Public Service Accountability Research Articles

Accountability in public services: Exit, voice and control

This paper argues that the positive impact of public accountability on public service performance and governance in general can be augmented by moving away from an exclusive reliance on control mechanisms such as hierarchical monitoring and use of organizational incentives to a system that uses “exit” or “voice” mechanisms in conjunction with control. Whether the public will resort to exit or voice will depend on the relative costs associated with these options and the expected value to them of the performance improvement resulting from their use in a specific context. Public services can be categorized in terms of the exit and voice potential they afford the public by reference to certain barriers and characteristics. The paper provides a framework for the analysis of the features and barriers of public services and of the publics involved that can be used to predict the potential for the use of exit and voice in specific service contexts. A menu of options for improving public accountability through the use of exit and voice mechanisms and their policy implications are also presented.

A BOTTOM LINE ON PUBLIC SERVICE ACCOUNTABILITY

Australian Journal of Public AdministrationVolume 50, Issue 3 p. 414-417 A BOTTOM LINE ON PUBLIC SERVICE ACCOUNTABILITY Jack Waterford, Jack WaterfordSearch for more papers by this author Jack Waterford, Jack WaterfordSearch for more papers by this author First published: September 1991 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8500.1991.tb02304.xCitations: 3AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume50, Issue3September 1991Pages 414-417 RelatedInformation

Public service accountability: A comparative perspective. By Joseph G. Jabbra and O. P. Dwivedi (eds.). (Connecticut, Kumarian Press, 1989, pp.273, $42.50 hardback, $25.95 paperback)

<i>Public service accountability: A comparative perspective</i>. By Joseph G. Jabbra and O. P. Dwivedi (eds.). (Connecticut, Kumarian Press, 1989, pp.273, $42.50 hardback, $25.95 paperback)

Public service accountability: a comparative perspective

Public service accountability: a comparative perspective

Performance and Accountability in Public Services

Performance and Accountability in Public Services

A computer simulation model for medical school planning

Management and management accounting concepts and practices---which at an earlier time were of interest to only a few medical school administrators and to still fewer medical school faculty members---have suddenly taken on urgent proportions for many, perhaps even most, American medical schools. Faced with an unhappy combination of increasing demands for ever-broadening public service and public accountability on the one hand, and of an inflation economy with steadily escalating scarcities of manpower, materials, time and, especially, financial resources on the other, medical school faculties and administrators all too frequently now find themselves in the distinctly unenviable position of having to make complex policy and operating decisions of a nature and scope never before required.

Cost Accounting Procedures for Public Libraries: A Model

There was a time when local public service agencies could justify their annual expenses simply because of the ostensible necessity or desirability of their services. Public libraries, public parks, and public schools, while they have rarely been inundated with an excess of revenues, could usually depend on a reasonable level of funding simply because the citizens believed these institutions were accomplishing something for the public benefit. That time of unquestioned acceptance has passed, and the time for public service accountability has arrived.