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Playing the Game of Outcomes‐based Performance Management. Is Gamesmanship Inevitable? Evidence from Theory and Practice
Author(s) -
Lowe Toby,
Wilson Rob
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
social policy and administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9515
pISSN - 0144-5596
DOI - 10.1111/spol.12205
Subject(s) - corporate governance , orthodoxy , psychological intervention , public relations , function (biology) , order (exchange) , positive economics , sociology , political science , psychology , business , economics , medicine , management , nursing , history , archaeology , finance , evolutionary biology , biology
This article presents the case for the need for a re‐think in the prevailing orthodoxy of measurement approaches in the governance and management of public services. The article explores the simplification of complex reality that outcomes‐based performance management (OBPM) requires in order to function, and the consequences of such simplification. It examines the evidence for and against the effectiveness of OBPM, and argues that both sets of evidence can be brought into a single explanatory story by understanding the theory of OBPM. The simplification required to measure and attribute ‘outcomes’ turns the organization and delivery of social interventions into a game, the rules of which promote gamesmanship, distorting the behaviour of organizations, managers and practitioners who undertake it.