Title: The Government Performance System Reform in Taiwan: Localized Focus and Citizen Participation+
Abstract: AbstractThe relations between local governments and citizens have grown increasingly closer in the past two decades. Several governmental performance reforms have taken place among developed countries that have mainly increased their local governance capacity by expanding citizen participation and deregulating the central government. However, in light of citizens' expectations and requirements, it is necessary for local governments to adopt performance management efforts to enhance their public services. From 25th December 2010, the new five municipalities in Taiwan have brought new challenges to local governance and also to their performance management. This study attempts to understand the current status of performance management in Taiwanese local governments. The study used a focus group, in-depth interviews, and a survey to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. Based on the results, it provides policy recommendations to improve citizens' participation in Taiwan's local governmental performance management efforts. They include providing incentives for encouraging people to participate in performance measurement and weigh civil participation while designing the performance management mechanism.Keywords: performance management, local government, citizen participation, performance information, competitivenessJEL classification: H11, H70, H73, H83(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)1. IntroductionIn response to globalization and new public policy issues, developed countries have embarked on deregulation and encouraged citizen participation to improve the capacity of governments. It is important for governments to comprehend the values of civil society in order to build a foundation for better governance. Thus, the modern government should not only focus on the public's demand by providing efficient and quality public services, but also enforce its decision-making and policyexecution abilities in order to integrate a with the private sector in terms of industry development, public security, quality of life, environmental protection, social welfare and etc. By improving its services, governments can develop a higher reputation among the public. Accordingly, performance management action and process is a useful tool for monitoring and evaluating effectiveness and results of government performance.The current performance management system of Taiwan government was implemented since 2002.1 For the implementation of good governance and promoting government competitiveness, ROC Executive Yuan has adopted transparency, accountability, public participation and effectiveness as four principles of establishment of governance performance management mechanism. Using the Government Performance Management network (GPMnet) to promote effective governance in the ministries level of government (Huang et al., 201 3: 3). In general, the issues of performance management in public sector among academics and practitioners in Taiwan has begun from the concept and system design, and then gradually transferred its focus to measurement process, indicators establishment and relevant implementation problems (Hu, 2011 : 1 0). However, compare the results of governmental performance measurement with how people feel them remain a tangible gap. As Goodsell (2006) argues, the ultimate aim of government policy is to establish and maintain public confidence to the government, that is, public trust. On account of local governance enhance direct impression of public to the government; Recently, ROC government has tried to extend citizens' participation in improving public governance, particularly on county/city level.2. Citizen Involves Performance Management in the Public SectorAs Osborne and Gaebler (1 992) argue in Reinventing Government, people cannot foresee success or failure if they do not evaluate performance of their actions. In general, the values of new public management (NPM) are deeply influenced by the private sector. …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-04-01
Language: en
Type: article
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