Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of boxes
- Notes on contributors
- Foreword
- 1 Introduction: knowledge and performance – theory and practice
- 2 Knowledge from inspection: external oversight and information to improve performance
- 3 How is information used to improve performance in the public sector? Exploring the dynamics of performance information
- 4 Citizens, users or consumers: the voice of the public and its influence on improving performance
- 5 Competition and choice: the place of markets in connecting information and performance improvement
- 6 The role of corporate governance and boards in organisational performance
- 7 Change at the top: connecting political and managerial transitions with performance
- 8 The role of leadership in knowledge creation and transfer for organisational learning and improvement
- 9 Process Improvement and Lean Thinking: using knowledge and information to improve performance
- 10 Using evidence: how social research could be better used to improve public service performance
- 11 Absorptive capacity: how organisations assimilate and apply knowledge to improve performance
- 12 Knowing through doing: unleashing latent dynamic capabilities in the public sector
- 13 Conclusions: a puzzle, three pieces, many theories and a problem
- Index
- References
13 - Conclusions: a puzzle, three pieces, many theories and a problem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
By
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of boxes
- Notes on contributors
- Foreword
- 1 Introduction: knowledge and performance – theory and practice
- 2 Knowledge from inspection: external oversight and information to improve performance
- 3 How is information used to improve performance in the public sector? Exploring the dynamics of performance information
- 4 Citizens, users or consumers: the voice of the public and its influence on improving performance
- 5 Competition and choice: the place of markets in connecting information and performance improvement
- 6 The role of corporate governance and boards in organisational performance
- 7 Change at the top: connecting political and managerial transitions with performance
- 8 The role of leadership in knowledge creation and transfer for organisational learning and improvement
- 9 Process Improvement and Lean Thinking: using knowledge and information to improve performance
- 10 Using evidence: how social research could be better used to improve public service performance
- 11 Absorptive capacity: how organisations assimilate and apply knowledge to improve performance
- 12 Knowing through doing: unleashing latent dynamic capabilities in the public sector
- 13 Conclusions: a puzzle, three pieces, many theories and a problem
- Index
- References
Summary
All a Dan grade means to me is that I am even more acutely aware of how much I don't know. I hate the term ‘expert’. My late father described an expert as ‘an ex is a has been, and a spurt is a drip under pressure’. Wise man!!
Jim Ashby, aikidoka, CaliforniaIn most Japanese martial arts after several years of diligent study and practice you may be awarded a dan grade, or black belt as it is popularly known. Many in the West think this means you are an expert, but what it actually means is that you are now a proper student, a learner, a seeker after true knowledge of your chosen art. In that spirit this concluding chapter is more of a statement of what we don't know than what we do, and an outline of some ideas about how we might become proper dan grade students of performance in the public sector.
The editors of this volume, who were kind enough to ask me to write this chapter, set out in the Introduction that this book is not an attempt at ‘grand theorising’ of performance in public sector activities, but rather tackles a particular, knowledge-focused perspective on performance. Perhaps they are correct in their implied assumption that such grand theorising is either premature or downright impossible, and that progress is better made by tackling less ambitious goals.
However, it seems to me that issues of ‘grand theorising’ are unavoidable if we are going to take our work seriously.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Connecting Knowledge and Performance in Public ServicesFrom Knowing to Doing, pp. 276 - 289Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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