International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
There is extensive literature on accountability, yet systematic research on the state of the art in the field of public administration is lacking. This research is essential to understand the aspects of accountability that have been studied and identify the primary findings and areas that require further investigation. This study seeks to address this gap by conducting a systematic literature review of 277 articles on accountability published in 15 leading public administration journals between 1996 and 2021. This review aims to answer the following questions: What types of accountability have been examined? To what extent has accountability been investigated as a dependent or an explanatory variable? Which methodological approaches dominate, and which cases are more commonly examined? What are the current challenges and future research trends?Points for practitionersTwo dimensions to consider when examining accountability are supply-side accountability, which centers on traditional government models, and demand-side accountability, which underscores the role of citizens and multiple forums. The interaction between the supply and demand sides leads to various types of accountability, encompassing vertical, horizontal, hybrid, and social accountability. Core approaches used for measuring accountability include formal, informal, voluntary, and felt accountability.

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
Local governments increasingly create and use corporate forms of organization to provide public services. While there is growing evidence on the factors influencing such corporatization, less is known about what leads some local governments to bring corporatized services back in-house. This paper investigates financial, socioeconomic, political and organizational drivers of reverse corporatization among 62 Arms-Length Management Organizations (ALMOs), wholly owned nonprofit organizations created by local governments in England to provide social housing services. Survival analysis for the period 2003–2019 suggests that reverse corporatization is more likely to occur in left-wing local governments and in those with more financial reserves, but is less likely if ALMOs have operated for a longer time and have a large board of directors.Points for practitionersUnderstanding of the drivers of reverse corporatization can help local politicians and public managers improve their decisions about the appropriate mode of delivery for local public services. This paper highlights that good fiscal health may be essential for efforts to bring corporatized service back in-house, but that well-established municipal corporations may be better left to continue operating. It is also important for policymakers to recognize the role that political ideology (and socioeconomic circumstances) can play in shaping a commitment to reversing corporatization.

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
While think tanks are no longer solely a feature of Anglo-Saxon countries, they still appear less prevalent in consensus-oriented and neo-corporatist political regimes. To what extent do central characteristics of these countries shape the organizational characteristics and political activities of think tanks? We theoretically contribute to the existing literature on policy advice by drawing inspiration from niche theory, and empirically complement previous work by focusing on think tanks in Belgium, a country with a crowded and closed advisory landscape. Relying on a combination of data sources, our analysis highlights three central features of think tanks: (1) the long-term and anticipatory character of their policy advice, (2) the evidence-based nature of their policy work, and (3) their consensus-oriented mode of operating. The first two features echo what earlier studies in pluralist setting identified as key distinguishing characteristics. The third feature, their consensus-oriented mode of operating, represents a new element that turns out critical for understanding the niche of think tanks in Belgium. Its consensus-style tradition shows not only in how think tanks position themselves externally, but also in their internal organizational structure.Points for practitioners- Think tanks have potential to be key providers of policy advice, also in relatively closed systems with neo-corporatist traits.- In such settings, think tanks especially benefit from a consensual mode of operating, both internally and externally.- The long-term orientation of think tanks can set them apart from other providers of policy advice, such as interest groups and political party think tanks.

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
Territorially, Spanish public administrations are organized into State Administration, Autonomous Community Administration, and Local Administration. Local government has the closest contact with citizens and therefore the powers and decisions taken by local institutions have the greatest impact on the social welfare of citizens. To ensure this well-being, it is necessary to analyze and pay attention to the administrative and financial autonomy of local governments. Financial autonomy translates into the capacity of local entities to govern their respective finances, determining, within certain limits, the level of the volume of their own resources and organizing their expenditures. In this work, we study the Financial Autonomy Indicator, which aims to determine the tax resources available to the local entity. Taking into account that Spanish municipalities have, depending on their population size, different obligations when providing services to citizens, the convergence of financial autonomy is studied to detect whether there are common trends by applying the techniques of β-convergence and σ-convergence. It is analyzed whether municipalities starting from lower indicators achieve higher growth over time (β-convergence), and whether dispersion between municipalities is reduced (σ-convergence).Points for practitionersLocal autonomy grants local entities the freedom to manage their own interests within the State's legal framework. Greater economic diversity and the ability to raise more money on their own through taxes, fees, and other sources characterize larger communities. They have a wider tax base thanks to their higher economic diversification, which opens up more opportunities for revenue collection. The speed of convergence is highest in the smallest municipalities. Knowing whether there is convergence or divergence in financial autonomy can help policy makers.

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
Literature on the operation of regulatory agencies and their interactions with the executive branch of government is well established. Much less attention has been devoted to the relationship between these agencies and the courts, especially in case of judicial review of regulators’ decisions. This paper examines how judicial review of regulatory decisions produces clashes and agreements between regulatory agencies and the courts, and the influence of these relationships on regulatory governance. The research was conducted in Brazil with 21 interviews, consisting of eight officials of six federal regulatory agencies, seven attorneys from five agencies, and six federal judges. Regulatory governance, institutional theory, and regulatory overlap were the main analytical frameworks for this research. Data was subjected to content analysis. The findings showed that judicial review plays an important role in the overlapping scopes between courts and regulatory agencies. The institutional details of regulatory governance are crucial for the regulatory bodies to function. Despite the conflicts, judges seek more coordination with regulators, because of a greater awareness of the specifics of regulatory policies. Attorneys of regulatory bodies perform a key role in the dialogue between regulators and courts, especially by bridging the gap between technical and legal protocols. Regulatory litigation provides powerful economic agents with the opportunity to obtain a successful remittance of fines, thereby diluting the regulators’ ability to enforce regulation.Points for practitionersJudicial review is the only coordinating mechanism between regulatory agencies and the courts and plays a crucial role in defining regulatory policies and in controlling administrative behavior. In the process of judicial review, regulatory bodies confront the uncertainties that mark the blurred boundaries between the roles performed by state actors and authorities in dealing with regulation. By examining the Brazilian case, the research sheds light on regulatory governance and deals with the balance of power between the judiciary and formally independent regulatory bodies. The findings indicate the value of closer dialogue between regulators and courts in a context where regulatory agencies are increasingly called upon to make important technical and social choices on highly sensitive public issues.

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
New public management policies have been in effect in Chile since the 1980s, influencing the development of human resources policies and procedures, particularly within higher education institutions. While the impact of these policies on academic staff is evident, their implications for non-academic personnel who operate under the same regime as public servants remain unclear. This research aims to investigate the relationship between new public management principles and the career beliefs of non-academic personnel in Chile. Utilizing focus groups, this study analyzes the perceptions of career trajectories among the collaboration staff at the country's most prominent public university. Finally, the results are discussed.Points for practitionersOur study calls on public sector professionals to recognize the distance between legal frameworks and policies that manage public servants’ careers and organizational cultures that have funded a traditional civil service career model. Thus, those who work in the public sector need to strengthen the agency capacity of civil servants by expanding their professionalization. Likewise, career flexibility and merit ideas must be critically addressed, especially in developing countries, as in the case analyzed.

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
This study has examined the impacts of top executives’ discretion on organizational performance in public organizations. We analyzed longitudinally collected data from quasi-governmental organizations in Korea. The results show that top executives’ managerial discretion has an inverted U-shape relationship with the overall performance of organizations. The marginal effect of top executives’ discretion on organizational performance was negative. This suggests that the benefits from top executives’ discretion decrease as the level of managerial discretion increases. The greater discretion of top executives in project management was more likely to yield desirable outcomes for organizations. Top executives’ discretion did not significantly affect customer satisfaction and transparency of organizations.Points for practitionersThis study has empirically shown that there exists an inverted U-shape relationship between managerial discretion and organizational performance. It is necessary to let public managers exercise their discretion in managing their businesses given that flexibility and innovativeness in decision making serve key roles in effective organizational management in highly turbulent organizational contexts. It will also be important to properly monitor public managers’ discretionary authority to avoid unintended negative consequences of discretion.

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
This paper sets out to explore the effect of programme budget mechanisms on the efficiency of public spending. To do so, we first conducted an exploratory study among eight officials involved in the preparation and execution of the State budget. This exploratory study then enabled us to construct the variables to produce an analytical model. A survey was carried out among 475 performance chain actors in the central services of 29 ministerial departments of the State of Cameroon. The results obtained using descriptive statistics and simple probit regressions suggest that the mechanisms introduced by the programme budget have a mixed effect on the efficiency of public spending. While, on the one hand, structuring the budget into programmes, actions, activities and tasks, performance measurement indicators and a priori controls on the quality of programmes may have a positive effect on the efficiency of public spending; on the other hand, allocating appropriations according to expected results and costs and a posteriori internal and external budgetary controls have a negative influence on the efficiency of public spending. The study recommends developing the external budgetary controls and introducing internal controls that focus more on performance rather than consistency.

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
One of the reasons why many developing countries struggle to provide basic public services to citizens is a lack of tax revenue owing to corruption and illicit financial outflow transfers. Trade misinvoicing is one of the main channels taxpayers use to evade taxes and transfer money abroad, particularly in developing countries. Although scholars have been cognizant of the gravity of corruption, little empirical evidence exists on tax evasion through trade, which is mostly related to the decline of tax revenues in developing countries. To bridge this research gap, this study examines the impact of governance quality and adoption of the Open Government Partnership on trade-related tax evasion in developing countries. Governance quality and open government initiatives are expected to reduce tax evasion by increasing moral cost and transparency, improving the legitimacy of tax burden and tax expenditure. The results show that government effectiveness, regulatory quality, control of corruption, and adoption of open government contribute to combating trade-related tax evasion. Moreover, the government's adoption of an open government moderates the association between governance quality (regulatory quality) and trade-related tax evasion; that is, governance quality significantly impacts reducing tax evasion in countries where open government initiatives are more prevalent. This study holds several implications for leveraging the nationwide adoption of open government, which may directly and indirectly help governments reduce trade-related tax fraud and improve tax revenue.Points for practitionersGovernance quality and the adoption of open government initiatives effectively reduce trade-related tax evasion. The impact of governance quality on reducing tax evasion can be enforced by adopting open government partnership.

International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
The number of studies on the relationship between public service motivation and ethics is increasing. Although research consistently finds evidence for a positive public service motivation–ethical intentions relationship, research on public service motivation and unethical behaviour remains scarce and showcases mixed findings. Based on insights from person–environment fit theory, we argue that the sector in which an individual is employed may help explain these mixed findings. We test this assumption by employing an incentivized dice game among private and public sector workers (n  =  576). Using a well-powered research design we find neither support for the public service motivation–ethical behaviour relationship, nor for the sector as an intervening variable. We discuss the implications of these interesting null findings, which challenge the common assumption that public servants are morally superior to private sector workers.Points for practitioners(Human resource) managers of both private and public sector organizations need to be aware of the fact that employees engage in behavioural dishonesty (i.e. cheating). Contrary to the often-heard assumption, we find no evidence that public service motivation serves as a buffer for this specific type of unethical behaviour. This means that stimulating public service motivation or recruiting public-service motivated individuals does not help to reduce the risk of behavioural dishonesty. Rather, (human resource) managers can invest in other measures to limit this type of unethical behaviour such as ethical leadership and an ethical climate.