Corporate Governance and Service Delivery in Public Institutions

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

The reason for this is that; for long, there has been a challenge in governance and administration systems of state affairs not only at a political level but also among the technocrats. To my analysis, this has been due to the fact that there is not only high level of corruption but also the aspect of separation of powers between the executive, legislature and the Judiciary has been a dilemma in Uganda. Therefore, it’s on that back ground that I will try to point out such aspects and how they can be overcome by the integration of theories and policies set into political reality on ground as a matter of good governance. The most used concepts in this paper are State, Bureaucracy and Government.

There is recognition that more systematic efforts to promote innovation are needed to address the economic and societal challenges that public sectors face. Public procurement of innovation has not materialised on a large scale particularly in the developing nations and one of the factors is lack of awareness among the key stakeholders. This call for the rationalization to increase the attention of potential of public procurement as an innovation policy to policy makers, procurement practitioners and academicians. The goal is to investigate the level of awareness of public procurement as an innovation policy tool among the key stakeholders. The study adopted both exploratory and cross-sectional survey designs in investigating the level of awareness. The sample size was 249 and the sample technique used was purposive. The study disclosed that public procurement is recognised as an innovation policy tool by the professionals. This demonstrates that majority of the stakeholders are aware that there is a lot to enjoy when procurement activities are tailored towards promoting innovation. However, it became apparent that the Act used in conducting

The comprehensive project, „Területi közszolgáltatások szabályozásai“ [Regulatory Tools for Local Public Services] (2012 -2016) of the MTA-DE Public Service Research Group sets out a wide range of public services delivered at local level, and those public functions which have implications  for  public  service  provision  in  a  local  context.  In  doing  so,  we  are  focusing especially  on  public  utilities,  social  services,  administrative  services  and  education  issues.
Viewed  from  an  East-Central-European  angle,  our  underlying  conception  is  that  the  content and territorial management frameworks for public functions have been gradually transformed from the millennium in the developed countries, according to the main trends in the European integration process. There is a tendency of moving (back) from local government autonomy to decentralisation.

"A major study released from the Department of Business Administration at Victoria University found that the major benefits expected to be gained by exporters in 1977-78 were, in order of importance, overall increased profitability; growth in sales opportunities; longer production runs; improved cash flows; risk reduction through market diversification; and exposure to new ideas and practices.

The study of the exportport attitudes and directions of a range of manufacturing firms was undertaken by Professor David Cullwick, Professor of Marketing, and Mr Peter Mellalieu. The project is one of several completed as part of an export marketing research programme that commenced in 1973. Information was obtained from 185 firms covering a wide range of types and sizes, accounting for $316 million in exports ($NZ 1978) employing 60,580 persons.

Based on detailed analysis of respondents’ use of external and government export the study recommended specific practices that could improve the utility of government services to exporters. The improvements recommended include: greater publicity of the activities performed by the Department of Trade and Industry to exporters and potential exporters; clear identification of specialist staff for key problems such as joint ventures and licensing agreements; a greater emphasis on commercially-oriented training and development programmes for existing staff including courses in export marketing, marketing management, and general business administration; greater personal contact between department staff and client companies; short-term personnel exchanges between business and government."

Citation:
"Cullwick, T. D. C., & Mellalieu, P. J. (1978). Profitability, sales opportunities and government support - Key business expectations in export effort. Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Business Administration, Victoria University of Wellington."

The article discusses barriers in strategic governance of local development characteristic for Polish local governments, i.e. municipalities, which occurred within the first 15 years of the XXI century. These barriers were identified in the period 2000-2015 by means of using the qualitative field research method, in the process of research and implementation as well as research and development projects’ execution, directly and indirectly related to the conceptualization, application and assessment of development strategies for Polish municipalities. The introduction to the article presents the reasons, origins, purpose, method, techniques and the course of conducted research. Next the concept of local development perceived from two perspectives, a local and supra-local one, as well as their governance concept and strategic approach to such governance, are discussed. The core part of the article is devoted to presenting the identified barriers in strategic governance of local development and also their sources. The article is concluded by providing recommendations regarding the continuation of research covering these barriers and the instruments of their reduction.

The fight against corruption has become increasingly sophisticated and such demands a well-integrated, multidisciplinary strategy. This has necessitated the establishment of anti-corruption institutions, agencies or commissions which invariably have one or more of three functions: investigation and enforcement; corruption prevention; and awareness and education. However in Ghana, despite the existence of anti-corruption institutions, the perception of corruption has steadily increased to overwhelming levels. Why the increase in corruption in the face of these anti-corruption institutions is the subject matter of this study. This study brings to fore the systemic barriers, their frequency of occurrence and magnitude. This study aimed at identifying the challenges that affect the effectiveness of these anti-corruption institutions in Ghana. The study was purposely carried out within anti-corruption institutions in Ghana. A simple random probability sampling was employed in sampling nine (9) anti-corruption institutions in the Ashanti Region of Ghana and questionnaires administered to their administrative heads. Relative importance, frequency and severity equations were used to analyze and rank the challenges affecting the work of these institutions. Lack of political will and inadequate leadership and management with Relative importance Index RII of 0.9778 respectively were the two (2) most critical challenges affecting the effectiveness of anti-corruption institutions in Ghana. Lack of donor initiatives with RII of 0.6667 was considered as the least challenge. The most frequent challenge identified by the anti-corruption agencies was the lack of budget and fiscal autonomy, with an index of 0.8148. In the face of these challenges, the government of Ghana should improve upon its efforts at fighting corruption as it strengthens the various anti-corruption institutions financially and logistically.