Suchergebnisse

Evidence suggests that citizens evaluate government performance differently when equivalent performance information is presented with either a positive or negative framing-but do experienced public managers also suffer from this framing effect? To address this question, we conducted an experiment with 191 public service professionals in the U.S. in which we experimentally varied the framing of performance information about customer satisfaction, job satisfaction and goal achievement for various federal government agencies. Our findings show that public service professionals-just like ordinary citizens-are susceptible to framing effects. Specifically, they tend to evaluate federal agency performance more negatively when percentages of "job dissatisfaction" and "targets not met" were presented, as opposed to logically equivalent percentages of "job satisfaction" and "targets met." The pattern is the same for "customer dissatisfaction" versus "customer satisfaction" rates, although the results are not statistically significant. These findings provide a deeper understanding about the use of government performance information, as well as how such information is comprehended and perhaps misunderstood by decision makers. ; Center for Research in Inclusive Education (PIA-Conicyt) CIE 160009

Police departments in the United States and Canada employ a variety of social equity indicators as measures of performance. In this exploratory study, the results of a survey of police chiefs are used to examine the potential factors that predict the self-reported use of social equity indicators. The findings show that very few cities publicly report crime or other police performance measures by race, ethnicity, gender, or age, although many do report neighborhood statistics. Citizen participation in departmental decisions, intensive use of information technology, and national context appear to be the strongest predictors. Suggestions for future research are offered that stress the importance of the need for a balanced mix of performance measures that include social equity. Adapted from the source document.

A revolution in the measurement and reporting of government performance through the use of published metrics, rankings and reports has swept the globe at all levels of government. Performance metrics now inform important decisions by politicians, public managers and citizens. However, this performance movement has neglected a second revolution in behavioral science that has revealed cognitive limitations and biases in people's identification, perception, understanding and use of information. This Element introduces a new approach - behavioral public performance - that connects these two revolutions. Drawing especially on evidence from experiments, this approach examines the influence of characteristics of numbers, subtle framing of information, choice of benchmarks or comparisons, human motivation and information sources. These factors combine with the characteristics of information users and the political context to shape perceptions, judgment and decisions. Behavioral public performance suggests lessons to improve design and use of performance metrics in public management and democratic accountability.

Using data from two telephone surveys of New York City residents conducted during 2000 and 2001, this article employs the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) model to examine the drivers—and behavioral consequences—of overall satisfaction with local government services. While the ACSI model has been widely used to analyze customer satisfaction in the private sector and, more recently, in the federal government, it has not been tried in a local government context. Applying the ACSI model to New York City, we find the perceived quality of public schools and especially the police, as well as road conditions and subway service, are the most salient drivers of satisfaction, but the significance of each service varies across income, race, and geography. For all groups in the city, overall satisfaction drives both trust in local government officials and intentions to move out of the city. Advantages and limitations of using the ACSI model to assess the quality of local government services are discussed.