Journal Article

The Performance-Trust Link: Implications for Performance Measurement

Yang, Kaifeng, Holzer, Marc

2006

Overview

Although the link between government performance and citizen trust in government seems intuitive, the relationship is not supported in some of the literature. This article argues that the difficulty of empirically demonstrating this link is rooted in the difficulty of defining and measuring government performance meaningfully. Performance measurement can improve citizen trust in government directly through citizen participation in the evaluation process or indirectly by improving citizens' perceptions of government performance. To achieve this potential, current performance-measurement practice must be improved: to measure what citizens really care about, to be more systematic and integrated across agencies, to include other governing entities, and to become an ongoing participatory process in which governments and citizens are both transformed.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Inc,American Society for Public Administration
• Subject: 9130 / 9190 / 9550 / Citizen Participation / Communication / Communication Strategies / Correlation analysis / Definitions / Educational administration / Evaluation / Experimental/theoretical / Governance / Government / Government (Administrative Body) / Government bureaucracy / Government performance / Jurisdiction / Local government / Measurement / Measurement techniques / Organizational Performance / Perceptions / Performance evaluation / Performance metrics / Political systems / Politics / Public administration / Public management / Public opinion / Public sector / Studies / Trust / Trust (Psychology) / Trust in government / Unemployment / United States