Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL
Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL
Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL
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First of all, during the interviews with the highest officials of the municipality the auditor should<br />
check if any objective setting system exists. Even where the auditor can find a strategic plan of the<br />
municipality, objectives <strong>and</strong> targets set at the municipal <strong>and</strong> departmental level, it does not<br />
necessary mean that systematic approach is employed. There may be only an accidental set of<br />
separated activities, <strong>for</strong> which different departments or officials are responsible. The auditor should<br />
examine the principles of objective setting: if we have here a top-down approach, when objectives<br />
of the separate units are set according to the municipality level objectives or bottom-up approach<br />
when municipality level objectives are set by collecting suggestions of separate units. If the auditor<br />
finds that there is no general objective setting system, he should examine how it is assured that<br />
objectives of separate subdivisions are interrelated; correspond to common objectives <strong>and</strong> strategy<br />
of municipality. During interviews with the heads of departments <strong>and</strong> employees the auditor verifies<br />
this in<strong>for</strong>mation on the level of subdivisions.<br />
The auditor should not be tricked by the existence of <strong>for</strong>mal planning procedures <strong>and</strong> written plans<br />
of activities. If these are in place, the auditor should carefully examine <strong>for</strong> what purposes these<br />
plans were created. Plans may be created <strong>for</strong> daily or weekly control of routine activities of the<br />
department or single officer, but they may have nothing to do with implementation of specific<br />
objectives. Thus existence of some plans does not necessarily mean that it helps to achieve the<br />
goals of the organisation.<br />
Planning of daily activities by the employees is also interesting, but only as much as it is needed to<br />
examine if the work processes are carried out under controlled conditions.<br />
Responsibility <strong>and</strong> authority<br />
In<strong>for</strong>mation from<br />
questionnaires<br />
Examination of<br />
internal documents,<br />
which define<br />
responsibility,<br />
authority <strong>and</strong> duties<br />
OVERVIEW<br />
STAGE<br />
Examination, specification<br />
SURVEY<br />
STAGE<br />
Examination of the<br />
actual responsibility<br />
<strong>and</strong> subordination<br />
Diagram 4 Auditing procedure<br />
In<strong>for</strong>mation on responsibility <strong>and</strong> authority of the employees may be obtained by using:<br />
• Questionnaires;<br />
• Internal normative documents;<br />
• Interviews with the employees (see diagram 3).<br />
Questionnaires are distributed <strong>and</strong> interviews are planned with every employee or employees of<br />
certain departments (depending on the audit objectives).<br />
Questionnaires provide us with in<strong>for</strong>mation related to the duties of every employee <strong>and</strong> services<br />
provided by each department. However, the use of questionnaires might not be successful in every<br />
case. I.e. most of the employees of one state owned enterprise have rewritten their descriptions of<br />
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