USING HAMMING DISTANCE METRICS FOR ASSESSING INSTITUTIONAL SIMILARITY OF SUPREME AUDIT INSTITUTION MODELS: EVIDENCE FROM UZBEKISTAN

Abstract

This article proposes a novel methodological approach to the quantitative classification of Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) models, drawing on DiMaggio and Powell's (1983) institutional isomorphism theory — the application of Hamming distance metrics from coding theory. Five SAIs (U.S. GAO, U.K. NAO, German Bundesrechnungshof, South Korean BAI, and the Accounts Chamber of Uzbekistan) are compared across eight institutional characteristics. The principal finding: Uzbekistan's Accounts Chamber is institutionally much closer to the German Bundesrechnungshof model (distance = 4) than to the Anglo-Saxon NAO (distance = 6) or GAO (distance = 8) models. This result challenges the Anglo-centric assumptions prevailing in the post-Soviet audit reform literature.