LEARNING FROM FEEDBACK IN PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS

With the rise of organizational learning as a management construct, there is greater interest in the potential of performance measurement to function as a feedback mechanism for program improvement. To deepen our understanding of this process, I have conducted qualitative research in four employment services agencies. In the studied agencies, performance measurement generates learning by stimulating problem-solving episodes. Analysis of this process reveals four key phases: identifying, integrating, searching, and implementing. Each of these phases can provide opportunities to reflect on new information and thereby allow organization members to make a creative mental leap to a new theory of action. The proposed framework also differs from those in the organizational learning literature in its characterization of how the learning process unfolds and in its portrayal of interpretative processes.

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