Learning as a key to citizen-centred performance improvement: A comparison between the health service centre and the household registration office in Taipei City

Abstract

The function of 'learning' as a key to enhancing public responsiveness, outwards accountability and performance improvement has been well identified. But is there any variation in impact if different learning roles are played by people at different levels in organisational hierarchies? Through a comparative study of two frontline service systems and their performance management mechanism in Taipei City of Taiwan, the author identifies two kinds of learning: policy learning and instrumental learning, and argues that if policy learning is taken by a policymaking/supervisory agency, it will strengthen upwards accountability of its subordinate executive agencies at the expense of outwards accountability, and will stimulate their instrumental learning for target-based performance measurement, on the other hand, if policy learning spurred by their own performance evaluation is taken by executive agencies, it will strengthen their outwards accountability without any negative impact on upwards accountability. © 2012 The Author. Australian Journal of Public Administration © 2012 National Council of the Institute of Public Administration Australia.