CAN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT FOSTER SOCIAL EQUITY? STAKEHOLDER POWER, PROTECTIVE INSTITUTIONS, AND MINORITY REPRESENTATION
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| Author | ALEXANDER KROLL |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12289 |
doi : 10. 1111/p adm .12289
CAN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT FOSTER SOCIAL
EQUITY? STAKEHOLDER POWER, PROTECTIVE
INSTITUTIONS, AND MINORITY REPRESENTATION
ALEXANDER KROLL
Performance management has been criticized for harming or, at best, ignoring social equity out-
comes. While there is evidence suggesting that performance management fosters an emphasis on
efciency and effectiveness at the expense of other public values, we are still in search of a theory
linking performance management to social equity.The article takes a rst step towards the develop-
ment of such a theory and proposes the importance of contingency factors. It argues that managerial
performance information use will benet disadvantaged groups in the presence of powerful stake-
holders, protective institutions, and minority representation in government. Using data on school
districts in Texas, the article nds support for the rst two contingency factors but not the third
one. Performance information use by superintendents increases test scores of disadvantaged stu-
dents if these students make up a sizeable, powerful group, and if superintendents put emphasis on
complying with the No Child Left Behind Act.
INTRODUCTION
Performance management is a reality for managers in public and nonprot organizations.
The logic behind this management approach is appealing: in order to improve organiza-
tional performance, managers rst need to measure current performance and set targets,so
that they are able to evaluate whether what they do actually improves their organization’s
efciency, outputs, or outcomes. As public administrations – across levels of government,
policy elds, and countries (Boyne et al. 2006; Moynihan 2008; Martin et al. 2016) – have
been adopting performance measurement systems, research studying these systems and
their impact on outcome improvements has been growing (for reviews, see Boyne 2010
and Gerrish 2016).
Although studies on outcome differences help us evaluate performance management
systems more broadly, most of this scholarly work has been silent on potential social
equity effects, that is, differential effects for disadvantaged sub-populations. Establishing
whether performance management leads to improvements is important, but it is equally
critical to ask: improvements for whom? Raising this question is crucial, since perfor-
mance management systems have been criticized for neglecting non-mission-based values
which often fall into the social equity category. It is not uncommon that performance
management is considered successful because it made services more ‘efcient’ and ‘effec-
tive’, while generating average gains at the expense of disadvantaged sub-populations,
for whom services become less accessible or helpful (Rosenbloom 2007; Wichowsky and
Moynihan 2008).
Part of the appeal of performance information is that it appears neutral. However,
research has shown that performance data are, in fact, socially constructed, implying
that they reect the preferences of powerful groups, while harming vulnerable ones
(Brodkin and Majmundar 2010; Soss et al. 2011). This article will show that performance
management is not necessarily at odds with social equity. Its theory consolidates positive
Alexander Kroll is at the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, Florida International University,
USA.
Public Administration Vol.95, No. 1, 2017 (22–38)
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL EQUITY 23
and negative ndings of performance systems by proposing the use of a contingency
approach; whether performance systems harm or benet disadvantaged stakeholders
is dependent on additional contextual factors that these systems are paired with. Prior
work has shown that performance management in government is political. I argue that, in
order to take this nding seriously, we need to account for such factors when modelling
the impact of performance systems broadly and managers’ performance information use
specically.
Although it would go beyond the scope of this article to propose and test a compre-
hensive theory of how performance management aligns with social equity, the article will
make a rst contribution to the development of such a middle-range theory. I relate liter-
ature on participation, institutions, and representative bureaucracy to the case of perfor-
mance management and argue that the effect of managers’ performance information use
on outcome improvements for disadvantaged groups is contingent on three factors: the
relative power of these groups, the perceived importance of institutions protecting these
groups, and the representation of minority groups in government. Using large-N data on
school districts in Texas, I nd that superintendents’ performance information use has a
positive effect on the test scores of Latino and low-income students if these students make
up a sizeable, powerful group, and if institutions protecting these students are deemed
important, while minority representation in the school administration is of no relevance.
PERFORMANCE INFORMATION USE AND SOCIAL EQUITY
Performance management and policy feedback theory
Performance systems can be conceptualized as either management policies, which have
government-wide reach and charge agencies across-the-board with measurement tasks,
or as accountability mechanisms built-in policies focusing on a specic area like schools,
hospitals, or job training programmes (Heinrich and Marschke 2010; Moynihan and Kroll
2016). Tounderstand how performance systems are related to social equity, I employ a pol-
icy feedback perspective. Policy feedback theory argues that policies are not just a function
of politics, but that there is also a reversed effect, where policies transform politics and,
by extension, future policies (Béland 2010; Mettler and SoRelle 2014). For public manage-
ment, this implies that it is not only administration that uses its discretion to recongure
policy objectives, but that policy also affects administration (e.g. structures, cultures, and
behaviours) (Moynihan and Soss 2014).
Applying this theory to the case of performance management policies suggests the fol-
lowing. Certain parts of the implementation of such policies are easily observable: the
establishment of measurement systems, the collection and reporting of performance infor-
mation, and even changes in measurable outcomes. However, to understand how per-
formance policies are linked to outcomes, we have to take a closer look at the imple-
menting organizations and examine how such policies affect administrators’ attitudes and
behaviours or collective identities and cultures as important mediating variables. One of
these variables is managerial behaviour that is often referred to as performance informa-
tion use (Moynihan and Pandey 2010; Kroll and Vogel 2014).
Performance-driven policies are – implicitly or explicitly – built on the assumption that
decision-makers will use performance data in ways consistent with policy objectives.
But changing managers’ behaviours along these lines can require disrupting and altering
existing decision routines. Policies can mandate collecting and reporting data, but they
cannot mandate information use which is cognitive in nature and difcult to observe
Public Administration Vol.95, No. 1, 2017 (22–38)
© 2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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