ABSTRACT In this study, we examine the role of interorganizational network ties (being board interlocks and auditor ties in particular) in explaining external financial transparency certification among Belgian nonprofit organizations (NPOs). As a voluntary quality signal, external certification is particularly relevant in the nonprofit context, where donors face information asymmetry. Previous studies have shown that certification positively influences donations, yet the antecedents of certification remain underexplored, especially those related to social network ties. We rely on a sample of 5058 NPO‐year observations and find that NPOs with board interlocks or sharing audit partners with certified NPOs are more likely to be certified themselves. These findings are relevant for regulators, nonprofit managers, and other stakeholders because they shed light on how certification practices spread within the nonprofit sector.
SDG 16 emphasizes the need for accountable institutions, often based on the assumption that public officials are accountable to politicians, who in turn are accountable to citizens. However, in many developing countries, neopatrimonial governance can weaken this accountability chain, as politicians themselves may act as "unprincipled principals," limiting citizens' ability to hold them to account and exercising informal political control over bureaucracies. In this context, Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authorities (SARAs) have been promoted as a means to enhance the independence of tax administrations and therefore, address the "unprincipled principals" problem. However, the extent to which they achieve these objectives and how accountability can be strengthened in such environments remains uncertain. This study examines the case of Nigeria's Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), a SARA, through the lens of Bersch and Fukuyama's theory of bureaucratic autonomy, treating autonomy not as a separate construct but as a structural condition of accountability. Drawing on documentary evidence and interviews with revenue officials, taxpayers, and tax professionals, we show how accountability is practiced in a context shaped by neopatrimonialism. Our findings contribute to debates in accountability and public administration by demonstrating how organizational fa & ccedil;ades sustained through symbolic compliance, informal control, and hybrid institutional arrangements enable political actors to hollow out formal accountability structures while preserving their appearance. It also offers several implications for policy and practice in developing countries seeking to strengthen public accountability.
This study offers a fresh exploration of whistleblowing hesitation in public organizations using religiosity perspectives. We introduce the concept of faith-driven moral hesitation, which highlights how religiosity shapes ethical silence through emotional, spiritual, and social processes. This study is based on interviews with 23 senior officials in local governments operating in a province nationally known as the Islamic Boarding School. The study suggests that hesitation arises through a cyclical process: processing (intuitive discomfort), sensemaking (moral justification), and organizing (social validation of silence). Essentially, four interrelated themes of faith-driven moral hesitation, such as forgiveness misapplied, prohibition of moral judgment, deference to divine justice, and social-religious conformity, demonstrate how silence is legitimized as spiritual humility, loyalty, or moral restraint. Rather than apathy or fear alone, participants rationalized nondisclosure as virtuous, drawing on religious narratives of patience, mercy, and divine oversight. Theoretically, this study contributes to the literature by reframing silence as a socially sustained and spiritually endorsed moral identity, which can be subject to misapplication in specific contexts. Practically, it calls for culturally grounded ethical training, safe moral reflection spaces, faith-aligned leadership, and collaboration with religious figures to "reposition" whistleblowing as an act of integrity.
This paper focusses on management control in public sector organizations (PSOs) through a backward-looking reflexive analysis. The analysis identifies three themes-the importance of collaboration, the use of tools and models developed for the private sector and the limited use of management control information. Those themes are chosen because they are both highly topical. Using a reflexive approach similarities and differences has been analysed between then and now. However, I do not stop here, by providing transformative re-definitions the paper aims at breaking up prevailing notions, thereby enabling alternative ways of understanding management control in PSOs and contribute to new forms of practice. We need to ensure that when a similar study is conducted in 40 years' time, it will show that we have taken important steps forward.
This study investigates accountability in religious institutions on the basis of evidence obtained from interviews with relevant parties in UK mosques. We mobilize prior theoretical contention regarding servant leadership and constraints on personal accountability to expose perceptions of seriously deficient discharge outcomes. In particular, we argue that a need exists for clear accountability boundaries in faith-based institutions, ideally founded on spiritual morality. Such a development would address the problems caused by the undefined nature of the responsibilities that mosque managers face, which, we argue, may be causing a reluctance among those individuals with ethical propensities to put themselves forward as leaders. We suggest that this outcome represents a form of adverse selection where individuals with self-serving inclinations-unlike their more ethically minded counterparts-are able to disregard the expectations placed upon them, with the result that they can often be found in charge of the institutions concerned. This conclusion supports the perspective of Messner and others that a meaningful degree of personal accountability is unrealistic when discharge demands are excessive and inexhaustible.
