Exploring governance challenges in South African public organisations

Despite the incessant poor service delivery serving as a reminder to the existence of governance challenges, the existing literature gives scant attention to what constitute governance challenges in public organisations. Thus, informed by the New Public Management theory and Public Choice Theory, the impetus of this study is to explore the governance challenges in South African public organisations. A mixed research approach, nested within the exploratory research design, was utilised in which multilevel and multisource data was solicited to accomplish the study’s objectives with semi-structured interviews conducted with traditional leaders and close-ended questionnaires administered to municipal officials and councillors from four local municipalities in South Africa. While quantitative usable data collected from 109 municipal officials and councillors were subjected to relative importance index analysis, qualitative data from 14 traditional leaders were thematically analysed. The results revealed both structural constraints (scarce resources challenges, lack of funds and unnecessary delays) and behavioural-specific dilemmas (corruption, nepotism, lack of accountability) as the worst dilemmas that hinder sound governance. The evidence from the study also indicated the systematic complexities (political uncertainties, improper consultation and high bottlenecks in society) as the second worst constraints to proper governance. The study provides both practical and theoretical implications.