Financial Transparency and Budget Programme Management: Institutional and Organizational Evidence from Public Administration

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between financial transparency and budget programme management in the public sector from an institutional and organizational perspective. Using a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional design, data were collected from 380 public officials involved in budget planning, execution, and monitoring processes. Financial transparency was operationalized through regulatory-normative, historical-institutional, and organizational practice dimensions, while budget programme management was assessed across nutrition, sanitation, and citizen security programmes. Given the ordinal nature of the data, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was employed, complemented by an exploratory Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM) using composite scores. The results revealed a strong and statistically significant association between financial transparency and overall budget programme management (ρ = 0.768, p < 0.001). The strongest relationships were observed for organizational practices and historical - institutional context, while the regulatory framework showed a weaker but significant association. Programme-level analysis indicated heterogeneous effects, with strong associations for social programmes and no significant relationship for citizen security. These findings suggest that financial transparency operates primarily as an institutional mechanism embedded in organizational routines, rather than as a purely regulatory instrument. The study contributes to public administration research by highlighting the contingent and context-dependent nature of transparency reforms and their implications for results-based budgeting systems.