Performance Management, Rationality and Participation in Public Sector Organisation

• This doctoral thesis critically examines the role of performance management in public sector organisations. In particular, it explores how performance management relates to different concepts of rationality (instrumental, value and communicative), including issues around rationality and power, and the relationship between these concepts and various models of participation and democracy. In it, theoretical accounts of public sector management, particularly the New Public Management (NPM) and New Public Governance (NPG) are analysed; theoretical accounts of democracy, including deliberative democracy and agonistic pluralism, are investigated; and conceptual contributions from the accounting and management control literature are discussed.This thesis builds on one for which a Licentiate in Philosophy was awarded in 2019 (Heath, 2019). That thesis concerned the nature of instrumental and communicative rationality and their implications for public sector organisations, especially in connection with performance evaluation. The role of performance management has long been controversial in the public sector because of the prevalence of imposed performance regimes with well-known perverse incentives and unintended consequences; which, nevertheless, are recurring problems. It was concluded that such regimes persist despite their limitations because they seem to legitimise public services through claims to instrumental rationality. However, a more deliberative and participatory approach to performance management, enacting communicative rationality, could have distinct advantages over the more commonly applied methods.The issues raised there are investigated here in greater theoretical depth, with the key ideas advanced further and to a higher level of analysis. In order to do this, the four papers selected for the Licentiate are enhanced by a further three papers, chosen specifically for this doctoral thesis. All the papers referred to are based on research using a range of methods which had been carried out in various public sector settings. Thus the doctoral thesis comprises: Paper A (about higher education); Paper B (about ambulance services) and Paper C (about public services generally but drawing particularly on ambulance services). Paper A concerns the views of HR professionals in UK Universities on how their role contributes to organisational effectiveness and especially to organisational change. Paper B focuses on cultural transformation and perpetuation in ambulance services and explores the relationship between cultures, performance measures and organisational change.  Paper C examines performance measurement within the public sector and the problems that can be encountered, with special reference to the English ambulance service. Although all the cases are drawn from England, international research has also been examined in the thesis.Themes of democracy, rationality and power, public governance, and accounting and performance management are explored. The analysis of these themes draws particularly on Broadbent and Laughlin’s (2009) conceptual framework of performance management systems. Their model distinguishes between two ideal types: the instrumental rationality cluster is associated with rational-legal authority and transactional performance management systems and the communicative rationality cluster with reflexive authority and relational performance management systems.Simplistic, imposed performance management regimes are a feature of the NPM, which is seen here as a neo-liberal response to the fiscal and legitimacy crises of the 1970s. This places public sector organisations near the instrumental rationality cluster, but it is proposed that many of them might belong closer to the communicative rationality cluster. This points to attempts to bring participation, deliberation and discourse into public management and accountability. It is contended that, although adopting Deliberative Democracy in a ‘pure’ form may be utopian, combinations of representative and participatory democracy might be developed, reflecting contingent factors and path dependency. Participatory Budgeting is one practical example of this. In addition some forms of the NPG are conducive to it.The papers selected for the two theses are written from a critical-interpretive perspective. This perspective focuses on how accounting affects and is affected by organisational behaviour and political and social institutions, rather than seeing it as a neutral and purely technical instrument. The work anticipates the call of Steccolini (2019) and Steccolini et al. (2020) for interdisciplinary studies in public sector accounting. Moreover, it forms part of the ‘turn’ to social theory in the academic accounting literature identified by Jack (2017). The thesis makes its particular contribution to the literature by demonstrating the potential of democratic and participatory approaches to enhance performance management in the public services; whilst recognising complexity and contingency. 

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Communicative

instrumental and value rationality

accounting and performance management

public sector organisations

public management and governance

participation

deliberation and democracy

Arbetsvetenskap

Human Work Sciences

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

dok (ämneskategori)