The Instrumentation of Public Governance Tensions (PGT): The Example of Simplifications of Performance Indicators in the French University System
After 7-8 years of implementation of the results-based management in French universities, it is possible to identify some discrepancies between the official purpose of the performance measures and actual practices. The framework of the “theory of appropriation” identifies three values of appropriation of management tools. By studying the joints between these values, our research objective to describe the dynamic forms of appropriation of public management tools. Our first results show, in French universities, around these values of appropriation, simplifications of the performance indicators responding to tensions of public governance and describing at least three dynamic levels of appropriation of these tools.