Applying System Dynamics Modeling to Foster a Cause-and-Effect Perspective in Dealing with Behavioral Distortions associated to City’s Performance Measurement Programs

This paper aims to show how applying the system dynamics methodology to performance management can provide public sector organizations a powerful modeling perspective to prevent, detect and counteract behavioral distortions associated to performance measurement. A dynamic performance management approach is able to support performance management system designers to outline and implement a consistent set of measures that can allow public sector decision makers to pursue sustainable organizational learning and development. This perspective implies a major shift from a static to a dynamic picture of organizational processes and results. This means framing delays between causes and effects, feedback loops, and trade-offs in time and space associated with alternative scenarios. It also means understanding how different policy levers impact the accumulation and depletion of strategic resources over time, and determining how performance drivers affect end-results. An application of this perspective is outlined, in relation to crime control policies at Municipal level. Concerning this, unintended behavioral consequences generated by the implementation of the Compstat program (at the New York Police Department) on reward and performance management systems are framed through the ‘lenses’ of dynamic performance management.