Performance Management Uses, Outcome Measures and Mechanisms-Based Explanations. The Case of the Judicial Sector

This paper chapter analyses the different meanings of the concept of performance management utilisation, using empirical evidence from the Italian judiciary system. Managerial and evaluation literature on the ‘uses’ of performance information suggests that each use is sustained by specific causal mechanisms, i.e. strategies of actors that can explain – in specific contexts – the reasons for the success of the performance measurement. Empirical evidences for this view are derived from two case studies involving offices of the Italian judicial sector. The judicial sector has been selected because it is at the centre of an interesting debate over the value of the paradigm shift from output to outcome measures