Tackling the Performance Regime Paradox: A Problem‐Solving Approach Engages Professional Goal‐Based Learning

• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Donald P. Moynihan,Martin Baekgaard,Mads Leth Jakobsen
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13142

Tackling the Performance Regime Paradox: A Problem-Solving Approach Engages Professional Goal-Based Learning 1001

Donald P. Moynihan

Georgetown University

Martin Baekgaard

Aarhus University

Mads Leth Jakobsen

Danish Center for Social Science Research

Tackling the Performance Regime Paradox: A Problem-

Solving Approach Engages Professional Goal-Based Learning

Abstract: Public performance regimes are bedeviled by a paradox: they must engage the specialized knowledge of

professionals who often perceive those very regimes as a threat to their autonomy. The authors use a mixed-method

analysis of performance management in Danish hospitals, with separate data for managers and frontline professionals,

to offer two insights into this challenge. First, the study shows that managerial behavior—in the form of performance

information use—matters to the way frontline professionals engage in goal-based learning. Second, it shows that

the way managers use performance data matters. When managers use data in ways that reinforce the perception of

performance management as an externally imposed tool of control, professionals withdraw effort. However, when

managers use data in ways that solve organizational problems, professionals engage in goal-based learning. The threat

to professional values that performance regimes pose can therefore be mitigated by managers using data in ways that

complements those values.

Evidence for Practice

• To make performance regimes work, public managers must engage professional employees whose expertise

provides insight into the causes behind organizational performance, as well as the levers to improve results.

• This study of Danish hospitals shows that frontline hospital professionals are more engaged in goal-based

learning if their managers use performance data for problem-solving.

• Professionals are less likely to engage in goal-based learning when their managers use data for reward and

control.

• Professionals are wary of the threats of performance regimes even as political leaders want to make those

regimes work: a compromise path for both groups is to commit to aligning performance regimes with

professional values.

Performance management reforms are

ubiquitous, fueled by a desire to improve

the efficiency and competitiveness of the

public sector (Im and Hartley 2019). However,

their potential is bedeviled by a paradox: in order to

succeed for complex public services, performance

regimes must engage professional employees whose

specialized knowledge gives them insights into the

causes behind the performance numbers, as well as

what should be done to improve them. And those

professionals—teachers, doctors, nurses, social

workers, and even academics—view such reforms

warily, worried about how the quantification of work

will undercut their goals, autonomy, and status.

A tool that the worker leaves in the toolbox offers

little value. Performance management systems have

struggled to engage public service professionals

(Jakobsen et al. 2018). Practitioner assessments of

performance improvement have come to similar

conclusions (Moynihan and Beazley 2016; National

Academy of Public Administration 2018). Professional

resistance to performance management may explain

its limited success (Gerrish 2016) and why it appears

to work better in conditions in which employees view

it more positively (Destler 2017; Kroll 2015a).

This article examines a broad conceptual question:

is it possible to engage professionals in performance

regimes? More specifically, we first ask if managers’

use of performance data affects whether their

frontline employees engage in goal-based learning.

Second, we ask how managerial uses of performance

data are associated with professional goal-based

learning. These questions are important for both

public management practice and scholarship. For

practice, they are central to the potential for widely

adopted public management reforms to improve

performance. For scholarship, it points to the need

to bring professionals back into the discourse of

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 80, Iss. 6, pp. 1001–1010. © 2019 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13142.

Mads Leth Jakobsen is head of

research and analysis at the Danish Center

for Social Science Research, Aarhus,

Denmark. His research covers subjects

such as red tape, innovative behavior,

organizational learning, leadership, and

performance management. He is currently

working on a project examining how

national governance regimes can spur

innovative behavior in local government. For

more information, see https://www.vive.dk/

da/medarbejdere/mads-leth-jakobsen-1712.

Email: malj@vive.dk

Martin Baekgaard is professor in the

Department of Political Science, Aarhus

University, Denmark. His research focuses

on citizen-state interactions, including

citizens’ experiences of administrative

burden and coproduction, why burdens are

constructed, performance management, and

political-administrative relations.

Email: martinb@ps.au.dk

Donald Moynihan is McCourt Chair

in the McCourt School of Public Policy at

Georgetown University. He studies the

performance of public organizations and

how individuals experience the state.

Email: donald.moynihan@georgetown.edu

Research

Symposium:

Advancing

Government

Quality through

Capacity and

Competitiveness