The Sisyphean Fate of Government-Wide Performance Accountability Reforms

Abstract

Performance accountability reforms of various kinds, used by most presidents to strengthen their political control over federal agencies, have become a key public management topic. It is still a matter of debate whether such reforms can really lead to deep changes inside federal agencies and what purposes they ultimately serve. This article uses three data sources to reflect on performance accountability efforts under the Bush administration from 2002 to 2008 and on six intermediate employee outcomes (discretion, performance culture, teamwork, motivation, procedural justice, and turnover intention). The descriptive results suggest that performance reforms are reacted to primarily as an external accountability requirement and are largely unrelated to intermediate employee outcomes.

Keywords:

• accountability
• federal government
• performance-based accountability
• performance management
• reform