Defining Performance in Public Management: Variations over time and space

Performance in the public sector is an ambiguous, multi-dimensional, and complex concept. It is also one of the most popular concepts in current public management the-ory and practice. Furthermore, it can be assumed that performance is also a dynamic concept that varies across geographical as well as scholarly ‘schools of thought'. Thus, what is defined as performance and its crucial elements changes and differs depending on time and space. Up to now, no comprehensive analysis of these variations has been conducted even though this is necessary to observe and understand variations in the definition of performance as a key concept of public management. As a consequence, this paper improves our understanding of the various definitions and conceptions of performance across time and (geographical as well as academic) space.
In this paper, results of a comprehensive survey of academic journal articles dealing explicitly with theoretical or empirical aspects of performance are presented. It focuses on answering the following research questions: How is performance being defined in the academic literature, what are the (most often used) components of these definitions and what are the relations between them? Are there any significant differences in the definitions and their components depending on time, on the geographical application of the concept, on the affiliation of the respective authors? How can the most important differences be explained? The study is based on a literature review and the analysis of more than 300 papers since 1988 containing substantial definitions of performance.
Results show that elements of the ‘output' and ‘outcome' categories are the most fre-quent while ‘ratios��� and especially ethical concerns (such as equity or fairness) only play an inferior role in the definitions. As far as bivariate relations are concerned, there are especially frequent relations between "output' and "outcome' components and especially strong relations between "efficiency' and "effectiveness' elements. Time and space both have got an influence of applied performance concepts. Time affects primarily the complexity of performance definitions, whereas space plays an important part in ex-plaining different focuses in performance definitions.
As a conclusion, it is suggested that researchers should avoid using the term perform-ance if it is not in the core of their research interest, or to define exactly how the term and its components are understood, or to engage in the complexity of a broad perform-ance concept. However, it seems obvious that the application of a unitary concept of performance is out of reach - and is inappropriate given the multi-dimensional charac-ter of the phenomenon