THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN RETRACTED: STRENGTHENING THE LINK BETWEEN PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND DECISION MAKING

Retraction: The following article from Public Administration, ‘Strengthening the link between performance measurement and decision making’, by Jeannette Taylor, published online on 18 December 2009 in Wiley Online Library (www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) and in Volume 89:3, September 2011, pp. 860–878 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2009.01802.x), has been retracted by agreement between the author, the journal Editor in Chief, Arjen Boin, and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. The retraction has been agreed due to a production error, as a duplicate version of the article, entitled ‘Strengthening the link between performance measurement and decision making’ by the same author (DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2009.01788.x) was previously published in volume 87:4 of the same journal. The publishers apologise to the author and to our readers for this error. REFERENCE Taylor, J. (2011), Strengthening the Link Between Performance Measurement and Decision Making. Public Administration, 89: 860–878. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2009.01802 Many public agencies now face dual pressures to meet external accountability demands on one hand, and improve their internal performance on the other. This begs the question whether the demands that are made on public agencies to externally report on their performance have a limited or wide ranging impact on the utilization of performance indicators (PIs) for internal improvements. This article addresses this question via a small group of public agencies and public accountability authorities in Australia. It also examines the main factors that affect the use of PIs for decision making. The evidence suggests that the agencies use PIs more for meeting external reporting requirements than for achieving internal improvements. Various constraints on the use of PIs were identified, mainly technical problems, and to a lesser extent, political and organizational issues.

[1]  Robert F. Rich,et al.  Knowledge Creation, Diffusion, and Utilization , 1991 .

[2]  Kenneth J. Meier,et al.  Goal Displacement: Assessing the Motivation for Organizational Cheating , 2000 .

[3]  Jeannette Taylor,et al.  STRENGTHENING THE LINK BETWEEN PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND DECISION MAKING , 2009 .

[4]  Marc Holzer,et al.  Performance Measurement and Improvement: an Assessment of the State of the Art , 2004 .

[5]  Donald P. Moynihan,et al.  What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Performance? Dialogue Theory and Performance Budgeting , 2005 .

[6]  Leanna Stiefel,et al.  Better than Raw: A Guide to Measuring Organizational Performance with Adjusted Performance Measures , 2003 .

[7]  Carolyn J. Heinrich.  Outcomes–Based Performance Management in the Public Sector: Implications for Government Accountability and Effectiveness , 2002 .

[8]  M. Dirsmith,et al.  Coordination and Control in a Government Agency: Contingency and Institutional Theory Perspectives on GAO Audits , 1994 .

[9]  M. Covaleski,et al.  The management of legitimacy and politics in public sector administration , 1991 .

[10]  George Alexander Boyne,et al.  Performance Targets and Public Service Improvement , 2006 .

[11]  Jeanette Taylor.  THE IMPACT OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS ON THE WORK OF UNIVERSITY ACADEMICS: EVIDENCE FROM AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES , 2001 .

[12]  Jean-François Henri.  ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS , 2006 .

[13]  John W. Meyer,et al.  Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[14]  Geert Bouckaert,et al.  Measurement and Meaningful Management , 1993 .

[15]  Julia Melkers,et al.  Models of Performance‐Measurement Use in Local Governments: Understanding Budgeting, Communication, and Lasting Effects , 2005 .

[16]  T. Bovaird,et al.  Performance management and accountability in complex public programmes , 1995 .

[17]  Jeannette Taylor,et al.  Improving Performance Indicators in Higher Education: The academics' perspective , 2001 .

[18]  Robert D. Behn,et al.  Why Measure Performance? Different Purposes Require Different Measures , 2003 .

[19]  David Heald,et al.  Fiscal Transparency: Concepts, Measurement and UK Practice , 2003 .

[20]  Christopher D. Ittner,et al.  Implementing Performance Measurement Innovations: Evidence from Government , 2004 .

[21]  George Alexander Boyne,et al.  Plans, performance information and accountability: the case of Best Value , 2002 .

[22]  Jeannette Taylor.  The usefulness of key performance indicators to public accountability authorities in East Asia , 2007 .

[23]  Richard Norman.  Managing through Measurement or Meaning? Lessons from Experience with New Zealand’s Public Sector Performance Management Systems , 2002 .

[24]  William D. Coplin,et al.  The Professional Researcher as Change Agent in the Government-Performance Movement. , 2002 .

[25]  P. Julnes,et al.  Performance Measurement , 2006 .

[26]  J. Wholey,et al.  The Case for Performance Monitoring. , 1992 .

[27]  A. Ho.  Accounting for the Value of Performance Measurement from the Perspective of Midwestern Mayors , 2006 .

[28]  A. Halachmi.  Performance measurement: test the water before you dive in , 2005 .

[29]  Jarmo Vakkuri,et al.  Ambiguity in Performance Measurement: A Theoretical Approach to Organisational Uses of Performance Measurement , 2006 .

[30]  George Alexander Boyne,et al.  Problems of Rational Planning in Public Organizations , 2004 .

[31]  Gregory Streib,et al.  Elements of Strategic Planning and Management in Municipal Government: Status after Two Decades , 2005 .

[32]  Paul C. Nutt,et al.  Comparing Public and Private Sector Decision-Making Practices , 2006 .

[33]  George A. Boyne,et al.  Toward the Self-Evaluating Organization? An Empirical Test of the Wildavsky Model , 2004 .

[34]  W. Scott.  The Adolescence of Institutional Theory. , 1987 .

[35]  Evan M. Berman,et al.  Performance Measurement in U.S. Counties: Capacity for Reform , 2000 .

[36]  Christopher Pollitt,et al.  Performance Management in Practice: A Comparative Study of Executive Agencies , 2006 .

[37]  P. Julnes,et al.  Promoting the Utilization of Performance Measures in Public Organizations: An Empirical Study of Factors Affecting Adoption and Implementation , 2001 .

[38]  Theodore H. Poister,et al.  Performance Measurement in Municipal Government: Assessing the State of the Practice , 1999 .

[39]  Joseph S. Wholey.  Performance-Based Management: Responding to the Challenges , 1999 .

[40]  Stephen Martin,et al.  Multiple Public Service Performance Indicators: Toward an Integrated Statistical Approach , 2005 .