ABSTRACT
This chapter explains and demonstrates concepts that will enable the reader to develop new performance information. It discusses the place of performance management in an overall system that attempts to manage for results. The chapter focuses on caution against attributing a scientific level of precision where assessment is often an exercise of personal judgment. Performance management basically relies on measures, standards, rewards and sanctions to motivate organisations, and explicitly utilises tools such as competitive tendering and contracting. Incentives are a primary means for securing individual and organisational performance. In a classical economic model of a perfectly competitive market, performance is guaranteed by market forces to distribute resources in the most efficient manner like an ‘invisible hand’. Productivity is difficult to measure in any one workplace, let alone nationally. Nationally there is usually a large difference between productivity measured across the employed workforce and the entire workforce.
