NORMAN, Richard <br/><br/>
Managing through measurement or meaning? Lessons from experience with New Zealand's public sector performance management systems 

 -  dec. 2002                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
<br/><br/> Comprehensive adoption of system for managing for results as an alternative to procedure-based bureaurcracy has earned the New Zealand public sector a reputation as the `world's a most advanced performance system (Kettl, 2000:7) Research with a cross-section of users of this system, now nearly 15 years old, reveals a variety of responses. True Believers support a current focus on measurement and think that morew effort should be put into creating clearer, more observable measures that emphasise outcomes. Pragmatic Sceptics see reported measures as part of a new game of public management and at best a starting point for asking about the substance behind the form. Active Doubters believe that too much emphasis on measurement gets in the way of the `real work' of developing relationship-based work in a political environment. Issues of meaning are seen to be more important than measurement for the further development of the system