Performance Management Practices in Local Governments: Motivations, Challenges, and Evolution
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Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2023-01-01
Type of Work
Department
School of Public Policy
Program
Public Policy
Citation of Original Publication
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This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by UMBC for non-commercial research and education. For permission to publish or reproduce, please see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/repro.php or contact Special Collections at speccoll(at)umbc.edu
Distribution Rights granted to UMBC by the author.
Distribution Rights granted to UMBC by the author.
Abstract
Local governments engage in performance management practices due to popular use and advocacy. Such practices are often employed to create satisfactory public goods and services for citizens. This research takes an in-depth view to understand the motivations around the practice of performance management and the role of transparency within those motivations. These insights are crucial to supporting and augmenting the use of performance management practices and will inform how these practices are shared, replicated, and sustained for the improvement of local governments. This dissertation used a sample taken from a network of cities and local governments affiliated with government innovation and performance practices. In this research, semi-structured interviews (n=28) and a brief survey (n=70) were completed with elected and/or appointed officials, upper, middle, and front-line management, and non-managerial employees from local governments. The findings justify further exploratory studies on the motivations of local government administrations in engaging in performance management practices. The analysis in this dissertation uncovers the motivations of local government administrators who use performance management practices because of the ideals of civil service, accountability, and communication. There is also interaction present with the idea of transparency to these motivations, largely tied to the themes of accountability and communication. The findings also suggest that organizational and leadership culture present within the organization have some influence in these motivations. These findings provide implications for research, practice, and policy on how to meaningfully engage in performance management practices, and how the ideas of civil service, organizational, and leadership buy-in, along with the underlying themes from transparency of communication and accountability, are central to such practices within local governments.