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Characterization and definition of public performance: an application to local government authorities

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A review of the literature on performance management models in public organizations shows that authors’ visions of public performance are incomplete and do not adequately take into account important developments in the discipline. Having conducted a survey of French local government, we put forward a characterization and a definition of public performance. Our study model of public performance is validated in the French local-government context. Its confirmation substantiates our characterization and definition of public performance, enriching the prior literature by going beyond a partial vision of organizational performance to integrate the politico-environmental specificities of the public sector via the “public service” and “territorial” dimensions.
... The performance of the local government is assessed based on the input, output, and outcome of the services it provides to the community, where the input is related to the means mobilized by the local government, the output is characterized by adaptation to the quantity and quality of services provided by the local government to the community and the outcome is characterized primarily by efforts to achieve public interests, social justice, and regulation of economic activities (Maurel et al., 2014). Local government performance (LGP) measurement has various qualities, such as transparency and accountability, efficiency, effectivity, and program success (Bernstein, 2001). ...
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This review aims to present a systematic review of empirical research on transformational leadership (TL) and local government performance (LGP) to synthesize the fragmented knowledge and propose a unifying framework for future research. This research adopts a systematic literature review methodology. A total of 22 articles were reviewed after being filtered from 59 articles found through an exhaustive search of online databases: Scopus, Emerald Insight, Science Direct, JSTOR, Taylor and Francis, and Google Scholar. Inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed empirical studies published in English from 2012 to 2024. Exclusion criteria were articles that did not provide empirical results on the relationship between TL and LGP and were published older than 2012. A matrix table was developed to extract and organize information from the articles. The findings revealed three main vital themes. First, general organizational performance is the background most studied in the TL-LGP. Second, almost all studies use quantitative methods to analyze the data collected. Third, in general, the empirical results reported the influence of TL on LGP. A lot of background context still needs to be studied, and qualitative and mixed-method methods will be challenging for future research.
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Leading scholars in the field of governance examine the effectiveness of the different non-institutional strategies at the disposal of modern governments in tackling issues of urban decline, public administrations, governmental regionalization, budget deficits and global economics. The governance approach to political science yields a new perspective on the role of the state, domestically as well as in the international arena. Globalization, internationalization, and the growing influence of networks in domestic politics means that the notions of state strength and the role of the state in society must be re-examined.
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