An emphasis on effective governance and accountability has lead scholars and managers to explore tools and instruments to improve organizational performance. Performance management is one such tool, which is touted to help performance improvement by measuring performance indicators and using performance results to make management decisions. While performance management systems have proven to be a persistent reality of public organizations, their implementation, use, and effectiveness remains rather elusive. The purpose of this panel is to explore the different ways performance management systems have been adopted, the extent of their use in the public sector, and finally, whether they help in improving organizational performance. The panel will accomplish this by presenting papers that address the progress of performance management systems and explore their implementation in various contexts. Specifically, papers include an evaluation of performance based grants management systems used by a federal agency, whether organizations that reform performance systems over time see better outcomes, examination of the effect of performance feedback and job autonomy on federal government employees' attitudes, and a comparative study on performance management systems in Italy and Malaysia. Robert Behn (Harvard University) will give a 15 minute talk on the future of performance management, and where the young scholars should look for further research.