State Experiences in the Application of Performance Management in the Context of Differences between Administrative Cultures

Vasfiye Celik

DOI: 10.15604/ejss.2017.05.01.003

Abstract

As a result of welfare state policies in the 20th century, public institutions grew, diversified, and the field of public administration expanded considerably in terms of public services. This has brought about cumbersome, resource waste, paperwork and similar problems in public administration. But especially after the economic crisis of the 1970s, the debate about public administration’s fundamental change and transformation has been intensified. These debates, which also constitute the foundations of the New Public Management, led to a re-questioning of the public administration and a radical transformation. Changing systems have foreseen a state that provides faster and more efficient services and the state has to adopt a structural transformation that limits its activities to provide efficient services instead of operating in every field. In this transformation process, it is being argued that the private sector and the public sector are not different from each other and that the techniques successfully applied in the private sector can also be implemented by the public administration. In this context, the most important tool that comes out to provide effective and efficient service in public administration is performance concept and performance management process. But management tradition and culture have a great influence in the implementation and success of this technique. Anglo-Saxon state tradition, which attaches importance to organizational understanding and practice, is more inclined to adapt modern management techniques to public administration; Continental Europe state tradition seems to be more distant from these techniques by giving more importance to theory and public institutions.

Keywords: New Public Management, Performance Management, State Traditions