Public Sector Performance Management

The PSPM cluster is a newly formed group of researchers, supported by a grant from Interis Consulting, whose aim is to research and examine methods, tools and processes used to manage performance in public sector organizations. Realizing that the "public" sector includes a wide range of organizations, the focus will be on what really works across these different types of organizations.

Performance management is an important topic to governments at all levels. It is becoming even more important due to increasing demands on public sector institutions coupled with continued budget constraints. The fundamental challenge for these organizations is really how do they do more with less? Performance management is seen as a way of helping organizations improve efficiency in order to cope with the need to maintain services with fewer resources. Unfortunately, the emerging consensus is that, by and large, performance management practices in the public sector do not generally influence organizational performance.

This cluster will therefore focus its attention on understanding the contribution of performance management practices. By collecting data from different organizations, the cluster will provide insight into the following aspects of public sector performance management:

• What specific practices are being used by different organizations?
• Why were certain practices adopted?
• What challenges are being faced in implementing these practices and how are these challenges being addressed?
• How can performance management practices facilitate learning, change and improved performance?
• How do performance management practices vary across different organizations and why?
• Do organizational power and politics play a role?
• For performance management to be successfully implemented in government, what kind of post-bureaucratic structures, leadership and reward systems are needed to facilitate such a transformation?
• What mechanisms are needed to allow for the effective sharing and public reporting of performance measurement information in government?

• Swee Goh MBA.,Ph.D, Professor and Interis Fellow
• Greg Richards, MBA, Ph.D, FCMC: cluster lead
• Catherine Elliott, MBA, Ph.D: Research Assistant
• Sarah Musavi, Ph.D, MHA: Research Associate
• John Mayne, PhD, FCES; Research Associate
• Karen Somerville, Ph.D, MBA, CGA: Research Associate