Semi-autonomous revenue authorities (ARAs) have been established all\ud
over the world as a distinctive institutional model outside the traditional public\ud
service aimed at enhancing tax administration, and thereby raising tax\ud
revenues. In order to boost the robustness of their operations, substantial\ud
expenditures have gone towards modernising ARAs. Expenditures have\ud
been guided by medium-term corporate-wide plans, and the results\ud
monitored, assessed and reported using performance measures.\ud
Performance measurement has proved challenging for ARAs to implement\ud
and sustain in practice. Some of the challenges evolve around weak\ud
capacity, implementation costs, issues to do with quantification, competing\ud
demands from a wide range of constituents, the inappropriate selection of\ud
measures and a bias towards performance measures that focus on finances.\ud
As a means for enhancing performance measurement, there are practices,\ud
lessons and theoretical perspectives that can be discerned from the broadspectrum\ud
of literature on performance measurement in the public sector and\ud
ARAs from around the world. This thesis explores how performance measurement in African ARAs can be\ud
more strategic, efficient and effective by ascertaining which key factors\ud
shape its adoption. The research focuses on the in depth study of three\ud
ARAs in Sub Saharan Africa, involving a combination of structured interviews\ud
with internal and external stakeholders, the administration of a survey\ud
instrument and review of ARA documents. The final chapters of the thesis\ud
deploy fuzzy set logic techniques to identify and test the significance of\ud
various causal conditions in the adoption of performance measurement in\ud
ARAs, as a plausible answer to the research question