Between overload and keen eye for detail –performance information use...

While public administration research has paid considerable attention to decision-makers’ use of performance information (see Moynihan and Pandey, 2010; Van Dooren et al., 2015; Kroll, 2015) and scholars have investigated a variety of performance information use contexts, use types, as well as enabling and inhibiting factors (e.g. Kroll, 2015; Raudla and Savi, 2015; Van Dooren et al., 2015; Grossi et al., 2016), the vast majority of research has focused on public managers.

Politicians – although often considered as the main addressees of performance information – have moved to the center of empirical studies only gradually (Askim, 2007; Brun & Siegel; 2006; Giacomini et. al. 2016, Liguori et al., 2012; Grossi et al., 2016; van Helden, 2016) with only a few scholars investigating politicians’ use of performance information in the specific context of budgeting processes.

This study investigates the use of performance information by political decision-makers in the budetary process at the federal level in Austria. Using a multi-method approach, we trace out the importance of performance information in the budgetary process, the users, the use level, use type and context, as well as the role of important intermediaries.