Performance shall not live by results alone: organizational subcultures and perceived performance in public administration

Navigating the introduction of performance management systems in administrative contexts which are characterized by a top-down reform emphasis can be a major challenge for public managers. This article provides important insights to both general and human resources (HR) managers, operating at the local level, who need to facilitate reform implementation. The authors highlight the crucial role played by organizational subcultures, emphasizing the need to balance artifacts that merely mimic a results-based culture, such as output-based measures and outcome-based metrics (coherent with an innovation-base culture), while fostering employee engagement rooted in a group culture. Moreover, the authors offer guidance to HR managers on sustaining the process of performance management system implementation through leadership development programmes and HR practices aimed at measuring and monitoring organizational subcultures. Based on a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis with 300 employees of a local public administration, the authors investigated whether and how different organizational subcultures relate to perceived levels of performance. Perceived performance was found to be associated with innovation and group subcultures, whereas no evidence of a significant relationship with results and rules subcultures was found. Following the assumptions of person-organization (P-O) fit theory, the mediational effect of employee engagement in such relationships was also tested.