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Rational public decision-making is nearly impossible for two reasons : the organisational complexity of public services and the existence of two circuits, a political one (parties, parliament...), and an administrativeone (bureaucracy).Moreover, public decisions are made by different pressure groups, and from different decision centres. In Belgium the impact of political parties is steadily increasing, up to the point where they function as master-organisations that have set up their own institutions to carry out public tasks (e.g. education). In thesocio-economie field the government acts more often as an arbitrator and money-supplier than as a decision-maker.In the welfare state the government's position in the whole field of decision-making amounts to delegating decisions to private organisations and pressure groups, which in due course leads to corporatism andirrationality. Finally, the organisation structure of the civil service itself stimulates irrationality because it was set up as a pyramid hierarchy in a time when the government did not have many tasks.

This paper shows that governmental management accounting research around the turn of the century, as published in FAM, MAR and EAR, is different from general management accounting research in some respects. Although there are variations related to topics, theories and research methods, a mainstream in governmental management accounting research seems to exist. Research is predominantly directed to the way in which technical management accounting innovations are used, including organizational and contextual factors that might influence the use of these new techniques. Qualitatively oriented case and field studies are the dominant research methods, and the research is inspired by various theoretical viewpoints, e.g. economics, organization theory and neo-institutional theory. NPM, regarded as a lower level economic theory, turns out to be highly influential. The paper gives recommendations for governmental management accounting research in the future: more attention has to be paid to quantitative research, impact studies on NPM must be promoted, and jointly conducted research projects by management accounting and public administration researchers are welcomed.

Privatisation is mainly encouraged by the World Bank and the IMF to offer solutions for the failures of public ownership (Shirley & Walsh, 2001). The transfer of ownership and control of public firms into private owners was presumed to bring outcomes like improved Management Control System [MCS] practices and performance. Proponents of privatisation have considered the internal and external contextual factors as unproblematic and would pose no problems. The literature also does not show how MCS changes actually take place and studies did not address whether privatisation results meet the expectations mainly from the context of developing countries. Furthermore, evidence from former studies has indicated that the outcomes of privatisation had been inconclusive both in the developed and developing countries. In fact, some studies have suggested that the success of privatisation is likely to be affected by MCS practices and contextual factors. Therefore, this study was conducted in Eritrea to shed light on the relations among privatisation, MCS change, and firm performance, while taking into account the influence of contextual factors. In this respect, we have developed suitable conceptual framework to guide our study. We have applied a qualitative research approach and used the case study method. Findings from our three case firms indicated that the MCS practices, firm activities and performance were significantly affected by contextual factors. Factors that played positive role include the capacity and experience and involvement of multinational and local owners. Conversely, factors that had negative effects were mainly government regulations and political uncertainty (war).

While China's economy has shown impressive dynamism following the increased reliance on market-based policies, the governance structures themselves will have to be reformed deeply for this growth to be sustainable. This report examines the many challenges of governance which China is facing. In addition to the well-known problems related to the lack of openness in government and intellectual property rights, this book also looks at the delivery of public services, management of state assets, regulatory management, e-government, taxation and public expenditure, fighting corruption, and producing reliable information. Selected policy areas where the insufficient governance reforms have an impact on the policies themselves -- like the financial sector, agriculture, environmental protection, labour market and social protection, education, and competition -- are also discussed.

A broad-ranging and highly intelligent account of key recent developments internationally which skillfully updates the public management and governance literatures' - Ewan Ferlie, Royal Holloway. 'Public management has been radically changed and reformed. this book gives students a fine introduction to these changes and to the theories dealing with them' - J rgen Gr nnegaard Christensen, University of Aarhus. An introduction and guide to the dramatic changes that have occurred in the provision of public services over the last two decades, this book combines theoretical perspectives with a ran.

A perspective on the public sector that presents a concise and comprehensive analysis of exactly what it is and how it operates. Governments in any society deliver a large number of services and goods to their populations. To get the job done, they need public management in order to steer resources - employees, money and laws - into policy outputs and outcomes. In well-ordered societies the teams who work for the state work under a rule-of-law framework, known as public administration.

Outlines the essential roles of corporate and municipal managers in reacting to a wide range of natural and man-made disasters.