Organizational Social Capital and Performance Information Use: Analyzing the Link and Its Implications for Public Management

Abstract

The use of performance information is the backbone of performance management.Performance information use refers to the willingness of public managers or other relevant stakeholders to incorporate quantitative or qualitative data in their decisionmaking. Both routine and nonroutine performance information is considered essential in managers' decision making. Understanding the organizational factors that motivate public managers to use performance information is an important topic in the literature and practice of performance management.Although the number of studies on information use is growing, little is known about the impact of Organizational Social Capital (OSC). OSC is composed of the subdimensions of social interaction, trust, and shared goals. The main argument of this study is that OSC fosters performance information use in public administrations. It is iv expected that departments with high levels of organizational social capital are more likely to use both routine and nonroutine performance information.To test the hypothesized effect, department heads, middle managers, and other individuals with a supervisory role from 513 Florida County Government departments were surveyed. Furthermore, interviews, focus groups, and analysis of secondary data were performed to provide the context and the narrative surrounding the hypothesized effect. Analysis of the survey data reveals evidence in support of the hypothesized effects. Furthermore, the comparative case study analysis shows the existence of substantial differences in the history, background, organizational culture, and management between the two counties. The main findings show how reorganization processes as well as a lack of leadership may have detrimental effects to organizational social capital.Organizational social capital could be considered a relevant predictor of performance information use and thus deserves further attention from both researchers and practitioners. v The origins of this movement, which has been fully embraced by politicians around the world, could be traced back in the influence from "large, high performing organizations in the private sector" (Kamensky, 1996, p. 248). Classical economic theory, public choice theory, principal-agent theory, transaction cost, liberation management, market-driven management are some of the theories that constitute the backbone of NPM (Kamensky, 1996, Terry, 1998. Among the core components that characterize this movement (Caiden, 1994;Kamensky, 1996, Kettl, 2005Terry, 1998), productivity and accountability have received the most attention-both in theory and in practice of NPM.According to Kamensky (1996), NPM advances progress toward achieving better performing public administrations. He stated that NPM "is not just a series of recommendations, but an evolving movement whose vision and philosophy is trying to adapt democratic governance to new public expectations" (p. 253). Not all scholars have been keen to accept and embrace what NPM has offered to the public sector. 2According to Terry (1998), ...

The impact of the cooperative structure on organizational social capital

“…The model chosen to specify the different dimensions of organizational social capital is the one by Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998). Their model has been used in several other studies that focus on organizational social capital, making it the most widely accepted conceptualization of its kind (Tantardini, 2016, p. 34). They distinguish between the structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of organizational social capital: The structural dimension covers the extent to which people in an organization are connected to one another and the overall pattern of connections between them.…”

Organizational Social Capital and Performance Information use: The Mediating Role of Public Service Motivation

“…First , it proposes that an organizational level factor like organizational social capital and an individual trait like PSM are both important to explain the use of performance information in the public sector. In doing so, it responds to two separate yet interrelated calls for empirical evidence from the contributions by Tantardini and Kroll (2015) and by Tantardini (2016). Second , this study adds to the literature of “institutional shapers of individual beliefs and behavior” (Moynihan and Pandey 2007, 41) as it shows that an organizational level resource like organizational social capital is able to influence PSM, which, in turn is associated with performance information use.…”

“…County governments have also been chosen for several reasons (as in Tantardini 2016). First , counties have powers and duties 2 related to various public issues and are also responsible for the delivery of public services to their citizens, thus making them worthy of examination.…”

“…As described in Tantardini and Kroll (2015) and Tantardini (2016), organizations that are rich in social capital are more likely to use informal information systems that “grow up as a natural by-product of social interaction” (Ouchi 1979, 839). According to Tantardini and Kroll (2015) and Tantardini (2016), organization that are rich in organizational social capital are therefore more likely to use nonroutine performance information in their decision-making process. The same authors also make the argument that this hypothesis extends to routine performance information.…”

“…The same authors also make the argument that this hypothesis extends to routine performance information. “Otherwise, it would be unclear why public administrations have spent significant resources in adopting and implementing formal information systems in the past 30 years” (Tantardini 2016, 40). Consequently, according to Tantardini and Kroll (2015) and Tantardini (2016), it is plausible to think that managers use nonroutine performance information in addition to using routine performance information.…”