The Role of Social Indicators in Developing a Managing for Results System

Abstract

Managing for in government is an old ideal. Peter Drucker (1974) and Joseph Wholey (1983) have long advocated results-oriented comprehensive planning, goal setting, and measurement systems. Drucker (1974) argued that government agencies should take steps to manage for performance and results by linking budget allocations directly to results. Wholey (1983) focused on using program performance data on agreed-on objectives to inform management decisions and provide accountability information. Following Drucker (1974) and Wholey (1983), the current managing for results movement in government intends to shift public sector management from a focus on inputs, process, and outputs to a focus on outcomes or results. Ideally, these improvements will alter policy making and policy management by facilitating the emergence of outcome-based accountability systems, systems-wide coordination and integration efforts, performance-based competitive service models, and public sector privatization and democratization schemes (Corbett, 1997, p. xix). The theory underlying managing for results is that the effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability of government will improve by having agencies focus their management practices on the results that programs are intended to achieve (Aristigueta, 1999). Specific benefits of managing for results are expected to include increased public satisfaction with government, improved quality of services, and reduced costs. Social indicators have a role to play in results-oriented systems, as they can be used to track trends in general measures of the population's health and well-being. However, much of the writing on managing for results focuses on the role of performance measurement rather than social indicators (e.g., U.S. General Accounting Office,