Verified Document

Factors Influencing The Use Of Performance Information For Decision Making Essay

Related Topics:

Performance measurement is an increasingly important process in today's organisations. This is true for not only business or private sector organisations, but also public sector organisations. Against the backdrop of budgetary constraints and the need for guaranteeing the effectiveness of public programs, performance data is crucial for decision making in the public sector. From the health and education sectors to criminal justice agencies, government agencies and organisations are ever keener on outputs and outcomes. Performance measurement frameworks such as benchmarking and the balanced score card are now utilised to inform decision making. For instance, performance measurement enables the government to evaluate the effectiveness of a given policy or initiative. Based on the findings, decisions can then be made to expand or discontinue the initiative.

Given the unique characteristics of the public sector, it is imperative to understand the factors that drive the use of performance information in decision making. In her research, Taylor (n.d.) seeks to answer this fundamental question. She postulates a number of hypotheses. First, she hypothesizes that "the quality of an agency's performance measurement system is significantly related to its official's use of performance information for decision making." In other words, whether or not public sector organisations use performance information in decision making is dependent on the strength of the performance measurement system. How is the performance data useful and relevant to the organisation? How realistic are the performance targets? How frequently...

In my view, it would be quite unrealistic to expect an organisation to use performance information in decision making if the performance measurement system is not rigorous enough in terms of relevance, practicability, and frequency.
The second hypothesis is that "rational and hierarchical organisational cultures in an agency are significantly related to its official's use of performance information for decision making more than group and developmental cultures" (Taylor, n.d.). Simply, whether or not an organisation uses performance information in decision making is a factor of the underlying organisational culture. The influence of organisational culture on organisational behaviour cannot be overemphasised. Organisational culture dictates how things in an organisation are done, including performance measurement. Therefore, an organisation that views performance measurement as part of its norms is more likely to use performance information in decision making than one that does not. For Taylor (n.d.), cultures that emphasise internal efficiency, productivity, and performance are more likely to use performance information in decision making compared to cultures preoccupied with employees, flexibility, and employees.

Taylor (n.d.) further hypothesizes that "stakeholder support for an agency's performance measurement system is significantly related to its officials' use of performance information for decision making." Any organisation is surrounded by various key stakeholders -- ranging from employees to…

Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Behavioral Finance Human Interaction a Study of the Decision-Making...
Words: 22258 Length: 81 Document Type: Term Paper

Behavioral Finance and Human Interaction a Study of the Decision-Making Processes Impacting Financial Markets Understanding the Stock Market Contrasting Financial Theories Flaws of the Efficient Market Hypothesis Financial Bubbles and Chaos The stock market's dominant theory, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has been greatly criticized recently for its failure to account for human errors, heuristic bias, use of misinformation, psychological tendencies, in determining future expected performance and obtainable profits. Existing evidence indicates that past confidence in the

The Dilemma of Decision Making in Humans
Words: 1563 Length: 5 Document Type: Research Paper

Decisions We humans make a whole lot of important decisions daily. While some are very unconscious biological decisions, most are decisions arising from conscious efforts. All human activities center on decision-making. This makes all of us decision-makers. As a matter of fact, every sound decision choice begins with a successive, focused, strategic-thinking process. Self-incurred tutelage still holds a whole lot of people bound. Tutelage simply implies that the person involved

Performance Appraisal
Words: 9200 Length: 30 Document Type: Term Paper

Performance Appraisal Causes of Performance Appraisal Steps Leading to Performance Appraisal Performance Appraisal Data Analysis and Interpretation This research paper aims to conduct a study regarding the effectiveness of performance appraisals and the issues accompanying performance appraisals. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL Performance appraisal" is a term used for evaluating performance of employees in an organization. The purpose behind performance appraisal is firstly, to rate an employee's performance on the job. Secondly, these appraisals are conducted to determine whether employees

Israel's Decision-Making Strategies
Words: 4127 Length: 10 Document Type: Research Paper

Decision Making Strategies Within any organization or process, there is the cognitive and purposeful role of decision making that is the result of taking in stimuli, choosing from alternatives, and making a final choice of an action, in action, or choice of action. This is true in the small business world, multinational corporations, individual life, and even with governments. It impacts Foreign Policy, trade, economics, and most certainly the idea of

Psychological Barriers to Effective Decision-Making
Words: 1226 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

The recency effect: most manager at times have an overreliance on the most readily available information to make decisions, it commonly occurs when carrying out annual performance evaluations of employees where recent performance of the employees plays a major role than accomplishments that have taken place in the earlier periods of review, this has an adverse effect has it may lead to the deviation of the set desired goals. (John

Conflict, Decision-Making and Organizational Design
Words: 1467 Length: 5 Document Type: Term Paper

Firstly, fact-based decision-making can be challenging. This is mainly evident when it comes to choosing the facts to be followed and the ones to be dismissed. Note that, data to be used in decision-making should be relevant and logical, and determination of this is quite difficult. Secondly, evidence-based management does not adequately address the value of judgement and intuition. This is mainly in situations of high uncertainty and risk

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now