Supreme audit institutions in a high-impact context: A comparative analysis of performance audit in four Nordic countries Accepted for publication 18.12.2018 Financial Accountability and Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/faam.12188 28.12.2018 (11,173 words in main text including references) Åge Johnsen*, professor, Oslo Business School, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway Kristin Reichborn-Kjennerud, senior researcher, Work Research Institute, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway Thomas Carrington, assistant professor, Stockholm Business School, Stockholm University, Sweden Kim Klarskov Jeppesen, professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark Külli Taro, ph.d., Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia Jarmo Vakkuri, professor, Faculty of Management, Tampere University, Finland Running head: Supreme audit institutions in a high-impact context *Address for correspondence: Åge Johnsen, Oslo Business School, Faculty of Social Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University, P.O. Box 4 St. Olavs plass, NO-0130 Oslo, Norway. Email:
[email protected] Acknowledgements: This article is part of the project entitled ‘The influence of performance audit on public administration and politics: A comparative study of the Nordic Supreme Audit Institutions’. The project is financed by a research grant from the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS), project number 219574. The authors acknowledge the constructive comments we received when earlier versions of the article were presented for the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA) Annual Conference, Permanent Study Group XII Public Sector Financial Management, 26–28 August 2015, Toulouse; for the 1st Nordic State Audit Conference, Lund, 6 April 2016; for the 9th International EIASM Public Sector Conference, Lisbon, 6–8 September 2016; for the SCANCOR Seminar, Stanford University, 18 July 2017, and at a seminar for Queen’s University of Belfast Management School, 13 April 2018.