flood Risk Management ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
Complex Knowledge

People possess a creative set of strategies based on their local knowledge (LK) that allow them to stay in flood-prone areas. Stakeholders involved with local level flood risk management (FRM) often overlook and underutilise this LK. There is thus an increasing need for its identification, documentation and assessment. Based on qualitative research, this paper critically explores the notion of LK in Malawi. Data was collected through 15 focus group discussions, 36 interviews and field observation, and analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicate that local communities have a complex knowledge system that cuts across different stages of the FRM cycle and forms a component of community resilience. LK is not homogenous within a community, and is highly dependent on the social and political contexts. Access to LK is not equally available to everyone, conditioned by the access to resources and underlying causes of vulnerability that are outside communities’ influence. There are also limits to LK; it is impacted by exogenous processes (e.g., environmental degradation, climate change) that are changing the nature of flooding at local levels, rendering LK, which is based on historical observations, less relevant. It is dynamic and informally triangulated with scientific knowledge brought about by development partners. This paper offers valuable insights for FRM stakeholders as to how to consider LK in their approaches.

Indigenization in a downgraded continuum: Ideologies behind phonetic variation in Namibian Afrikaans

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Stell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
African Country ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Phonetic Variation ◽  
Variation Patterns ◽  
Standard Models

AbstractThis study generally looks at indigenization in languages historically introduced and promoted by colonial regimes. The case study that it presents involves Namibia, a Subsaharan African country formerly administered by South Africa, where Afrikaans was the dominant official language before being replaced by English upon independence. Afrikaans in Namibia still functions as an informal urban lingua franca while being spoken as a native language by substantial White and Coloured minorities. To what extent does the downranking of Afrikaans in Namibia co-occur with divergence from standard models historically located in South Africa? To answer this question, the study identifies variation patterns in Namibian Afrikaans phonetic data elicited from ethnically diverse young urban informants and links these patterns with perceptions and language ideologies. The phonetic data reveal divergence between Whites and Non-Whites and some convergence among Black L2 Afrikaans-speakers with Coloured varieties, while suggesting that a distinctive Black variety is emerging. The observed trends generally reflect perceived ethnoracial distinctions and segregation. They must be read against the background of shifting inter-group power relations and sociolinguistic prestige norms in independent Namibia, as well as of emergent ethnically inclusive Black urban identities.

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