Public Management by Numbers as a Performance‐Enhancing Drug: Two Hypotheses

“Public management by numbers” has experienced an international policy boom in recent decades, and big claims have been made about its performance‐enhancing effects. But it is hard to assess such claims systematically, even though we can find dramatic anecdotes of cases in which management by numbers seems to have had performance‐weakening as well as performance‐enhancing effects. In an attempt to build on studies that have gone beyond critiquing the statistical validity and reliability of performance numbers for public services, this article develops two hypotheses about performance enhancement, arguing that (1) the performance‐enhancing (or ‐obstructing) effects of management by numbers will vary according to whether the numbers are used for the purposes of targets, rankings, or “intelligence,” and (2) the performance‐enhancing (or ‐obstructing) effects of those three applications will vary according to the culture in which they operate, working differently in hierarchist, egalitarian, individualist, and fatalist settings.