Back to the Future? Performance-Related Pay, Empirical Research, and the Perils of Persistence

One of the by-products of the New Public Management has been the resurgence of interest in performance-related pay. The authors' goal is to identify what they know about public sector performance-related pay based on cumulative empirical research and to cull lessons for practice and theory buil...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Public administration review 2009-01, Vol.69 (1), p.39-51
Main Authors: Perry, James L., Engbers, Trent A., Jun, So Yun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Civil Service
Defense contracts
Departments
Developed Nations
Empirical research
Employee motivation
Employees
Evidence
Failure
Financial incentives
Government (Administrative Body)
Government performance
Government services
Human Capital
Human resources
Incentive plans
Job performance
Labour productivity
Literature Reviews
Management
Management Systems
Merit Pay
National security
Organizational analysis
Pay for performance
Performance evaluation
Performance management
Personnel management
Public administration
Public management
Public Sector
Reforms
Studies
Success
Theory to Practice
U.S.A
Wage determination
Wages
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Summary:One of the by-products of the New Public Management has been the resurgence of interest in performance-related pay. The authors' goal is to identify what they know about public sector performance-related pay based on cumulative empirical research and to cull lessons for practice and theory building from the analysis. The authors' analysis confirms past inferences about the limited efficacy of contingent pay in the public sector. The reasons for the persistent failure of performance-related pay are more likely its incompatibility with public institutional rules, proponents' inability or unwillingness to adapt it to these values, and its incompatibility with more powerful motivations that lead many people to pursue public service in the first place. Because the failure of performance pay plans is often attributed to poor implementation, research should be designed to study performance pay plans that are not poorly implemented.
ISSN:0033-3352
1540-6210
DOI:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.01939_2.x