Summary:

Performance measurement in public management is a contested issue. Performance indicators (PIs) have diverse functions for different stakeholders over the life-cycle of a public policy, and the search for better PIs is an ongoing effort. However, instead of seeing the running down, proliferation and strategic use of performance information as dysfunctional, these effects are probably the unavoidable outcomes of functional and effective performance measurement systems in open societies and competitive democracies. PIs may effectively create 'creative destruction' of the present political or managerial status quo. Thus, PIs in political competition may be as important as prices in market competition.