Selected financial and governance factors influencing the transparency of council decisions: The case of city councils in Victoria, Australia

《Selected financial and governance factors influencing the transparency of council decisions: The case of city councils in Victoria, Australia》

打印

关键字: Local government;Finance;Governance;Transparency;Social Theory;Urban Theory

作者单位: Department of Management and Marketing, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia;Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Swinburne Business School, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia;Department of Management and Marketing, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia;Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Swinburne Business School, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

摘要: Research reveals that many local governments across the world do not demonstrate transparency by inviting local citizens in their decision-making activities. This research aims to explore the financial and governance factors that may influence municipalities/councils to make closed-door meetings. Based on the Critical Social and Critical Urban theories this research has hypothesized three models, which have been tested with empirical data collected from 79 local councils/municipalities in Victoria, Australia. The analysis reveals that financial factors such as surplus-income and cash equivalent significantly influence municipalities to conduct closed-door meetings. On the other hand, governance factors such as citizen-satisfactions have no significant relationship with closed-door meetings. These findings have implications for policy-makers and public managers to rethink and redesign the factors that influence on local government transparency.