Use of performance information by local politicians: a field study in the Portuguese context

• Autor(a) principal: Gomes, Patrícia
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Fernandes, Maria José, Carvalho, João
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/11110/1489
• topic: Performance information; politicians; institutional theory; organizational responses; Portuguese context

This paper presents a qualitative study that aims to investigate whether and how local politicians use performance information to evaluate top managers’ performance. The main goal is to contribute to knowledge on performance management in the political sphere. Based on semi-structured interviews, findings show that the organizational climate determines the willingness to use information. There is an internal culture embedded in public agencies, like municipalities, that lead politicians to be more or less concerned about the use of performance information. In this paper we find that politicians have a greater orientation towards the ‘implicit’ and the ‘operations-conscious’ styles rather than to the ‘output-constrained’ and the ‘outcome-conscious’ styles. In general, politicians failed to implement a culture focused on the use of performance information. The institutional approach helps us to identify political responses to institutional pressures and understand the reasons for a reduced use in the Portuguese context.