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published_or_final_version / Economics / Master / Master of Philosophy

The period from 1294 until 1307 saw England engaged in wars with the French, the Welsh and the Scotch. In only three years, 1299, 1302, and 1305 was there no campaign. The object of this dissertation is to examine the ways in which the country was mobilised for this exceptional military effort, and to investigate the means by which the wars were financed. Various aspects of both the military and administrative history of this period have been dealt with by Tout, Morris and others, but much of the surviving evidence has not been fully used, and no historian has attempted to treat the subject as a whole.

The audit expectations gap is a prominent issue in the private sector. However, in the public sector, the audit expectations gap is an emerging issue that has received little attention by reseachers. To date, only a limited number of studies on the audit expectations gap in the public sector are available, either in the context of a financial audit or a performance audit. This study focused on the audit expectations gap in the context of the latter. The importance of the performance audit function in the Malaysian public sector, combined with recent developments related to this type of audit in the country (such as increasing expectations among the users and associated problems in practice) were the reasons for conducting the study in this area. Thus, the study aims to identify the existence of the audit expectations gap in the Malaysian public sector. In achieving this objective, it explores the perceptions of auditors and Public Account Committee (PAC) members, auditees and ‘other users’ (consisting of journalists, politicians and academics). The conceptual framework in this study was developed based on Chowdhury’s (1996) and Porter’s (1993) approaches. Utilising the accountability-based framework as suggested by Chowdhury, six audit concepts (auditor independence, auditor competence, audit scope, auditor ethics, audit reporting and auditing standards) were examined. Porter’s model was subsequently utilised to identify the nature and the components of the gap. This study employed two types of research methods: interviews and audit report analysis. Interviews were conducted with 37 participants comprising of auditors, PAC members, auditees and ‘other users’. The second research method involved the examination of four performance audit reports. The findings of this study indicated that the audit expectations gap exists in the Malaysian public sector in the context of performance auditing. The analysis of interviews and audit reports clearly suggest that the audit expectations gap exists over a number of auditing issues. These comprise fraud detection exercises, the influence of management, executive and other parties on auditors, outsourcing the audit to private audit firms, content and format of the audit report and extending the audit mandate to cover the question of merits of policy.

It is the purpose of this study to examine the underlying nature of the relative risk associated with an audit engagement.

This thesis provides an empirical case study as to whether, and, how the macro political dynamics might lead to the micro organisational changes of cost management practices in public sector organisations. It draws on Dillard et al.'s (2004) version of institutional theory complemented by Burns and Scapens' (2000) model. Empirical data for the thesis came from an extended case study (Burawoy, 1998) of a state-owned enterprise in the Egyptian Electricity and Energy (E&E) Sector, in which semi-structured interviews, field observations and documentary analysis were deployed as the data collection methods. The thesis highlights the necessity of seeing cost management change, especially in the politically sensitive public utilities in less developed countries, as an institutional political change that brings together the wider political objectives of the state and the narrower economic objectives of the firms. Accordingly, it provides a political theorisation for cost management change in the public sector. There, the dynamics are the fact that the E&E costs in the Egyptian business environment are historically managed at three distinct but interrelated institutional levels: political level, field level, and organisational level. For example, with the failure of re-privatisation attempts, new forms of periodic control reports have emerged including a 'cost report' which has been instrumental in changing managerial actions and behaviours. With modernisation programmes accompanied by reprivatisation attempts, initiated by the Egyptian government and supported by the international development agencies such as the World Bank and the European Union, advanced ERP technologies have been brought in to institutionalise costing rules and routines. With ERP, the organisational management under what are effectively military practices has re-defined cost management processes into a single procedural protocol.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic & Business Sciences, 2017. / The present thesis considers the state as a public organization, namely a complex structure that individuals use to accomplish collectively their individual interests mainly through exchange. By placing greater emphasis on exchange, the thesis is able to suggest novel insights about the organization of the public sector. [Abbreviated abstract. Open document to view full version] / GR2018

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in 25% fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management (in the field of Public and Development Management) March 2017 / In recent years, increased attention being given to accountability on public finances in South African municipalities saw an increase in the number of municipalities establishing Municipal Public Accounts Committees (MPACs) to address deficiencies and gaps in the local government accountability mechanisms and oversight. The purpose of the study was to establish the alignment between the recently established MPACs and the generally accepted public accounts committees with respect to the institutional design, practices and performance assessment. A qualitative case study of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality (NMBM) MPAC was followed where documents were analysed and semi-structured in-depth interviews with purposively selected participants were conducted. This research study revealed some gaps in the alignment of the NMBM MPAC to the generally accepted public accounts committees. The most crucial gap that emerged pertained to the mandate and powers of the NMBM MPAC. Recommendations for enhancing the financial oversight of the NMBM MPAC were made. The study also suggests further research on a larger number of municipalities. / GR2018