Critical success factors in the implementation of performance management systems in UAE government organisations

Abstract

The UAE government’s vision is to provide excellent services to UAE citizens and residents. Accordingly, its strategy stresses the need to increase the efficiency of governmental bodies and upgrade their level of service based on customer needs. In order to do this, the government plans to develop, build and implement appropriate PMSs and attain a better understanding of the critical success factors (CSFs) for their effective implementation, in order to optimise resources and efficiency. Owing to the lack of literature on performance management in the UAE, the literature relating to developing countries is here used as a proxy. The literature review produced a list of the common CSFs that may have a major impact on PMS implementation success. The present study attempts to deal with the various challenges identified in the literature and to make a contribution in a number of areas. This study undertook research on government organisations in UAE, with a view to identifying the most important CSFs that support the successful implementation of PMSs. The remit of the research was narrowed to an attempt to understand the causes of PMS failure and to avoid possible obstacles in implementing PMSs. However, the study was not limited to the identification of such CSFs, but also examined their relevance and criticality. Qualitative research took the form of case studies, involving interviews, observations and document reviews. This study makes several contributions to the literature on CSFs that influence successful PMS implementation in the government sector, principally in UAE and other developing countries, by identifying which CSFs should be considered in pursuit of successful PMS implementation and evaluating the impact of CSFs and the complex relationship between them and the implementation of PMSs. This study further presents a theoretical model for CSFs for successful implementation of PMS. The findings and recommendations could serve as guidelines for practitioners in the field of PMS and are expected to help government and public organisations fully benefit from the implementation of PMS.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Tahir M. Nisar: orcid.org/0000-0003-2240-5327

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