Performance Information, Blame Avoidance, and Politicians' Attitudes to Spending and Reform: Evidence from an Experiment

Nielsen, Poul Aaes; Bækgaard, Martin

doi:10.1093/jopart/mut051

Cited by 126 publications

(167 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…This is consistent with the theory of performance management, which argues that a central motivation behind the increasing stress on performance in public sector organizations is to help bureaucrats and elected officials make more informed decisions (Moynihan ; Nielsen and Baekgaard ). In fact, performance data are meant “to empower [decision makers] to make informed decisions by presenting them with unambiguous information about the performance of institutions” (Baekgaard and Serritzlew , 73).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…For ease of comparison across municipalities, we calculate municipality‐level percentage deviations from the national average. Similar measures of relative performance have been used in comparable contexts by, for instance, Charbonneau and Van Ryzin (), Nielsen and Baekgaard (), Barrows et al (), Olsen (), and Nielsen and Moynihan (). These percentage deviations are measured as MD k = [( M k – 50) * 100]/50, ED k = [( E k – 50) * 100]/50, and RD k = [( R k – 50) * 100]/50 (where M k , E k , and D k reflect the average scores for the three test subjects across all pupils in municipality k ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Currently, there is “less systematic evidence on how performance data alter political beliefs” (Nielsen and Moynihan , 3), which constitutes our first contribution. To the best of our knowledge, Nielsen and Baekgaard () and George et al () are the only studies linking information on public sector performance to preferences for policy reforms using data obtained from politicians . Their analysis is limited, however, to budgetary allocations and one reform option, school mergers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians' Preferences for Reforms

Geys

Sørensen

2017

Public Administration Review

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Despite the increasing stress on performance in public sector organizations, there is still little empirical evidence on whether—and if so, how—politicians respond to performance information. This article addresses this research gap by linking registry statistics on school performance in Norway's 428 municipalities with data from an information experiment embedded in a survey of local politicians. Findings show that school performance bears only a weak relationship to politicians' preferences for resource‐related reforms, but it strongly affects preferences for governance‐related reforms, indicating the importance of accounting for heterogeneity across alternative types of (school) reforms. Moreover, local politicians are, on average, well informed about school performance. This reflects the force of local inhabitants' high information level on politicians' accountability.

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Section: Theoretical Backgroundsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians' Preferences for Reforms

Geys

Sørensen

2017

Public Administration Review

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“…Because of this randomization, experiments automatically control for all potential confounding variables that are equally present in both groups and therefore cannot explain differences in outcomes (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002). There are exemplary studies that examine the effects of positive and negative performance feedback on citizens' attitudes toward local government (James, 2011) and on politicians' spending decisions (Nielsen & Baekgaard, 2013). Similar designs could also be used to study the behavior of public managers.…”

Section: Proposition 5: More Experimental Research Is Neededmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drivers of Performance Information Use: Systematic Literature Review and Directions for Future Research

Kroll

2015

Public Performance & Management Review

223

240

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The use of performance information in decision-making is a management behavior that has received much attention in public administration research and practice. This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of this behavior. It conducts a systematic review of 25 recently published empirical studies that have examined drivers of performance information use. Analyzing these studies, which were selected on the basis of their definition of purposeful data use, the article identifies factors that have repeatedly shown a positive impact: measurement system maturity, stakeholder involvement, leadership support, support capacity, innovative culture, and goal clarity. This systematic analysis also uncovers less conclusive variables; findings which are highly relevant for future studies. Based on the review, the article suggests directions for further research endeavors, including theoretical and methodological propositions.

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“…There is a growing empirical literature on the determinants and effects of performance information use in governance (Kroll, 2015;Moynihan, Pandey, & Wright, 2012), but this is largely focused on administrators and citizens, but with less systematic evidence on how performance data alter political beliefs (Nielsen & Baekgaard, 2015). There is a growing empirical literature on the determinants and effects of performance information use in governance (Kroll, 2015;Moynihan, Pandey, & Wright, 2012), but this is largely focused on administrators and citizens, but with less systematic evidence on how performance data alter political beliefs (Nielsen & Baekgaard, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Romanticizing bureaucratic leadership? The politics of how elected officials attribute responsibility for performance

Nielsen

Moynihan

2016

Governance

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A core task for elected officials is to hold bureaucratic leaders responsible, but how do they determine if public managers actually influence outcomes? We propose that partisan and leadership heuristics affect how politicians apply a logic of individualized responsibility, that is, focus on individual bureaucrats rather than situational factors to explain organizational outcomes. We match survey data of local elected officials in Denmark with individual partisan variables and objective performance data about the schools they oversee. We provide evidence that partisan beliefs matter, with conservative elected officials more willing to pursue a logic of individualized responsibility. We also find that elected officials are more likely to assume that bureaucratic leaders determine organizational outcomes where performance is very high or low, a leadership attribution heuristic previously established in private sector studies. We argue that our findings have important implications for contemporary governance, given the growing reliance on performance metrics to assign responsibility.

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Performance Information, Blame Avoidance, and Politicians' Attitudes to Spending and Reform: Evidence from an Experiment

Cited by 126 publications

References 49 publications

Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians' Preferences for Reforms

Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians' Preferences for Reforms

Drivers of Performance Information Use: Systematic Literature Review and Directions for Future Research

Romanticizing bureaucratic leadership? The politics of how elected officials attribute responsibility for performance

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