The disclosure of accountability practices on the Malaysian local government’s website: the institutional perspective / Dayang Hafiza Abang Ahmad

The lack of accountability is resulting in poor administration of public sector organisations which need to be addressed by governments worldwide to improve the overall public sector system. The needs for more transparent and accountable local government in disseminating information over the website motivates the local government to search for a more comprehensive mechanism of evaluating its accountability practices. Hence, this study aimed to achieve the four objectives. First, to examine the extent of the disclosure of accountability practices (DACP) on Malaysian local government’s website. Second, to determine the institutional factors influencing the DACP on the Malaysian local government’s website. Third, to examine the moderating effect of education level of head of local government on the relationship between the institutional factors and DACP on the Malaysian local government’s website. Fourth, to explain the reasons for disclosure or non-disclosure of accountability practices. Using the institutional theory as a theoretical basis, a mixed-method research design was adopted and divided into two phases i.e., Phase 1 – quantitative and Phase 2 – qualitative. Phase 1 was carried to achieve the first three objective, while Phase 2 is intended to achieve the fourth objective. In Phase 1, the websites of the entire 149 local governments in Malaysia were examined and measured using the Modified Accountability Disclosure Index (MoADi). The extent of DACP on the Malaysian local government’s website was reported as ‘satisfactory’ level at 42.2% and varies significantly from 7% to 78%. From the hierarchical regression analysis, three institutional factors, namely, the innovation, political competition, and press visibility were significantly influenced the DACP on the Malaysian local government’s website. These results indicate the strong existence and impact of coercive isomorphism through the pressures exerted on the local governments by higher authorities and local media. The size of local governments is significant as a control variable. The education level of head of local government significantly moderates the relationship between the innovation and DACP. This signifies that there would be a greater extent of DACP on the website if the head of local government possesses a higher education level, provided that the local government implemented innovation activities. The interview findings from Phase 2 provide meaningful insights of the reasons for disclosure and non-disclosure of accountability practices information on the Malaysian local government’s website. Reasons for DACP were categorised into regulatory, website administration, community organisational goals, leadership, behavioural control, information control, and others. While reasons for non-DACP were classified into regulatory, lack of resources, behavioural control, informational control, and others. Disclosure of accountability practices on the website was driven by several factors classified under the three-isomorphism conception i.e., coercive, normative, and mimetic. Additional findings on mimetic isomorphism revealed that the mimicry practices occurred at individual and organisation levels, locally and internationally. Overall, findings of this study provide implication about accountability practices to different group of stakeholders including local governments, policy makers and regulators, community, higher education institution, and the theoretical implications. The recommendations for future research were also included in this study.