Trans-European Dialogue (TED) 8
Towards
Meaningful Measurement: Performance Management at the Crossroads of
internal efficiency and social impacts
February 5-6, 2015, Milano, Italy
Over the last decades, public
bureaucracies in West and Eastern Europe have implemented performance
management systems, as recommended by managers, management consultants,
and international organisations. In recent years however researchers
have documented two lines of critiques. In some cases, performance
information is not used, making performance management a paper exercise. In other cases, the use of indicators leads to unintended effects when the indicators become a
goal in themselves. The intensity of these effects seems to differ
across different contexts. In many respects, performance measurement and
management have turned to ideology: while widely acknowledged, they are
unevenly applied, and their meaning varies in different countries.
Performance and performance management do not necessarily have the same
meaning in different countries.
With the evidence of its shortcomings
growing, performance management finds itself at the crossroads. The
engineer’s logic – set targets, measure attainment and punish or reward –
has reached its limits. The world of public administration is way too
complex for that. The context is political and hence perspectives are
different. Performance is evaluated internally in terms of efficiency
gains and externally in terms of social impacts. An alternative to the
command & control approach is to use performance information for
learning and dialogue. Rather than being a system to punish and to hold
actors to account, performance management should focus on the future.
Performance indicators should inform dialogue and help us to understand
complexity. Could this be the reinvention of performance management?
In this TED, we will study this
proposition. We will take stock of existing performance management
efforts and ask ourselves whether performance management can address its
critiques when developed as a learning system. This being a dialogue,
we will try to understand differences between countries and
administrative traditions in Europe, but we will also pay attention to
shared challenges that European governments are facing. Papers can
evaluate current practices as well as propose prospective directions.