Performance Measurement and Professional Decision making: A Resolvable Conflict?

Does performance measurement clash with professional decision-making? From a public management perspective, professional decision-making may imply a lack of accountability and self-interested behavior. Performance measurement offers a solution to those concerns. From the professions’ point of view, performance management hijacks the autonomy of street-level professionals and contributes to deskilling. We examine an example of such a clash in record keeping in a Danish family center, and we show why and over what professional staff disagree. Results point to the role of managers in securing improvements by changing the record-keeping system to enhance effective professional treatment. This can contribute to a shared rationality among social workers and allied professional staff.