Under the NPM, public sector has experienced a process of reform lasting more than 30 years by now (Hood, 1991) and various are the evaluations carried out to decree its ongoing existence or dead (Hyndman & Lapsley, 2016).
The drivers of this reform have been mainly of two kinds: the hollowing out of the public sector from the economic scenario (Rhodes, 1994) and the increase of public sector organisations efficiency and effectiveness (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011; Wang & Yin, 2012). In particular, the process of reform has stressed the necessity of public sector organisations, in the different fields of activity, to focus on their output and outcomes more than on their inputs. As a consequence, scholars’ and practitioners’ interests concentrated initially on performance measurement to slowly move to performance management (Gao, 2015; Van Dooren, Bouckaert, & Halligan, 2015).
The performance movement has interested different public sectors at the international level. In higher education, especially universities, performances are under scrutiny since a long time ago and organisations have to compete to receive funds from government (Modell, 2003). While the focus on performance measurement and management systems is generally considered a good policy at the central level to govern a university system, at the organisational level the performance focus could lead to unexpected and contradictory results (Franco-Santos, Rivera, & Bourne, 2014). Performances depend on the design of performance systems but also on their effective implementation. To this end, in universities it is necessary to consider the different performance to be pursued within the different activities carried out by these organisations (research, teaching, knowledge transfer) but also the different conditions under which these performances are realised. In many public services, such teaching in universities, performance are pursued implementing co-production processes at the different organisational levels (Nabatchi, Sancino, & Sicilia, 2017; Sicilia, Guarini, Sancino, Andreani, & Ruffini, 2016). Co-production processes have often been studied in terms of their functioning (Pestoff & Brandsen, 2008), while an analysis of their effects on other organisational activities, such as performance management systems, is still missing . The main aim of this paper is to investigate performance management systems in universities, with a specific focus on teaching activities as transformed by co-production processes. In particular, the research question that the paper tries to answer is: “which are the conditions that could hamper or enable the efficient and effective use of a PMS in an environment characterised by co-production?”. To answer to this question, multiple case studies are developed (Yin, 2003). In particular, these cases are chosen selecting experiences where the governance system of universities is different in order to make the cases comparison more productive. The cases are developed using the Ferreira & Otley (2009) framework.
The contribution of the paper is twofold. From a theoretical point of view, it contributes to literature on PMS by enlarging the framework to include situations of co-production and discussing their effects. In practice, the paper offers a deeper understanding of the condition underlying the designing and implementation of a more effective PMS.
Value co-creation, co-design and co-production in public services
Ruggiero_Monfardini_IRSPM2018.pdf 