Auditor and Auditee Engagement with Public Sector Performance Audit: An Institutional Logics Perspective

In the context of contemporary public sector performance audit practice in Australia, this study provides significant insights into performance auditors’ and auditees’ apparent logics and attitudes to performance audits. Employing a documentary analysis and in-depth semi-structured interviews with senior audit leaders from all Australian Auditor-General jurisdictions, performance auditors’ and auditees’ attitudes towards performance audits, their intentions, strategies and responses were explored through the lens of institutional logics. Empirical evidence reveals that performance auditors’ logics have gradually moved towards greater stakeholder engagement with auditees, parliamentarians and the media, while preserving their performance audit prerogatives. Auditees appear to become more receptive to performance auditors’ engagement strategies and consultation attempts if auditors maintain a collaborative attitude. Both parties occasionally apply bridging and buffering strategies in situations where their logics are not aligned with those of the other stakeholder group. This study discovered that competing logics held by performance auditors and auditees are in some respects drawn closer together, while differences nonetheless co-exist, although often in an uneasy partnership.