Constitutive Effects of Performance Indicator Systems

Abstract

Evaluation in general and performance indicator systems in particular play an increasing role in society. We do not have a long historical set of experiences which helps us understand what exactly happens when, say, performance data for schools are made public on the internet and in news, because the emerging rules of the game in what some observers call the “knowledge society” (Stehr, 1994, 2001) and “reflexive modernization” (Beck, 1997a, 1997b) have inaugurated new relations between evaluation and performance data on the one hand and political, organizational and practical realities on the other.

Citation

Dahler-Larsen, P. (2007), "Constitutive Effects of Performance Indicator Systems", Kushner, S. and Norris, N. (Ed.) Dilemmas of Engagement: Evaluation and the New Public Management (Advances in Program Evaluation, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 17-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-7863(07)10002-8