This book examines in detail the process of change in 240 city, county and state public bureaucracies responsible for local finance administration.

Performance measurement remains a vexing problem for business firms and other kinds of organizations. The "balanced scorecard," widely touted as a solution to problems of performance measurement and strategic planning, has no strong basis in theory. Moreover, implementation of the "balanced scorecard" may create many more problems than it solves. This text returns to the fundamentals by asking what is the performance of the firm, can this performance be measured, and what are reasonable second-best measures if the first-best measures we would like to have are not available.

This book examines in detail the process of change in 240 city, county and state public bureaucracies responsible for local finance administration. Using the longitudinal method of analysis, the data show organizational structures to be much less stable than conventional stereotypes have suggested. Variables such as organizational leadership, claims to domain, and survival (as opposed to replacement or reorganization) were found to mediate environmental effects on bureaucracies. The book also discusses traditional theories of bureaucracy, theories emphasizing the importance of environment for...

Performance measurement remains a vexing problem for business firms and other kinds of organizations. The "balanced scorecard," widely touted as a solution to problems of performance measurement and strategic planning, has no strong basis in theory. Moreover, implementation of the "balanced scorecard" may create many more problems than it solves. This text returns to the fundamentals by asking what is the performance of the firm, can this performance be measured, and what are reasonable second-best measures if the first-best measures we would like to have are not available.

This book discusses the question: are social structures products of human action, expressions of individual or group power?