Purpose

Literature has widely studied the financial accountability pressures on NGOs but rarely analysed how NGOs respond to them. This paper studies one large humanitarian NGO to address this question. It investigates the NGO's responses to understand the extent to which NGOs are able to regain control over their own work and turn the frames of evaluation and accountability to their own advantage.

Design/methodology/approach

This article draws on a case study of one of the largest French humanitarian NGOs. Interviews and observation (both participant and non-participant) were conducted in the financial department of the NGO. These data are supplemented with field-level contextual interviews.

Findings

In the NGO studied, institutional pressure is largely mediated by compliance audits. The paper thus traces the consequences of compliance audits for the NGO's central finance teams and describes how they respond. The findings detail three responses to evaluation. First, to respond to the burden of evaluation, the organisation makes itself auditable and develops preparedness. Second, to respond to the anxiety of evaluation, the organisation engages in a process of purification and succumbs to the allure of the single figure. Third, building on its newly acquired auditability and purity, the organisation performs itself as a “corporatised NGO”. Together, these three responses constitute the NGO as an “entrepreneur” competing for eligibility, and financial literacy and managerialism become crucial to respond to pressure from institutional funders.

Originality/value

This paper extends the understanding of organisational responses to evaluation. The authors show the influence of evaluation systems on NGOs, but also how NGOs can react to regain control over their work and turn the frames of evaluation and accountability to their own advantage. However, despite several decades of calls for broader conceptions of NGO accountability, the case NGO prefers to promote a very narrow view of its performance, based solely on accounting compliance. It takes some pride in its ability to comply with funders' and auditors' demands. Turning a simple matter of compliance into a display of good performance, it builds a strategy and competitive advantage on its ability to respond competently to evaluation.

中文翻译：

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非政府组织对财务评估的回应：可审计性，提纯和绩效

目的

文献广泛研究了非政府组织的财务责任压力，但很少分析非政府组织如何应对它们。本文研究了一个大型人道主义非政府组织来解决这个问题。它调查了非政府组织的回应，以了解非政府组织能够在多大程度上重新控制自己的工作，并使评估和问责制框架发挥自己的优势。

设计/方法/方法

本文以法国最大的人道主义非政府组织之一为例。在非政府组织的财务部门进行了访谈和观察（参与者和非参与者）。这些数据以现场水平的背景访谈为补充。

发现

在所研究的非政府组织中，机构压力主要是由合规性审核所调解的。因此，该文件追踪了非政府组织中央财务团队进行合规性审计的后果，并描述了其应对方式。调查结果详细介绍了对评估的三种回应。首先，为了应对评估的负担，组织必须对自身进行审核并做好准备。其次，为了应对评估的焦虑，该组织参与了一个净化过程，并屈从于单一人物的魅力。第三，该组织以其新近获得的可审核性和纯正性为基础，以“法人化的非政府组织”的身份开展工作。这三个响应共同构成了非政府组织，它是一个争夺资格的“企业家”，金融素养和管理主义对于应对机构资助者的压力至关重要。

创意/价值

本文扩展了组织对评估的响应的理解。作者展示了评估系统对非政府组织的影响，还展示了非政府组织如何做出反应以重新控制其工作，并使评估和问责制框架发挥自己的优势。但是，尽管数十年来人们呼吁对NGO问责制提出更广泛的概念，但非政府组织宁愿仅凭会计合规性就其绩效提出一个非常狭窄的观点。它以能够满足出资者和审计师的要求而感到自豪。通过将简单的合规问题转化为表现良好的表现，它就可以凭借其对评估做出有力回应的能力来建立战略和竞争优势。