Karen J. Baehler – författare

The government performance movement has been in full swing for decades around the world. So, why do so many public programs and organizations continue to underperform? A major reason is that measuring the types of performance that people value most -- real outcomes for citizens -- continues to be an elusive goal. And why is performance measurement so difficult? Because performance managers have not taken full advantage of the tools and knowledge available in the field of program evaluation; the worlds of performance measurement and program evaluation have much to learn from each other, but they remain largely separate for reasons of history, politics, and inertia.Improving Public Services spotlights recent advances in the theory and practice of performance measurement with potential to bridge the divide. As the text's essays, case studies, and comparative analyses demonstrate, many of the challenges to outcome-based performance measurement are similar across national and cultural boundaries. And many of these challenges are amenable to solutions drawn from program evaluation, especially program theory as captured in logic models. Key issues addressed include designing and implementing high-performance contracts, using administrative data to measure performance and evaluate program effectiveness, minimizing the unintended consequences of performance-based incentive schemes, measuring qualities of governance as well as service delivery, and fitting performance systems to different institutional settings. The authors offer insights relevant to charitable organizations, private service providers, international bodies, municipalities, states, and national governments in developed, developing, and transitional countries. As the global debate over performance management rages on, this volume points to promising directions for future research and practice at the intersection of program evaluation and outcome-based public management.

The government performance movement has been in full swing for decades around the world. So, why do so many public programs and organizations continue to underperform? A major reason is that measuring the types of performance that people value most -- real outcomes for citizens -- continues to be an elusive goal. And why is performance measurement so difficult? Because performance managers have not taken full advantage of the tools and knowledge available in the field of program evaluation; the worlds of performance measurement and program evaluation have much to learn from each other, but they remain largely separate for reasons of history, politics, and inertia.Improving Public Services spotlights recent advances in the theory and practice of performance measurement with potential to bridge the divide. As the text''s essays, case studies, and comparative analyses demonstrate, many of the challenges to outcome-based performance measurement are similar across national and cultural boundaries. And many of these challenges are amenable to solutions drawn from program evaluation, especially program theory as captured in logic models.Key issues addressed include designing and implementing high-performance contracts, using administrative data to measure performance and evaluate program effectiveness, minimizing the unintended consequences of performance-based incentive schemes, measuring qualities of governance as well as service delivery, and fitting performance systems to different institutional settings. The authors offer insights relevant to charitable organizations, private service providers, international bodies, municipalities, states, and national governments in developed, developing, and transitional countries. As the global debate over performance management rages on, this volume points to promising directions for future research and practice at the intersection of program evaluation and outcome-based public management.

Current knowledge about the public social welfare sphere is vast, but fragmented. Boundaries defined by geography, language, and culture hinder knowledge exchange globally. In addition, there are not enough opportunities for explorers of the field''s two conceptual hemispheressocial policy and social administration-to share insights across disciplinary boundaries.The Oxford Handbook of Governance and Management for Social Policy seeks to overcome these obstacles by applying multiple administrative lenses to diverse social policy issues from around the globe. Authors were carefully chosen by editors based in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Canada and the United States, Europe, and Latin America to detail the challenges facing their regions'' social welfare spheres and the ways in which social systems have responded.Each main section of the handbook profiles the state of interdisciplinary knowledge in a geographic region during the decades spanning the turn of the millennium. Sub-sections of the handbook are organized thematically to enable inter-regional comparisons and spark insights across socio-cultural and academic boundaries. The result is a map of the intersection of social policy, governance studies, and public management on the eve of the COVID-19 global pandemic on all six of our planet''s continuously inhabited continents.Starting in 2020, the pandemic and related crises forced adaptations to social welfare systems in every part of the world, with implications that may not be understood for generations. Future researchers will describe and measure such changes relative to benchmarks set in the pre-pandemic period, including the rich variety of practices and paradigms collected in this handbook.