Handbook on Performance Management in the Public Sector

343 Pages·2021·3.991 MB·English

by  Deborah Blackman (editor)

HANDBOOK ON PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN
THE PUBLIC SECTOR
ELGAR HANDBOOKS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT
This series provides a comprehensive overview of recent research in all matters relating to
public administration and management, serving as a definitive guide to the field. Covering
a wide range of research areas including national and international methods of public admin-
istration, theories of public administration and management, and technological developments
in public administration and management, the series produces influential works of lasting
significance. Each Handbook will consist of original contributions by preeminent authors,
selected by an esteemed editor internationally recognized as a leading scholar within the field.
Taking an international approach, these Handbooks serve as an essential reference point for all
students of public administration and management, emphasizing both the expansion of current
debates, and an indication of the likely research agendas for the future.
Titles in the series include:
Handbook on Corruption, Ethics and Integrity in Public Administration
Edited by Adam Graycar
Handbook of Research Methods in Public Administration, Management and Policy
Edited by Eran Vigoda-Gadot and Dana R. Vashdi
Handbook of Collaborative Public Management
Edited by Jack Wayne Meek
Handbook on Performance Management in the Public Sector
Edited by Deborah Blackman
Handbook on Performance
Management in the Public Sector
Edited by
Deborah Blackman
Professor of Public Sector Management Strategy, Public Service Research
Group, School of Business, UNSW Canberra, Australia
with
Fiona Buick, Karen Gardner, Miriam Glennie and Samantha
Johnson
Public Service Research Group, School of Business, UNSW Canberra,
Australia
Michael O’Donnell
Professor of Human Resource Management, Public Service Research Group,
School of Business, UNSW Canberra, Australia
Sue Olney
Melbourne Disability Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia
ELGAR HANDBOOKS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT
Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
© Deborah Blackman 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording,
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
The Lypiatts
15 Lansdown Road
Cheltenham
Glos GL50 2JA
UK
Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.
William Pratt House
9 Dewey Court
Northampton
Massachusetts 01060
USA
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021932271
This book is available electronically in the
Political Science and Public Policy subject collection
http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781789901207
ISBN 978 1 78990 119 1 (cased)
ISBN 978 1 78990 120 7 (eBook)
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Contents
List of contributors vii
Welcome xii
1 Reinventing performance management in the public sector 1
Jane Gunn, Kristy Zwickert and Kathy Hilyard
PART I GOVERNANCE AND SYSTEMS: WHY PUBLIC SECTOR
PERFORMANCE RESEARCH APPROACHES ARE CHANGING
2 Not my problem: the impact of siloed performance management on
policy design and implementation 28
Sue Olney
3 Applying behavioural science to performance management 42
Donald Moynihan
4 Performance measures for governance systems 55
Sharron O’Neill and Jim Rooney
5 How can public service performance management be understood at
a systems level? 72
Karen Gardner
6 Causes of gaming in performance management 82
Jeannette Taylor
7 A test of wills? Exploring synecdoche and gaming in the national
literacy and numeracy performance monitoring regime 96
Joseph Drew and Janine O’Flynn
8 Managing the complexity of outcomes: a new approach to performance
measurement and management 111
Max French, Toby Lowe, Rob Wilson, Mary-Lee Rhodes and Melissa Hawkins
PART II ORGANIZATIONS AND EMPLOYEES: PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT AND CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT –
THE AGENDA OF THE FUTURE?
9 Prospects for continuous performance conversations in the Australian
Public Service 140
Michael O’Donnell
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vi Handbook on performance management in the public sector
10 The changing nature of work: time to return to performance fundamentals? 152
Helen Dickinson and Janine O’Flynn
11 Assessing organization performance in public sector systems: lessons
from Canada’s MAF and New Zealand’s PIF 169
Barbara Allen, Evert Lindquist and Elizabeth Eppel
12 Making performance management work in developing countries
through system integration: the perspective from Ghana 185
Frank Louis Kwaku Ohemeng
13 The high performance government organization: a different approach to
effective improvement 209
André de Waal and Paul Jan Linker
14 Performance management and common purpose: rethinking solutions to
inter-organizational working 229
Fiona Buick
15 Who is accountable for capability development? 249
Samantha Johnson
16 Modern employee performance management in the U.S. Federal Government 259
Rebecca S. Ayers
17 Using performance management to drive employee engagement in the
public sector 276
Edward M. Mone and Manuel London
18 Designing performance management to be an ethical tool 294
Deborah Blackman, Fiona Buick and Michael O’Donnell
19 Conclusion to the Handbook on Performance Management in the Public Sector 308
Deborah Blackman, Fiona Buick, Karen Gardner, Miriam Glennie, Samantha
Johnson, Michael O’Donnell and Sue Olney
Index 311
Contributors
Barbara Allen is Senior Lecturer with the School of Government at Victoria University of
Wellington. Dr Allen’s primary research interests are in public procurement, performance
management and digital governance. Barbara has held positions at Warwick University,
University of Birmingham and the University of Nottingham and was previously an Air Force
Logistics Officer in the Canadian Military. She has a significant research record publishing
in for example, the Australian Journal of Public Administration, Government Information
Quarterly and Public Money and Management.
Rebecca S. Ayers, PhD, is the manager for Performance Management in the U.S. Office of
Personnel Management (OPM) and the Program Manager for USA Performance, OPM’s auto-
mated performance management system. Rebecca works with public and non-profit organi-
zations to identify organizational goals, develop strategic plans, and implement performance
management systems. She holds a BA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia,
a MA in Transatlantic Studies from the University of Bath, and a PhD in Public Administration
from North Carolina State University.
Deborah Blackman is a Professor of Public Sector Management Strategy and
a member of the Public Service Research Group, University of New South Wales, Canberra,
Australia. Her expertise is in Public Sector Policy Implementation, Systems Level Change
and Employee Performance Management. Current projects include: impacts of system com-
plexity on effective long-term crisis recovery, mapping well-being systems, and investigating
the current state and future impact of middle manager capability. Deborah led a joint collabo-
rative project entitled ‘Strengthening the Performance Framework’ which resulted was a new
diagnostic framework for improving effectiveness of performance management outcomes.
Fiona Buick is a Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia.
Fiona’s research focuses on the role of organizational culture, strategic human resource man-
agement and human resource management in enabling group and organizational effectiveness
within the public sector. Previous projects have explored structural change in the Australian
Public Service (APS), management capability in the Australian Public Sector, the role of per-
formance management in enabling high performance, and the impact of organizational culture
on inter-organizational working in the APS.
André de Waal is managing partner of the HPO Center, the Netherlands, an organization
that worldwide investigates the characteristics of High Performance Organizations (www
.hpocenter. com). He has published extensively on high performance organizations and high
performance managerial leadership. Paul Jan Linker and André de Waal jointly published the
book De High Performance Overheidsorganisatie: een andere benadering van effectief ver-
beteren [The High Performance Government Organization: a different approach to effective
improvement] (Van Duuren Management, 2019).
Helen Dickinson is Professor of Public Service Research and Director of the Public Service
Research Group, University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia. Her expertise is in
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public services, particularly in relation to topics such as governance, policy implementation
and stewardship of fourth industrial revolution technologies. Helen has published eighteen
books and over seventy peer-reviewed journal articles on these topics and is also a frequent
commentator within the mainstream media.
Joseph Drew is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Local Government at the University
of Technology Sydney, and adjunct Professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University. His principal
research interests are performance management, government financial sustainability and the
art of selling public policy. His new book – Reforming Local Government – is available from
September 2020 (Springer).
Elizabeth Eppel is Senior Research Associate for the Chair of Digital Government at Victoria
University Wellington. Elizabeth’s research interest is in the contribution of complexity think-
ing to understanding public policy processes. Particular areas of focus are digital government,
the use of networks and collaboration in the public sector and other complex public manage-
ment processes. Elizabeth was formerly a senior public servant for over twenty years working
primarily in education.
Max French is a Lecturer in Systems Leadership at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria
University, and a Visiting Fellow at the Open Lab, Newcastle University. He researches
the constructive implications of complexity for public and non-profit management, perfor-
mance management for outcomes and grand challenges, and action-oriented social research
approaches.
Karen Gardner is a Senior Lecturer in the Public Service Research Group, University of New
South Wales, Canberra, Australia. She is a health services researcher with an interest in health
policy reform, program implementation, complex evaluation and systems thinking. Recent
projects include an evaluation of a systems based intervention for eliminating crusted scabies
in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities; projects exploring the implementation
and use of data in continuous quality improvement and primary care performance measure-
ment programs, and primary care commissioning.
Miriam Glennie is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Public Service Research Group,
University of New South Wales, Canberra, Australia. Research interests include performance
indicators and performance measurement, and the contribution of performance evaluation to
quality improvement. Miriam publishes in human resource management, health services man-
agement and sociology fields. She is passionate about improving the equity of performance
management systems at the individual, organizational and systems levels.
Jane Gunn is the Partner in Charge of KPMG’s Australian People and Change practice. Her
professional focus is working with organizations to effectively respond to emerging changes
in their strategic context, particularly as these changes demand transformation of their organ-
izations and workforces. Working across most industries, Jane has focused on Public Sector
and Defence change and reform in recent years. Jane holds a PhD in organizational behaviour
and strategy from the Australian National University.
Melissa Hawkins is currently a Researcher at Newcastle Business School at Northumbria
University, and is conducting action research into developing complexity-informed practice in
public and third-sector organizations. Research interests have been influenced by time spent
Contributors ix
as a classroom teacher, and is focused upon how complexity theory can be used to critically
analyse current performance management practices, and how action research can be utilized
as a methodology for innovating in complex conditions.
Kathy Hilyard is a partner at KPMG. She leads KPMG’s national leadership development
practice. She has over 30 years’ experience working in and with public sector organizations
to design, review and reform their leadership and performance practices and frameworks.
Kathy has led many large-scale leadership development programs, designed performance
frameworks and conducted organizational culture reviews in both the private and public
sectors. Kathy is passionate about building high performance and capability, to enable leaders
to modernize and reform to continually adapt their people and engagement practices to make
a difference in their organization and community.
Samantha Johnson lectures in leadership in the School of Business, University of New
South Wales, Canberra. Her research interests are in management capability development and
leadership performance. Sam consults to government agencies in leadership capability devel-
opment, with the Public Sector Research Group (PSRG) and the Australian Graduate School
of Management (AGSM), UNSW Sydney. She holds a PhD in management (organizational
behaviour), has published in international journals and books and has presented her work at
conferences in Australia, New Zealand, the US and Europe.
Evert Lindquist is Professor of Public Administration at the University of Victoria and
Editor of the journal Canadian Public Administration. He served as Director of the School
of Public Administration (1998‒2015), the ANZSOG-ANU Chair in Public Management
Research (2010‒11), and Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat Visiting Fellow (1992‒94).
He has published widely on governance and decision-making, central agencies and reform,
policy capability and recruitment strategies, think tanks, consultation, horizontal management,
budgeting, competing values in leadership, and visualization in policymaking.
Paul Jan Linker is director-owner of Sturingsadvies, the Netherlands (www. sturingsadvies).
Paul Jan Linker and Andre de Waal jointly published the book De High Performance
Overheidsorganisatie: een andere benadering van effectief verbeteren [The High Performance
Government Organization: a different approach to effective improvement] (Van Duuren
Management, 2019).
Manuel London is Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook. He received his BA from Case Western Reserve University and his MA and PhD from
the Ohio State University in industrial and organizational psychology. He is the author of 18
books, the editor of 10, and the author of more than 130 articles in the areas of performance
evaluation, job feedback, career motivation, leadership development, and group learning.
Toby Lowe is Visiting Professor in Public Management at the Centre for Public Impact (CPI).
Toby spent 15 years working across the public and voluntary sectors in the UK, working in
both policy and delivery roles. He is on secondment to CPI from Newcastle Business School,
where he has been working alongside public and voluntary sector organizations to develop an
alternative paradigm for public management – one which enables public service to work more
effectively in complex, dynamic environments.