Performance Measurement in Human Service Organizations: How is it Used by Managerial Professionals?

Roger Pfiffner’s dissertation analyzes the implementation of performance measurement in human service organizations in term of performance information use. The dissertation carried out at the Centre of Competence for Public Management is supervised by Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz and supported by the Bern University of Applied Sciences.

Topic and Relevance

In recent years, human service organizations have made considerable efforts to develop performance measures. Encouraged by a rising pressure to improve performance and to ensure the quality of their services, most public and nonprofit providers of human services rely on some form of performance measurement today. Despite the many challenges to realize the full potential of performance measurement, only little research has been conducted on the implementation of performance measurement in organizations that provide human services directly to clients. This dissertation intends to provide a deeper understanding of implementing agencies and the behavioral responses of managers in professional organizations.

Research Question

The study particularly contributes answers to the following questions: For what purposes are performance information used in human service organizations? How is performance information use influenced by professional values and work settings? How does the organizational environment affect the managerial use of performance information?

Methodology

The explanatory study relies on a survey addressed to managers of public and nonprofit human service organizations in Switzerland. The nationwide sample includes providers of elderly care services, substance use services, mental health and disability services. This organizations have been chosen because they rely to a great extent on government grants and contracts. Furthermore, all organizations included in the sample are obligated to deploy a systematic management system to assure a continuous quality improvement.

Expected Findings and Results

Role conflict and information capacity are expected to be two important intervening variables. A basic hypothesis assumes that the experience of role conflict mediates the inverse relationship between the strength of professional values/standards and performance information use. Another hypothesis propose that stakeholder participation and popular feedback tools are positively associated with information capacity and performance information use. By testing these and more hypotheses, important conclusions about the factors that influence role conflict, information capacity and performance information use can be deduced. Indirectly, the analysis permits further corollaries about the impact of applied quality management systems on a continuous improvement of social services through performance measures.

This dissertation is beeing written by external PhD candidate Roger Pfiffner under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz.

https://edit.cms.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/center_generell/a_title_strat_forschung/k_kpm/content/e69701/e69703/e164829/e200100