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

“學習”作為提升公共響應性、外部問責及績效改善的關鍵因素已被注意到。但學習角色在組織系統中的層級分佈差異會否帶來不同的效果呢？透過台北市兩個前線服務系統及它們績效管理機制之比較研究，本文作者辨識出兩種學習模式：政策性學習及工具性學習，並主張如果由政策制定或上級機關進行政策性學習的話，這會強化對下屬執行機關的垂直問責，但會犧牲外部問責，由此刺激工具性學習。另一方面，如果由績效評估驅動政策性學習，且由執行機關進行這學習的話，那麼就能強化外部問責，但不會對垂直問責造成任何負面影響。

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.