Introduction

Introduction The performance of public organizations around the globe is constantly under scrutiny by a variety of stakeholders including politicians, citizens, service users and government inspectors. In the UK, the Labour administration has placed public service improvement at the centre of its domestic agenda and recent events such as the major terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the US, the response of public agencies to Hurricane Katrina and the SARS outbreak in the Far East clearly demonstrate the pressure on public organizations to perform well. Knowledge of routes to higher levels of performance in public organizations is, therefore, of critical importance. However, there is only limited evidence on the determinants of performance in public organizations (Boyne 2003; O'Toole and Meier 1999). A range of important questions persist about the performance of public bodies. This edited volume seeks to contribute new knowledge on the issues of performance measurement and management in public organizations by focusing upon three questions: What approaches should be adopted to measure the performance of public agencies?. What aspects of management influence the performance of public agencies?. As the world globalizes, what are the key international issues in performance measurement and management?. In focusing upon these fundamental questions, the contributors to this book debate methodological and technical issues in the measurement of performance in public organizations and provide empirical analyses of the determinants of performance. The book also provides some important groundbreaking work by considering the international dimensions of these issues.