International Review of Administrative Sciences

Why should business decision-makers study government performance data? The international collection of articles in this symposium illustrates the type of issues and data that managers should consider in making business decisions.

This article attempts to show the frontier of government performance measurement. First, it introduces the sophisticated and effective strategies that public agencies have utilized for performance measurement within a comprehensive approach to productivity improvement. Multiple measures have been developed to improve a variety of management functions such as goal-setting and resource allocation. The article then outlines the cutting edge of performance measurement. Based on a number of case studies throughout the United States, this article discusses the state of the art in three performance areas: citizen-driven government performance, use of citizen surveys and performance reporting. Finally, the article concludes that the essential question in the future is how government can move to full adoption and implementation of citizen-driven, data-driven decision-making.

This article investigates how and to what extent performance indicators in Dutch central government are actually embedded in performance management. In a case study encompassing 12 government organizations, the relevance of the indicators presented is analysed in three stages: (1) with respect to the responsibilities for results intended in performance measurement, (2) with respect to responsibilities actually implied in resource allocation and (3) with respect to responsibilities ultimately to be inferred from governance – planning and control – systems applied. In our research, management control systems appear to be only partially tuned to the performance indicators specified in advance. The familiar expression ‘What you measure is what you get’ is thereby invalidated by all kinds of restrictions imposed on a manager’s actual responsibility for measurement outcomes.

Local governments need reliable information about the cities they are governing. However, an analysis of the availability of basic descriptive data (population data, information on household composition, unemployment, poverty, condition of the housing stock, homelessness, recorded crime and composition and size of local municipal income) in 55 European cities makes clear that these data are often not available because they have neither been collected nor disseminated. On average, 30 percent of simple local performance indicators is missing. National statistical traditions may help explaining the lack of data-gathering.

This article describes how the private sector can utilize government performance management data to identify business opportunities. Governments around the world today are making increased use of outsourcing, performance management and performance budgeting. Utilizing readily available data that can often be accessed via the World Wide Web, private sector businesses can identify current business opportunities in terms of what services governments are outsourcing, in what amounts and at what costs. Additionally, potential future business opportunities can be identified in terms of what services governments are currently providing in-house, at what costs and with what results. Armed with this information, private sector businesses can readily identify markets for their goods and services.

Public agencies have an important role in establishing and ensuring a secure environment for business operations. Risk management decisions by international business enterprises can be informed usefully by performance data related to the services provided by a host country‘s law enforcement agencies. As recent public sector reforms have emphasized the development of indicators and the measurement of performance in public organizations, such as the police, this has made it possible for businesses to use these data to enhance the quality of their decisions about security needs related to both personnel and property. This article reviews the number of emergency calls received by the Hong Kong police and their response time and examines what inferences can be drawn from these data. Such an analysis highlights the need to compare and contrast different performance measures to obtain a comprehensive view of an agency‘s performance before making critical business decisions.

This article examines the possibilities for the Greek police to use performance measurement. The article first presents the context from which the monopoly of the state police began to be questioned. It briefly describes the development and essential trends in this type of evaluation for police forces in Great Britain, the initiator of quality reforms in the public sector in Europe and where considerable experience has been accrued. In the second part, the concepts of security and trust are explored and used as the theoretical background for a small-scale empirical study. It examines whether testing the effectiveness of policing can help in developing the necessary sense of security and trust required by small businesses to expand their enterprises. Furthermore, it examines whether such knowledge could motivate security companies to offer a more economic service to a larger number of households and private enterprises by cooperating with the state police and if such measurement would prove useful for them and their customers. Finally, some conclusions are formulated in reference to safety, police culture and organization, as well as to the quality of reform in Greece.

This article explores the relevance of sustainable business development for society and the state. Sustainability of enterprises can be defined as demonstrating the ability to be capable of continuing the same type of business in the lifetime of the next generation. In the case of Swiss dairy farms, this type of sustainability may also depend on the willingness of the government and society to make the necessary financial adjustments. Sustainability indicators for such farms are, therefore, related to ecological and social benefits rather than simply to economic success. To evaluate the role of Swiss dairy farms, a system with economic, ecological and social indicators for measuring their sustainability would be valuable. This approach creates an integration of sustainability life-cycle assessment factors of enterprises, on the one hand, and purely economic business indicators, on the other. The approach developed in this article would be of interest to all sectors that depend on public support.

When governments open up opportunities for private investment in traditional public sector areas, it is increasingly clear that a useful range of performance management information needs to be available to both government and business. Government needs to know how it is performing, comparatively, within and beyond its own domain, for the development of public policy and productivity enhancement. Business needs to know, understand and monitor the industry environment in which investment is contemplated or has already taken place. Performance measurement and monitoring is especially important where governments wish to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to their shores. Whether governments manage performance and information well or are still constrained by bureaucratic and political thinking is still at issue. Using the example of the contrived national electricity market in Australia, this article, through literature and document review, examines the likely value to government and business of performance information, now available in the public domain. First, the article considers some of the changes to the Australian electricity industry. Second, specific performance indicators relevant to the national electricity market are examined in terms of their utility for government and business decision-making. Third, the impact of the political environment on performance management information is explored. The article concludes that while some important quantitative performance management information is available in a rational sense, other more political, qualitative indicators also need to be taken into account.

Private industrial firms have impressively improved their internal performance in the last 20 years through the use of performance metrics. This article argues that private firms can not only learn from public organizations and performance measurement, they can also profit from it. The article proceeds from the Innovations System literature and applies it to the Canadian steel industry and examines public policies directed at improving the innovation performance of private firms. The most commercially successful firms are those that effectively interact with public infrastructure and social capital. Public policies should be critically examined in the same light. The analysis finds that the Innovation Strategy policy being implemented by Industry Canada, including its Innovation Targets, are misdirected and are likely to miss the most promising sources of innovation in the steel industry.

Performance-related pay within public organizations is continuing to spread. Although it can help to strengthen an entrepreneurial spirit in civil servants, its implementation is marred by technical, financial, managerial and cultural problems. This article identifies an added problem, namely the contradiction that exists between a managerial discourse that emphasizes the team and collective performance, on the one hand, and the use of appraisal and reward tools that are above all individual, on the other. Based on an empirical survey carried out within Swiss public organizations, the analysis shows that the team is currently rarely taken into account and singles out the principal routes towards an integrated system for the management and rewarding of civil servants.