An understudied aspect of performance management systems is how performance management systems emerge in public agencies. Existing research typically starts with the data from performance management systems in place, allowing for in-depth and well-developed research on how public managers use that data. More recent research provides analysis of how managers process that data (Olsen, 2015) and why public managers use performance information (Moynihan and Pandey, 2010,). The research has considered a range of variables and models to explain success, failure, or ambiguous results of performance management internationally at national, state, regional, and local levels of government (Moynihan, 2008).
The precursor question to the existing research on the effectiveness of performance management is: how do performance management systems emerge from the complex operational realities and competing political demands found in public organizations.
This paper’s research focuses on performance management systems as the unit of analysis. This research considers two case studies with divergent outcomes. The first case study is of the California State Government Performance Management Council with participation of more than 20 California state agencies, departments and divisions; the second case study is of the Department of Toxic Substance Control, within the California Environmental Protection Agency. Drawing on the research on variables affecting public agency performance, three descriptive variables are considered for explaining the emergence of the systems: leadership, strategy, and organizational culture.
The research offers four potential contributions to the performance management literature. One, descriptive explanation with texture of how performance management systems emerge in the public sector. Two, the challenges in sustaining a performance management system. Three, the role of a bottom-up approaches away from the center of elected legislative or executive power. And four, a potential linkage between performance management systems and the wider research literature on reform of public agencies along the lines of Herbert Simon’s charge of becoming a design science (Thompson and Brazely, 2010), with political trade-offs (Moe, 1990a; Light, 1997), the use of strategy and design (Moore, 1996), and addressing the political challenge of the “problematics of attention” (March and Olsen, 1983).
H1 - Management and Organizational Performance (PMRA-Sponsored panel)
