Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of performance measurement systems (PMS) on organizational performance in public sector. In addition, it investigates the moderating effects of the organizational context. Design/methodology/approach Using a multivariate analysis, the authors investigate the extent of PMS used among Portuguese Government agencies and their effects on organizational performance. Data were gathered from the only survey (based on their Comparative Public Organization Data Base for Research and Analysis survey) applied to the Portuguese Government agencies. Findings The authors find that the extent to which agencies use PMS is positively associated with the organizational performance (in a multidimensional perspective). Moreover, the organizational performance is contingent upon the fit between PMS and the agency’s context in light of the contingency theory (especially the orientation to citizens and the level of competition). Originality/value Although prior research has studied the use of PMS in public sector organizations, one question that has not been effectively answered is whether performance information is effectively used to improve public sector performance. In this way, this paper contributes to the understanding of the impact of PMS on the organizational performance, providing empirical evidence in a country that is in a period of “transition” in the introduction of NPM reforms.

In recent years, in Portugal, public demonstrations of movements such as 'Que se Lixe a Troika: Queremos as NossasVidas de Volta' and 'Geração a `Rasca' have led to police repression highly scrutinized by mass media. However, a specific understanding is still lacking as to how police officers and civil society are construing the repression of this kind of event and also as to how moral agency is thereof inhibited. To police officers (as 'power-holders') and to civil society in general, this analysis is equally important in understanding the cognitive patterns supporting the resort and appeal to police violence. Drawing upon a qualitative research design developed in Portugal during 2011 and 2013, this paper discusses the processes of moral disengagement in regard to the repression exercised during social demonstrations, considering both the accounts of common citizens (Group 1) and police officers (Group 2). Results and discussion are centered on the main processes of moral disengagement, namely moral justification (behavior locus), displacement of responsibility (agency locus), dehumanization, and blame attribution (recipient locus). If to a certain extent the moral values (e.g., protection, public order) are aligned in both groups to justify violence, their mobilizations seem to emerge in quite different ways when it comes to social protest. Displacement of authority is a usual mechanism among police officers, but it is to a great extent contested by common citizens. Dehumanization and blame attribution emerged also as a major mechanism of moral disengagement mainly among police officers' group. However, empathy may reconfigure the support of these mechanisms, specifically when it comes to social protest. Strengths and weaknesses of the power of 'empathy' toward agency activation are discussed. We conclude with research implications and prospects.

In this paper we examine consensual and coercive police-citizen relations in São Paulo, Brazil. According to procedural justice theory, legitimacy operates as part of a virtuous circle, whereby normatively appropriate police behavior encourages public self-regulation and pro-active cooperation, which then reduces the need for coercive forms of social control. Tests of the theory in the US, UK, Australia and elsewhere typically pit normative versus instrumental accounts of crime-control policy against one another. But can consensual and coercive police-citizen power relations be so easily disentangled in a city in which many people fear crime, where some people fear police but tolerate extreme police violence, and where the image of the police as “just another (violent) gang” seems still to have significant cultural currency? Our analysis of the composition, predictors and potential consequences of police legitimacy highlights points of similarity and difference in police-citizen relations in this high violence, high fear city of the Global South.

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This paper asks whether citizens judge public administration to be trustworthy using different criteria from other political institutions. Using survey data, we estimate ordered logistic and multivariate regressions to compare the determinants of trust in six different politicaladministrative institutions. Findings show that social trust, political interest, as well as other individual characteristics, have very similar effects on trust regardless of the institution. The evidence shows that people who are older and more educated, interested in politics, and employed in the public sector, are only slightly more likely to make some sort of distinction. Implications for non-discriminant judgement mechanisms are discussed.