Essays in Donor Funded Interventions and the Activities of A Professional Accountancy Organisation in Ghana
Date
2019-07
Authors
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Publisher
University of Ghana
Abstract
The effect of donor-funded interventions has been a subject of long standing debate over
several years of donor support. This thesis focuses on donor-funded interventions and the
activities of a professional accountancy organisation in Ghana. Specifically, the thesis
explores and analyses how donor-funded interventions have influence the activities of a
professional accountancy organisation in Ghana as well as soliciting the perceptions of
stakeholders about the outcomes of the interventions. The present thesis adopts a mix of
qualitative and quantitative approaches; conducted interviews with key actors in the
implementation of the interventions and administered questionnaires to selected
stakeholders of the professional accountancy organisation. Thematic analysis was used in
the analysis of the data collected through interviews with the respondents, while regression
and structural equation modelling technique were used to analyse the quantitative data.
The empirical results show a general acknowledgement among the respondents of the
positive effect of the intervention on the activities of the professional accountancy
organisation (PAO). However, the biggest challenge encountered in the implementation of
the funded intervention is the counterpart funding provided by the PAO. Furthermore,
continual professional development (CPD) quality, exams quality and tuition quality are
key drivers of a credible professional qualification. Thus, an improvement in these drivers
leads to an enhancement of the credibility of a professional qualification. This result is
novel because to the best of the author’s knowledge; this is the first time a study has
empirically tested this construct. Third, donor funded training interventions improved the
competencies and organisational commitment of the respondents.
The thesis makes several contributions to the accounting literature: First, the thesis
enriches the accounting literature by providing a drive for a renewed attention by scholars
on the activities of professional accountancy organisations which hitherto has overly
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focused on international accounting firms. Second, soliciting the perceptions of key
stakeholders is important at addressing the long held view by scholars that evaluations of
donor interventions often do not take into account wider stakeholder feedback.
Furthermore, the findings from the thesis are relevant in shaping future donor policies
aimed at improving the effectiveness of funded interventions.
In conclusion, this thesis generates important public policy considerations. Donors and
implementing agencies of intervention programmes should take into account the financial
state of local accountancy bodies in future donor projects. This is because counterpart
funding places a lot of stress on the finances of these bodies which sometimes leads to
difficulties in programme execution. Also, the information communication technology
(ICT) infrastructure of most developing countries is not well developed to support such
interventions which are mostly ICT based. This poses a challenge to the successful
implementation of donor projects. Furthermore, project designs should be sensitive to
local circumstances of PAOs, as projects may fail to achieve the intended outcomes if the
local circumstances are ignored.
Description
PhD. Accounting
Keywords
Quantitative, Approaches, Professional, Organisation, Intervention