Difficulties In And Countermeasures For Performance Management Of Public Sectors Of China

Since 1970s and 1980s, many western countries have carried out the extensive new public management campaign, adjusted and changed the internal and external management systems of the government a lot, which have improved the relation between government and society to a great degree and rebuilt the image of the government as"night watchman". The key reform measure taken by the government of each country is to introduce the industrial and commercial management instrument into public management. Among those extensive changes and reforms, the performance management that is favored in the industrial and commercial management has become a valid instrument that is well appraised by each country during the new public management campaign.The government performance management was carried out in China in the middle and late 1990s. Through the development in the past 20 years, some achievements have been obtained in the aspects of its form and content. However, such performance management is promoted quite slowly, which is obviously not consistent with the fast social and economic development of China. The reason is that as a government supervision mechanism, the public sector performance management plays an important role in the establishment of performance and service-oriented government.The performance management is an important part of managerialism plan. Many government sectors and authorities expect to establish the performance targets and follow these targets to improve their performance. However, on one hand the performance measurement has inherent difficulties; on the other than, comparing with the private sector, the public sector has its particularities. Therefore, it is hard to determine the target for the performance management of public sector, and moreover, the determined performance target is easy to be criticized. Those objective factors make it more difficult to realize the ideal performance management of public sector. Many existing public sector performance examinations try to detail the vague problems. But some benefits represented by the public sector cannot be expressed by quantity while the measurement method based on industrial and commercial management pays attentions to the subjects that can be expressed by quantity. The introduction of the whole performance examination method used in industrial and commercial management will distort some activities of public sector. This is a danger for public management. In this paper, the author tries to overcome this difficult through some measures.Since 1990s, the scholars of China have began to notice the theory and actual activities adopted by public sectors of western countries to improve their efficiency through performance management to, introduced a quantity of literatures to China, made a lot of researches on such management method and compared it with the situation of China. Meanwhile, the performance examination contents are tried in the public sector management. However, due to various reasons, the performance management of China has many shortcomings. For example, in the aspect of the system foundation, the public sector performance management system of China is imperfect; as to valuation orientation, the performance management of public sector of China has a deflected valuation orientation; for performance evaluation body, our evaluation body is too simple, and the role of citizens as key evaluation body is indefinite. In a word, the public sector performance management of China has various difficulties and shortcomings, needing our further efforts.The great effect of performance management in private sector brings hopes to the revolutionaries of public sector so they introduce the performance management to the public sector as good medicine and hope it can strengthen the gutless public sector. However, through reasonable analysis and primary try, it is found that this good medicine of private sector is hard for the public sector to use and even impossible to take. In this paper, the author tries to analyze the obstacles in the application of performance management in public sector, and put forward the measures that can eliminate these obstacles.This paper is divided to five parts. Part I concludes the research background, significance, frame and literature review; Part II analyzes the basis theories for public sector performance management, introduces the performance management and relevant basic theories; Part III analyzes the effects and application difficulties of performance management in public sector, explains its actual effect and function for public management, and details the actual application difficulties of public performance management; Party IV analyzes the current status and difficulties of performance management of public sectors of China, and details the special cases and application difficulties of performance management in China in the past 20 years; Party V puts forwards the measures for improving the performance management mechanism of China.