Performance management is maturing as an effective approach in public organizations around the world in improving public services.  However, the existing models, based primarily on best practices of first-world nations, have limitations that must be addressed.  One of which is the relative lack of attention to the context of performance management reform.
This international comparative case study analyses the experience of Italy and Malaysia in the design and execution of performance management systems at the national level. It seeks to contribute to the comparative literature on performance management across national jurisdictions.  Italy and Malaysia also offer a contrasting study given their differing stage of economic development and extent of statism.   Both these countries have a long history of reform to offer a good sample on the evolution performance management at the national level of administration.
The study will also investigate how performance management systems have changed, over the last few decades, the motivations behind their metamorphoses, their common elements across the two countries and what accounts for the respective progress in the execution of the two systems.  It will determine how strategic is performance management in these jurisdictions and what accounts for their strategic or tactical or ad hoc nature.
More specifically the study will inquire into the role that institutional framework (formal, budget process, law mandating performance management) plays in bolting these systems on to the fabric of public administration.  It will also determine the role of planning and control sub-systems in making the performance management systems robust. 
The study will present policy recommendations and strategies on how governments can create more robust performance management systems for enhanced accountability and transparency in an age of resource constraint.  These include the consideration of organizational setting (centralization or decentralization) for performance management, the development of financial and non-financial indicators, especially those that are outcomes-based, planning and control mechanisms, culture, the impact of performance management legislation, the role of administrative and political leadership, and the need for an informational infrastructure that supports performance management.
There are limitations to a comparative study given differing cultures and values of the public sector of the two countries.  So the intention is not to offer clear-cut conclusions.  Neither is it to identify objectively the ‘best’ model of performance management. Rather, this study seeks to ascertain commonalities in the design and execution of performance management systems to determine the critical success factors required to sustain performance management in the public sector.