ABSTRACT The measurement of public organizations’ performance is a central issue in public admini... more ABSTRACT The measurement of public organizations’ performance is a central issue in public administration both in the U.S. (Moynihan 2008) and numerous other countries (Pollitt and Bourckaert 2000). Missing in the rush to performance appraisal and performance management is any effort to tie empirical efforts to the extensive literature on measurement theory (Ghiselli et al. 1981; Shultz 2005; Hand 2004). This paper uses measurement theory to assess the potential problems in measuring organizational performance. It deals with both subjective and data-based measures as well as measures internal to the organization and those imposed by external stakeholders. Because organizations can be evaluated on multiple dimensions of performance (Boyne 2002), the paper also illustrates how adding dimensions multiplies the number of technical issues that need to be resolved. The paper also provides an illustration of the insights of measurement theory by an analysis of performance indicators for several hundred public organizations based on an original survey conducted in 2009. The empirical illustration shows three internal perceptive measures relate to three external data-based measures of performance and the factors that lead to greater divergence of the measures from each other. These empirical results along with the theoretical discussion will then be used to provide guidelines for the assessment of organizational performance for both scholars and practitioners.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Oct 1, 1994
... 440/J-PART, October 1994 Page 13. Institutional Design, Policy Effectiveness, and Drug Policy... more ... 440/J-PART, October 1994 Page 13. Institutional Design, Policy Effectiveness, and Drug Policy REFERENCES Anglin, M. Douglas. 1983 "Drugs and Crime: Behavioral Aspects." In Sanford K. Kadish, ed. Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice. New York: Free Press, 636-43. ...
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 14719037 2014 984621, Dec 6, 2014
ABSTRACT Do internal (administrative human capital) and external (social capital) resources work ... more ABSTRACT Do internal (administrative human capital) and external (social capital) resources work to reinforce the effects of each other? Work from multiple disciplines has approached this question, and we advance this literature with a theory of social and administrative resources as potential substitutes for each other in the production of public education outcomes. We argue that social capital benefits some groups more than others and that it interacts with management to improve performance. We therefore expect the benefits associated with social capital to be non-uniform across community groups. Using education as our area of study, we find that social capital offers the most direct and unconditional benefits to white students but that management can use human capital resources to compensate disadvantaged students who may lack support and resources outside of the classroom. We do not find support for the expectation that social capital and human administrative capital reinforce the benefits of each other, but we find evidence that the two resource types are substitutable. This implies that management may substitute human capital resources when social capital is low to benefit public program performance.
ABSTRACT The measurement of public organizations’ performance is a central issue in public admini... more ABSTRACT The measurement of public organizations’ performance is a central issue in public administration both in the U.S. (Moynihan 2008) and numerous other countries (Pollitt and Bourckaert 2000). Missing in the rush to performance appraisal and performance management is any effort to tie empirical efforts to the extensive literature on measurement theory (Ghiselli et al. 1981; Shultz 2005; Hand 2004). This paper uses measurement theory to assess the potential problems in measuring organizational performance. It deals with both subjective and data-based measures as well as measures internal to the organization and those imposed by external stakeholders. Because organizations can be evaluated on multiple dimensions of performance (Boyne 2002), the paper also illustrates how adding dimensions multiplies the number of technical issues that need to be resolved. The paper also provides an illustration of the insights of measurement theory by an analysis of performance indicators for several hundred public organizations based on an original survey conducted in 2009. The empirical illustration shows three internal perceptive measures relate to three external data-based measures of performance and the factors that lead to greater divergence of the measures from each other. These empirical results along with the theoretical discussion will then be used to provide guidelines for the assessment of organizational performance for both scholars and practitioners.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Oct 1, 1994
... 440/J-PART, October 1994 Page 13. Institutional Design, Policy Effectiveness, and Drug Policy... more ... 440/J-PART, October 1994 Page 13. Institutional Design, Policy Effectiveness, and Drug Policy REFERENCES Anglin, M. Douglas. 1983 "Drugs and Crime: Behavioral Aspects." In Sanford K. Kadish, ed. Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice. New York: Free Press, 636-43. ...
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 14719037 2014 984621, Dec 6, 2014
ABSTRACT Do internal (administrative human capital) and external (social capital) resources work ... more ABSTRACT Do internal (administrative human capital) and external (social capital) resources work to reinforce the effects of each other? Work from multiple disciplines has approached this question, and we advance this literature with a theory of social and administrative resources as potential substitutes for each other in the production of public education outcomes. We argue that social capital benefits some groups more than others and that it interacts with management to improve performance. We therefore expect the benefits associated with social capital to be non-uniform across community groups. Using education as our area of study, we find that social capital offers the most direct and unconditional benefits to white students but that management can use human capital resources to compensate disadvantaged students who may lack support and resources outside of the classroom. We do not find support for the expectation that social capital and human administrative capital reinforce the benefits of each other, but we find evidence that the two resource types are substitutable. This implies that management may substitute human capital resources when social capital is low to benefit public program performance.
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