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This paper examines the Australian and New Zealand government’s wellbeing budget reforms.

The paper describes the development of wellbeing budgeting in Australia and New Zealand based on an analysis of official websites, documents and media sources.

Both governments have experienced challenges identifying measures representing different areas of wellbeing and recognising the connections between the measures applied. They have found it difficult to access reliable data. The development of wellbeing budgeting also raises questions about participation, data reporting, and presentation, which can impact its efficacy.

The paper outlines practical challenges governments face in creating and using wellbeing budgets. It proposes a future research agenda to deepen our understanding of these issues and their social and economic implications. The scope of the study is limited to publicly available documents.

This is one of the few studies investigating wellbeing budgeting, which has evolved as an important tool for public governance. Therefore, the study’s findings may draw substantial interest and attention from practitioners, researchers and government policymakers wanting to integrate these reforms into their governance machinery.

A large number of studies indicate that coercive forms of organizational control and performance management in health care services often backfire and initiate dysfunctional consequences. The purpose of this article is to discuss new approaches to performance management in health care services when the purpose is to support innovative changes in the delivery of services.

The article represents cross-boundary work as the theoretical and empirical material used to discuss and reconsider performance management comes from several relevant research disciplines, including systematic reviews of audit and feedback interventions in health care and extant theories of human motivation and organizational control.

An enabling approach to performance management in health care services can potentially contribute to innovative changes. Key design elements to operationalize such an approach are a formative and learning-oriented use of performance measures, an appeal to self- and social-approval mechanisms when providing feedback and support for local goals and action plans that fit specific conditions and challenges.

The article suggests how to operationalize an enabling approach to performance management in health care services. The framework is consistent with new governance and managerial approaches emerging in public sector organizations more generally, supporting a higher degree of professional autonomy and the use of nonfinancial incentives.

This paper undertakes a structured literature review to analyse the literature on performance management and measurement (PMM) in universities over the last four decades. Over that time, PMM has emerged as an influential force in universities that impacts their operations and redefines their identity.

A structured literature review approach was used to analyse a sample of articles on PMM research from a broad range of disciplines over four decades. This was undertaken to understand the impacts of PMM practices on universities, highlight changes over time and point to avenues for future research.

The analysis highlights the fact that research on PMM in universities has grown significantly over the 40 years studied. We provide an overview of published articles over four decades regarding content, themes, theories, methods and impacts. We provide an empirical basis for discussing past, present and future university PMM research. The future research avenues offer multiple provocations for scholars and policymakers, for instance, PMM implementation strategies and relationships with various government programs and external evaluation and the role of different actors, particularly academics, in shaping PMM systems.

Unlike a traditional literature review, the structured literature review method can develop insights into how the field has changed over time and highlight possible future research. The sample for this literature review differs from previous reviews in covering a broad range of disciplines, including accounting.

This paper aims to investigate how the technical logics of a World Bank-led performance management reform interacted with the social, political and historical logics within a developing country (DC) regulatory organisation. The institutional environment both within and outside the organisation was considered to understand the performance management reform experience.

An interview-based, longitudinal, qualitative case study approach was used to locate accounting in its technical, social and political space. A large regulatory organisation in Bangladesh was investigated as a case study to reveal how traditional organisational practices and public sector norms mediated a performance management reform. Informed by the institutional logics (IL) and economies of worth perspectives, interviews were used to locate IL at macro-level and associated organisational actors’ strategic responses that ultimately shaped the implementation of a performance management system (PMS).

This paper reveals how accounting, as a social and political practice, influences accountability reform within a regulatory organisation. It provides an account of both the processes and resultant practices of an accounting reform initiative. While a consultative and transparent performance management process was intended to enhance accountability, it challenged the traditional organisational authority structure and culture. The new PMS retained, modified and adjusted a number of its characteristics over time. These adjustments reflected an amalgamation of the influence of institutional pressures from powerful constituents and the ability of the local agents (managers) in negotiating and mediating the institutionalisation of a new PMS.

The findings of this paper carry major implications for policy makers, particularly with respect to the design of future reform programs on PMS.

This paper offers a theoretical mapping of IL and its organisation-level interpretations and practices. Thus, the authors locate power and influence at field and firm levels. The findings of this study reflect historical, political and cultural backgrounds of the case study organisation and how these contextual forces were active in shaping the meaning of reform logics. Though the institutional environment and agents were unique to the case study organisation, this research offers a “process generalisation” that reveals how a best practice PMS was translated and transformed by the traditional organisational practices in a DC regulatory context.

The cash flow from government agencies to contractors, called progress payment, is a critical step in public projects. The delays in progress payments significantly affect the project performance of contractors and lead to conflicts between two parties in the Turkish construction industry. Although some previous studies focused on the issues in internal cash flows (e.g. inflows and outflows) of construction companies, the context of cash flows from public agencies to contractors in public projects is still unclear. Therefore, the primary objective of this study is to develop and test diverse machine learning-based predictive models on the progress payment performance of Turkish public agencies and improve the predictive performance of these models with two different optimization algorithms (e.g. first-order and second-order). In addition, this study explored the attributes that make the most significant contribution to predicting the payment performance of Turkish public agencies.

In total, project information of 2,319 building projects tendered by the Turkish public agencies was collected. Six different machine learning algorithms were developed and two different optimization methods were applied to achieve the best machine learning (ML) model for Turkish public agencies' cash flow performance in this study. The current research tested the effectiveness of each optimization algorithm for each ML model developed. In addition, the effect size achieved in the ML models was evaluated and ranked for each attribute, so that it is possible to observe which attributes make significant contributions to predicting the cash flow performance of Turkish public agencies.

The results show that the attributes “inflation rate” (F5; 11.2%), “consumer price index” (F6; 10.55%) and “total project duration” (T1; 10.9%) are the most significant factors affecting the progress payment performance of government agencies. While decision tree (DT) shows the best performance among ML models before optimization process, the prediction performance of models support vector machine (SVM) and genetic algorithm (GA) has been significantly improved by Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno (BFGS)-based Quasi-Newton optimization algorithm by 14.3% and 18.65%, respectively, based on accuracy, AUROC (Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristics) and F1 values.

The most effective ML model can be used and integrated into proactive systems in real Turkish public construction projects, which provides management of cash flow issues from public agencies to contractors and reduces conflicts between two parties.

The development and comparison of various predictive ML models on the progress payment performance of Turkish public owners in construction projects will be the first empirical attempt in the body of knowledge. This study has been carried out by using a high number of project information with diverse 27 attributes, which distinguishes this study in the body of knowledge. For the optimization process, a new hyper parameter tuning strategy, the Bayesian technique, was adopted for two different optimization methods. Thus, it is available to find the best predictive model to be integrated into real proactive systems in forecasting the cash flow performance of Turkish public agencies in public works projects. This study will also make novel contributions to the body of knowledge in understanding the key parameters that have a negative impact on the payment progress of public agencies.

Though public sector organisations have continuously borrowed human resource management practices from the private sector, there seems to be sparse evidence on the effectiveness of financial rewards for public sector employees, especially in developing countries where pay remains low. Therefore, the objective of this research is to test the effectiveness of financial rewards on the job performance of those working in the Maldives civil service from the perspective of a developing country where public sector pay, especially civil pay, remains comparatively low. Additionally, this study tested the mediating effect of organisational commitment on the relationship between financial rewards and job performance.

A cross-sectional study was conducted using quantitative design methodology, whereby data were collected from 341 employees working in the Maldives civil service and analysed using structural equation modelling.

The findings indicate that financial rewards negatively affect civil service employees’ job performance. However, financial rewards improve organisational commitment, which reduces the negative effects, although the effect sizes of the mediator are not very significant.

The results of this study present critical theoretical and practical contributions to public administration researchers on using financial incentives as a mechanism to boost job performance, particularly in developing countries, where salaries and other benefits remain low. Furthermore, it presents practical recommendations for managing employees in the Maldives and other countries, where the public sector is less developed and budget constraints remain a challenge.

The process of performance measurement provides support to company management to achieve the objectives established in strategic planning. Through the definition of critical success factors and related key performance indicators, performance measurement verifies the gap between planned objectives and the results achieved, informing the responsible bodies to enable them to evaluate performance and, if necessary, implement improvement actions. Although many types of companies adopt performance measurement, this process is challenging when applied to national health services. This paper aims to identify the evolution of performance measurement and the critical success factors of national health services.

The authors conducted an explorative case study of a leading national health service to delineate the evolutionary path of performance measurement and the main critical success factors.

The results indicate a significant increase in the maturity of performance measurement of a national health service that has been motivated by international reforms and national regulations. This research highlights performance measurement features such as a balanced set of metrics, targets, and incentives linked to strategic objectives and regular and frequent performance reviews. Furthermore, it identifies the performance measurement model of a leading national health service.

The evolution of performance measurement and numerous critical success factors of national health services are described; the critical success factors cover a wide range of financial to operational aspects such as patient safety, organizational appropriateness, and clinical appropriateness.

The purpose of this multi-voiced paper is to propose a prosocial paradigm for the field of performance management and management control systems. This new paradigm suggests cultivating prosocial behaviour and prosocial groups in organizations to simultaneously achieve the objectives of economic performance and sustainability.

The authors share a common concern about the future of humanity and nature. They challenge the influential assumption of economic man from neoclassical economic theory and build on evolutionary science and the core design principles of prosocial groups to develop a prosocial paradigm.

Findings are based on the premise of the prosocial paradigm that self-interested behaviour may outperform prosocial behaviour within a group but that prosocial groups outperform groups dominated by self-interest. The authors explore various dimensions of performance management from the prosocial perspective in the private and public sectors.

The authors call for theoretical, conceptual and empirical research that explores the prosocial paradigm. They invite any approach, including positivist, interpretive and critical research, as well as those using qualitative, quantitative and interventionist methods.

This paper offers implications from the prosocial paradigm for practitioners, particularly for executives and managers, policymakers and educators.

Adoption of the prosocial paradigm in research and practice shapes what the authors call the prosocial market economy. This is an aspired cultural evolution that functions with market competition yet systematically strengthens prosociality as a cultural norm in organizations, markets and society at large.

In this paper, the authors examine the strategies used to reduce labour costs in three public hospitals in South Africa, which were effective and why. In the democratic era, after the revelations of large-scale corruption, the authors ask whether their case studies provide lessons for how public service institutions might re-make themselves, under circumstances of austerity.

A comparative qualitative case study approach, collecting data using a combination of interviews with managers, focus group discussions and interviews with shop stewards and staff was used.

Management in two hospitals relied on their financial power, divisions between unions and employees' loyalty. They lacked the insight to manage different actors, and their efforts to outsource services and draw on the Extended Public Works Program failed. They failed to support staff when working beyond their scope of practice, reducing employees' willingness to take on extra responsibilities. In the remaining hospital, while previous management had been removed due to protests by the unions, the new CEO provided stability and union–management relations were collaborative. Her legitimate power enabled unions and management to agree on appropriate cost cutting strategies.

Finding an appropriate balance between the new reality of reduced financial resources and the needs of staff and patients, requires competent unions and management, transparency and trust to develop legitimate power; managing in an authoritarian manner, without legitimate power, reduces organisational capacity. Ensuring a fair and orderly process to replace ineffective management is key, while South Africa grows cohorts of competent managers and builds managerial experience.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of the financial structure on innovation.

We utilize the matched firm-level data from two sources: the World Bank Enterprise Survey and the Innovation Follow-Up Survey. A total of 3,664 firms from 11 African countries are included.

The authors find a financially constrained and low technology-intensive firm that uses internal finance more than its peers is less likely to innovate. Our results also show that a firm that uses new equity and debt finance more than its peers is more likely to innovate. The results particularly suggest the significant effect of bank and trade credit finance on firms’ innovation. The extent and, in some cases, the direction of the effect of dependence on internal finance, new equity finance and debt finance on innovation vary due to the heterogeneity in firm size, age and ownership status. Corporate innovation is also associated with firm size, R&D, cooperation, staff training, public support, exportation and group membership.

The management of companies, particularly financially constrained firms, should reduce their dependence on internal finance, which negatively affects their innovation. As a remedy, they could improve their reliance on new equity finance and debt finance, especially bank finance and trade credit finance, which positively affect their innovativeness.

A pending policy task for African business leaders is to design and evaluate reforms that help create strong financial sectors willing to provide capital to a broad range of firms, particularly small and young firms.

This study adds new evidence to the recent surge of debate on the trade-off between going public, using debt or heavily using internal sources to finance innovative projects, and which of these is more important in promoting firm-level innovation.