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The purpose of this paper is to examine the features and impact of performance management reforms implemented in the bureaucracies of several Asian states.

The paper draws on government reports, reports of international bodies, and the data produced for various governance indicators, as well as scholarly analysis of performance management and new public management.

After the 1997 Asian financial crisis, many Asian countries, including developed and developing, have introduced a variety of performance management systems into their bureaucracies. This has been encouraged by international agencies as part of their “good governance” agendas. Despite this, the goal of achieving efficient and workable public administration has still not been realized in many cases. Anti‐corruption measures are not effective, and efficiency and service delivery in public organization has not significantly improved. However, political leaders must recognize that the building of rational legal bureaucracy in which patronage influence is reduced, creating networked governance, allowing engagement with civil society, and fostering high employee motivation, are the other prerequisites for achieving efficient and accountable government. Only then will performance management contribute to this aim.

The value of this paper is to show that within the context of Asian bureaucracies, performance management is not a panacea to guarantee improvements in public administration. Other requirements are necessary, as indicated above, especially the creation of rational legal bureaucracy.

The debate on taking ‘the profit out of crime’ in most countries has been linked to an increasing recognition of the threat to national and international stability represented by organised crime groups. These groups, in so far as their goal is financial gain, are businesses and are therefore often structurally and operationally able to take full advantage of services provided by other groups or on occasion work with such through an associated or integrated strategy. One of the most lethal organised crime groups in this respect are the Yakuza, or ‘Boryukudan’. The sum total of their criminal activity produces an annual yield of countless millions through various ‘activities’ including money laundering and corporate blackmail. The majority of these activities are carried out by centralised organisations capable of operating through a host of jurisdictions. It has become quite evident, particularly with respect to the last 15 years, that the Yakuza have been able to obtain a powerful ‘stranglehold’ over the economic sectors in several different countries. It will be the purpose of this paper, therefore, to analyse the severity of this impact with particular respect to the situation in the USA and Japan. With the advent of an ever diversifying global marketplace, the opportunities seem endless. And the ‘nightmare’ for law enforcement agencies has just begun.