Central Audit Institutions and Performance Auditing: A Comparative Analysis of Organizational Strategies in the OECD

• Published in: Governance (Oxford) Vol. 10; no. 3; pp. 235 - 260
• Main Author: Barzelay, Michael
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK and Boston, USA Blackwell Publishers Inc 01.07.1997
• Subjects: Audit; Auditing; Comparative politics; Comparative Study; Governance; Industrial nations; Institutions; OECD; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); Organizational audits; Policy implementation; Programme evaluation; Public administration; Public management; Public policy
• ISSN: 0952-1895; 1468-0491
• DOI: 10.1111/0952-1895.411997041

The New Public Management supplies a rationale for broadening the mandate of external audit institutions to encompass performance auditing. This article examines conceptual, empirical, and managerial issues raised by external performance auditing. Conceptually, performance auditing is a misnomer for a class of mainly evaluative review activities. Empirically, OECD countries vary in terms of the specific types of performance audits conducted by their principal external audit bodies. Explaining such variation offers some insight into the contemporary politics of public management policy. Managerially, audit bodies whose mandate includes performance auditing confront two major strategic issues: whether to conduct such evaluative reviews in an auditing style and whether to gear their work to achieving performance improvement in auditee organizations.