NPM: Cybernetics and Styles of Dealing with Performance Information – Do Performance Measures Matter?

Abstract

Although performance information is a key element of NPM, politicians and managers rarely use this information. This paper investigates two alternative explanations for the intensity of information use. First, in cybernetic control information is used to make clearly pre-defined decisions and consequently the contents of performance reports should match the information needs of its receivers. In cybernetic forms of management a poor match could explain the low intensity with which receivers of performance reports use these documents; i.e., decision-makers do not receive the ‘right’ performance measures. Second, in non-cybernetic forms of management the contents of performance reports have little effect on the intensity with which their receivers use these documents. In non-cybernetic management, the availability of a routine to deal with performance reports in a discussion-provoking manner can explain the intensity with which these documents are used. This paper demonstrates that the contents of performance reports hardly affect the intensity with which politicians and managers use these documents. Rather, it is the availability of a carefully developed approach for non-cybernetic control, including a discussion-provoking style of dealing with performance reports, that explains the use of these documents. Performance measures may matter as a starting point for further discussions, but the selection of the ‘right’ measures, i.e. measures that precisely match the information needs of their receivers, seems to have little effect on the intensity with which these measures are used.

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to two anonymous referees, G. Jan van Helden and Robert W. Scapens for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes

1 The General Social Security Act is the most important regulation that social services departments execute, but they also execute other regulations, for example, regulations that provide payments to disabled and to self-employed persons.