Making Sense of the "Newly" Developed Performance Management Policy for the Public Services in Ghana

In Ghana since the early 1990s performance management has been a key public policy instrument for governing state institutions than an obsession. A management system to assess performance and a way to help organizations... [ view full abstract ]

In Ghana since the early 1990s performance management has been a key public policy instrument for governing state institutions than an obsession. A management system to assess performance and a way to help organizations improve theirs has nevertheless so far proved unachievable. Scholars interested in public administration in Ghana continue to seek the reasons for the failure of a performance management instrument to take hold in that country's public sector.
The perennial nature of these discussions and of the belief in this instrument recently inspired the Public Services Commission to develop what it called a new performance management policy for public services. Presenting it at a conference of human resources managers, a commissioner characterized it as a paradigm shift and as a policy innovation and strategy that will ensure a performance-oriented, accountable, and responsive system of government. He thus sees it as exceedingly different from previously developed policies, and as one that will ultimately lead the public services to performance management promised land.
From the theoretical perspective of sensemaking, the intention of this paper is twofold. First is to subject this new policy to critical analysis and determine why it is considered a paradigm shift; and the second is to see whether it will, in fact, lead the public service to that paradise. In doing so, we ask some very simple but important questions: on what basis is the new policy called a paradigm shift? How innovative is it? Can it lead the public service where everyone wants it to go? How are public servants making sense of the policy so as to use it to enhance their performance?
These questions are important because it has been well established both that the performance of public sector organizations is at best 50 percent of their capability, and that this is unacceptable in the context of the country's current level of socio-economic and political development. It is also acknowledged by both the Ghanaian government and its developmental partners that a well functioning public sector is indispensable to realizing the programs necessary to reduce poverty.
We focus on sensemaking because it is our view that the success of policy implementation depends largely on how those doing it understand all of its facets, including the anticipated impact. Such sensemaking thus may motivate or demotivate the policy’s implementation, which in turn may account for the policy’s success or failure.