ABSTRACT
When decision-makers say they ‘don’t use’ performance information, what does this actually mean? Does it mean they generally do not sit down with a 200-page performance report and a cup of coffee? This is quite likely. Henry Mintzberg, when studying managers, showed that managers did not generally get their information from reading reports, but by talking to other people (Mintzberg 1975). Likewise, the conclusion of the (all in all, scarce) research on how politicians use performance information, appears to be that performance reports are neither read nor valued (Pollitt 2006; Ter Bogt 2004).
