Explaining municipal audit costs in Sweden: Reconsidering the political environment,the municipal organisation and the audit market

With the purpose of explaining professional audit costs in Swedish municipalities, we hypothesised that audit costs are partly driven by various signalling and monitoring incentives in order to manage stakeholder relationships. Our model of the determinants of audit costs was tested on data from Swedish municipalities, thus extending the study of audit costs to political organisations in a Scandinavian institutional context. The test supported to some extent the traditional propositions of organisational complexity, risk and market determinants, as well as the proposition of the political environment. Our results indicate that audit costs are used to signal accountability, thereby suggesting that audit as a signal could be managed without managing professional auditors.     

When Overlapping Organisations Play Two-Level Games: IMF–EU Interaction in Credit Lending to Latvia and Greece

In the literature, the cooperation of the IMF and the EU in credit lending has been discussed either from a state-centric, bureaucratic or institutionalist perspective. In this article, we examine the Troika as a set-up of multiple organisational overlap providing bureaucratic agents with constraints and opportunities for strategic action. Taking Latvia and Greece as cases in point, we analyse who prevails in a situation of conflict and why. How do these international organisations manage to overcome their differences and reach consensus? Drawing on the Two-Level game approach, we argue that negotiators are more likely to prevail over each other when their respective win-set decreases. We find that different strategies to manipulate win-sets are decisive to explain both cooperation and assertiveness. Changing costs of no agreement during a lending programme as well as the institutional procedures for programme ratification facilitate the use of these strategies.     

Fallacies of risk

In addition to traditional fallacies such as ad hominem, discussions of risk contain logical and argumentative fallacies that are specific to the subject‐matter. Ten such fallacies are identified, that can commonly be found in public debates on risk. They are named as follows: the sheer size fallacy, the converse sheer size fallacy, the fallacy of naturalness, the ostrich's fallacy, the proof‐seeking fallacy, the delay fallacy, the technocratic fallacy, the consensus fallacy, the fallacy of pricing, and the infallibility fallacy.     

Consumerism and control: evidence from Swedish central government agencies

This article examines whether the control practices associated with public sector consumerism, such as devolved performance management and accountability, enhance organizations' responsiveness to customer needs and preferences. The research highlighted the need for trade-offs between resource allocation and customer needs and how this affects rationing of services. This is a serious dilemma as the public sector comes under the dual pressures of the consumerist movement and a tightening funding situation.     

The effect of bonds on loyalty towards auditors: the mediating role of commitment

The study examines the impact of knowledge and social bonds on commitment and behavioural loyalty in auditor–client relationships. A model is proposed and tested using data collected from stock exchange company executives in the UK. The results show the significant effects of the knowledge and social bonds on commitment. Commitment is shown to be a mediating variable, which influences word-of-mouth and continuance but not the purchase of non-audit services. In the light of these findings, suggestions are provided to auditors in developing relationship bonds and managing the relationship at the firm level.     

Taking stock: A comparative analysis of payments for environmental services programs in developed and developing countries

Payments for environmental services (PES) are an innovative approach to conservation that has been applied increasingly often in both developed and developing countries. To date, however, few efforts have been made to systematically compare PES experiences. Drawing on the wealth of case studies in this Special Issue, we synthesize the information presented, according to case characteristics with respect to design, costs, environmental effectiveness, and other outcomes. PES programs often differ substantially one from the other. Some of the differences reflect adaptation of the basic concept to very different ecological, socioeconomic, or institutional conditions; others reflect poor design, due either to mistakes or to the need to accommodate political pressures. We find significant differences between user-financed PES programs, in which funding comes from the users of the ES being provided, and government-financed programs, in which funding comes from a third party. The user-financed programs in our sample were better targeted, more closely tailored to local conditions and needs, had better monitoring and a greater willingness to enforce conditionality, and had far fewer confounding side objectives than government-financed programs. We finish by outlining some perspectives on how both user- and government-financed PES programs could be made more effective and cost-efficient.     

Marktkommunikation — Wie Paul Watzlawick sie sehen würde

Zusammenfassungen  Der kürzlich verstorbene Kommunikationswissenschaftler und Soziologe Paul Watzlawick wurde berühmt für seine Kommunikationstheorie, die fünf sogenannten „pragmatischen“ Axiome. Wie würde der radikale Konstruktivist die Realit?t der heutigen Marktkommunikation beurteilen? Welche Erkenntnisse k?nnten Marketingforschung und-praxis aus einer Rückbesinnung auf seine Kommunikationstheorie gewinnen? Prof. Dr. Sven Reinecke Dozent für Betriebswirtschaftslehre an der Universit?t St. Gallen (HSG) und Leiter des Kompetenzzentrums „Marketing Performance Management“ am dortigen Institut für Marketing und Handel. Mitherausgeber der Marketing Review St. Gallen