Abstract:Purpose -There is a growing interest in research focusing on performance management practices in the public sector, but research is still limited with regards to public primary healthcare services (PHSs), which play an important role in national healthcare systems. These organisations are frequently criticised for alleged poor performance management practices and misuse of resources, though such claims are not always substantiated. The purpose of this study is to examine performance management practices in public PHSs.Design/methodology/approach -Three case studies of PHSs organisations were conducted resulting in interview material and archival data. Otley's performance management framework was used to examine the data.Findings -It is found that the performance management systems of the studied PHSs were disjoint and lacked consistency and coherence. Lack of direction and motivational were key issues in PHSs. Furthermore, the observations indicate that vertical controls between PHSs and parent organisation were weak and accountability poor.Research limitations/implications -Generalisability of findings and social desirability bias are the important limitations. A key research implication is that the conceptual framework adopted can be meaningfully used to generate insights into performance management issues in public sector healthcare organisations.Practical implications -The study highlights the implications of the poor design and use of performance management systems and highlights areas for improvement in the organisations studied, and potentially across the sector.Originality/value -This study is the first to draw upon Otley's performance management framework to examine performance management practices in PHSs and to demonstrate its usefulness in this context.

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ABSTRACT

In competitive business environments as the ones we live today, it is even more important for a manager to make better decisions. The classical model of decision making assumes managers have access to all the information needed to reach a decision. So, managers can make their decisions by ranking their preferences among existing alternatives. Unfortunately, it is very common that managers do not have access to all needed information to decide. Incomplete information leads to a high risk in the decision-making process. However, worse than that is not knowing what to do even having the information needed to decide. In this paper we present some lessons learned from the experience of the utilization of a Business Game at ISCAP/IPP, as a result of a partnership with UNIS-MG, a Brazilian University from Minas Gerais. For this study, a qualitative research approach was in place, since we used qualitative methods, mainly observation and semi-structured interviews. ISCAP/IPP is a business school of higher education that provides diverse programmes of studies in business areas: accounting and management, marketing, international commerce, business communication, secretary management, etc. Nevertheless, students miss some skills related with the decision-making process in management. In this learning experience students from different backgrounds improve their decision-making process in several ways: i) improve their knowledge about the organization; ii) understand the mind frame (from the background) used by colleagues to make their decisions; iii) interpret formal and informal documents available not only internally (such as financial statements), but also externally (such as macroeconomic projections and market reports); iv) realize that a manager needs to be more that an accountant or marketer, but most of times a mix of different backgrounds at the same time.