Consequences of goal ambiguity in public organizations

Assertions that goal ambiguity in public organizations has a major influence on those organizations abound in the public management literature (for a review, see Rainey 1993). For instance, the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 assumes that the reduction of goal ambiguity will improve organizational performance in US federal agencies. Strategic planning initiatives in many other nations have similar implications (Boyne and Walker 2004). New Public Management reforms and reforms in other nations have often sought to create more market- and business-like arrangements for government organizations, often involving efforts to clarify and specify goals and performance objectives (e.g., Barzelay 2001; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000). However, one finds little empirical evidence of the impact of goal ambiguity on organizational performance and other important organizational characteristics such as structural dimensions, behaviours, and work attitudes. Severe conceptual and methodological challenges in investigating organizational goal ambiguity appear to account for this scarcity of evidence. Previous studies of goal ambiguity have usually relied on managers' responses to survey questions about whether their organizations have vague or clear goals (e.g., Rainey et al. 1995). Such surveys have found no differences between public and private managers in their ratings of the clarity of their organizations' goals. For public management experts, these results come as a surprise since they do not support the frequently repeated assertion that public organizations have less goal clarity than business firms.