THE INTERNAL CONTROL AS GOOD PRACTICE OF LOCAL PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: MUNICIPAL DECENTRALIZED AUTONOMOUS GOVERNMENT OF CANTON MANTA

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate how the organizational culture of internal control impacts local public management, encouraging practices that ensure transparency and effective governance. To do this, a qualitative approach based on the phenomenological-hermeneutic paradigm was adopted as the methodological framework through an exploratory process focused on the understanding and deep interpretation of the original situation. In this regard, guidelines were established as: Identify the organizational culture of Internal Control in public management; and reveal the perception of internal control in Municipal Decentralized Autonomous Governments. As a study unit, the Municipal Decentralized Autonomous Government of Canton Manta was analyzed in its natural environment, directly observing the behaviors, practices and beliefs of the organization within its institutional structure. In addition, this research was enriched with the contributions of two key experts and officials, who, with vast experience in internal control and public administration, provided valuable information through semi-structured interviews making it possible to obtain relevant aspects that support the importance of internal control in the results of public management. The findings found from this research were analyzed using the application of the axial matrix, from which points of interest arise such as: 1.- Impulse to the beginning of a visible and transparent management; 2.- Good practices of innovation and technology for the management of internal control, establishing as a central category the Internal Control as good practice of local public management, considered as an essential component in public administration by researchers.

Keywords: practice, internal control, organizational culture, public administration.