Changes in the Public Accounts Committee of a Less Developed Democratic Country: A Field Study

This paper complements prior studies on the public accounts committees (PACs) by considering the notions of ‘agency’ and ‘structure’ of institutional theory in tandem in understanding the changes in structures and activities of the PAC of a less‐developed democratic country – Bangladesh. While prior studies examined ‘external’ institutional pressures on the development and operation of the PAC in various settings, the role of internal and external institutional agents in this context has not been their primary focus. Our empirical evidence from a qualitative field study indicates that over the past two decades, Bangladesh's PAC underwent significant changes to its internal governance structures and administrative processes. While these changes were indirectly driven by pressures from international donor agencies, PAC members and the national audit office played a key role as institutional agents in initiating and institutionalising the changes in PAC governance and operation.     

The Good,the Bad and the Ugly: Employment Relations In New Non-Union Workplaces1

David Guest, who is Professor of Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck College, and Kim Hoque, who is Research Officer in the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science, draw on a postal survey of nearly 350 new establishments to consider their propensity to unionise, to adopt practices associated with HRM, and to deliver a number of performance outcomes. Key findings are that not only were there examples of the ‘good’, the ‘bad’ and the ‘ugly’ so far as practice generally was concerned, but also that those establishments which used HRM practices extensively tended to report better results in terms of a number of both employee relations and performance outcomes.