John Philipp Siegel

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

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. In this paper, results of a comprehensive survey of academic journal articles dealing explicitly with theoretical or empirical aspects of performance are pre-sented. The paper focuses on how performance is being defined in the academic litera-ture, what the (most often used) elements of these definitions and the relations between them are, and on how these findings can be interpreted. First, definitions of perform-ance are being extracted from the texts and decomposed into their components. Then, the components are classified and counted before relations among components are ana-lysed. Third, we discuss some of the results and their implications for public manage-ment theory and empirical research. The study is based on a literature review and the analysis of more than 200 papers containing substantial definitions of performance. It could be observed that elements of the ‘output' and ‘outcome' categories are the most frequent while ‘throughput', ‘quality' 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' as well as between ‘efficiency' and ‘effectiveness' components; there is only one negative correlation between ‘quality' and ‘outcome'. A cluster analysis of the definitions in the sample produced seven different clusters, illustrating the multitude of approaches to defining performance. In several clusters some categories are not represented at all while in others elements of the same categories are present in all definitions. As a con-clusion, it is suggested that researchers should avoid using the term performance if is not in the core of their research interest, or to define exactly how the term and its com-ponents are understood, or to engage in the complexity of a broad performance con-cept. However, it seems obvious that the application of a unitary concept of perform-ance is out of reach - and might be inappropriate given the multi-dimensional charac-ter of the phenomenon.

The research objective of this paper is to explore the characteristics and circumstances that influence whether politicians, especially ministers, stand in for NPM reforms, and why they do it. The paper is based on a broader, ongoing research project at the University of St. Gallen. Reasoning and perspective of cantonal ministers in the German speaking part of Switzerland who have been "key players" in the reforms of their polity has been analysed by qualitative content analysis based on semi-structured interviews. The goal is to understand behaviour of politicians on the individual level. Since the research question has not been addressed so far by theory or research, an exploratory research design was chosen, e.g. the result of this papers are hypothesis for the explanation of behaviour of politicians derived from analysis of interviews. The paper will first give a short background information on NPM reform in Switzerland. After that, methodological issues are outlined. The following chapters address selected topics of engagement parameters of politicians. The paper concludes with an outlook on the future proceeding of the research project.