Reactivity and the Dialectics of Performance Measurement: Micropolitics Between Agency and Compliance

• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/00953997211003841
• Author: Peter Woelert
• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Subject Matter: Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997211003841

Administration & Society

2021, Vol. 53(6) 963 –983

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997211003841

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Perspectives

Reactivity and

the Dialectics

of Performance

Measurement:

Micropolitics Between

Agency and Compliance

Peter Woelert1

Abstract

This article adds to the recent literature stressing performance measures’

reactivity by offering a conceptualization of the associated micropolitical

dynamics and their implications for performance measurement. Using

the example of individual actors’ “gaming” responses to the use of

research metrics within Australian universities for illustration, this article

argues that such responses reflect both passive self-imposition as well

as active subversion of performance measures. It is illustrated that this

implies that gaming reinforces metrics’ standing and sway over individual

and organizational efforts while, at the same time, undermining the

foundations from which performance measurement derives its legitimacy

in the first place.

Keywords

reactivity, performance indicators, evaluation, gaming, new public management,

research metrics

1The University of Melbourne, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Peter Woelert, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne,

Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia.

Email: pwoelert@unimelb.edu.au

1003841AAS0010.1177/00953997211003841Administration & SocietyWoelert

research-article2021

964 Administration & Society 53(6)

Introduction

Along with the spread of New Public Management (NPM) tenets and ideas

from the 1980s onward, many governments around the world have sought to

reform governance arrangements for publicly funded organizations, includ-

ing, for example, hospitals (Bevan & Hood, 2006; Ferlie et al., 1996), law

enforcement agencies (Bohte & Meier, 2000), and universities (Frølich,

2011; Hicks, 2012). Despite differences in country-specific adaptations of

NPM ideas, there has been a common push toward making some of the fund-

ing these organizations receive dependent on their performances as measured

by a range of output measures (Diefenbach, 2009; Frølich, 2011; Hicks,

2012; Verbeeten & Speklé, 2015).

It is well established in the sociological literature on organizations that the

demands and pressures associated with formal organizational structures and

management processes unavoidably stimulate complex informal responses

from the concerned actors (e.g., Crozier & Friedberg, 1980; Luhmann, 1999;

Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Performance measurement and management are no

exception to this, as an established body of literature has shown. A range of

more recent studies have drawn particular attention to the phenomenon of

performance measures’ reactivity. In this context, the concept of reactivity

emphasizes that performance measures do not merely reflect a given reality

but also change the behaviors of those whose activities are measured and

thus, ultimately, the reality that is to be measured (Espeland & Sauder, 2007;

see also Dahler-Larsen, 2014). Reactivity is at the heart of what could be

called a dialectics of performance measurement that manifests in the uneasy

co-existence of tenets of measures as static reflections and representations of

facts, on one hand, and as dynamic agents of change, on the other (see

Espeland & Sauder, 2007, p. 35).

Taking performance measures’ reactivity seriously is crucial as it facili-

tates reconsideration of the forms of agency implicit in the varied forms of

response of organizational and individual actors to performance measure-

ment, including in contexts where actors’ compliance with performance mea-

surement appears to be firmly entrenched. Building upon the sociological

analyses of Espeland and Sauder (2007, 2009), among others, this article,

then, explores manifestations of agency and compliance within one intrigu-

ing form of response to performance management: practices aimed at “gam-

ing” performance metrics. For the purpose of this article, gaming is defined

as a “reactive subversion” (Bevan & Hood, 2006, p. 521) of performance

measurement by organizational or individual actors, usually with the aim to

create an appearance of enhanced performance. The specific focus of this

article is the various micropolitical strategies individual actors employ when

trying to game performance metrics (see Burns, 1961).