Life in information age means dealing with vast amount of information, but the vast amount of data has not changed the basic questions such as what information should be used, how, and by whom? Use and non-use of performance information poses a complex problem for public sector actors. HYPER Researcher Tomi Rajala examines what reasons stimulate the use and non-use of public sector performance information in his newly-published disseration “Use and Non-use of Performance Information in the Public Sector: Scratching beneath the surface”.
Tomi publicly defended his dissertation in 11.12.2020 in Tampere. Due to Covid-19 situation, the defence was organised online via Zoom. Dissertation is available online in Trepo database. Tomi Rajalas work is based on pragmatic mixed-method interdiscplinary research approach. One of the central findings in the dissertation project was that actors justify their use or non-use of performance information through several individual and contextual factors. Dissertation presents four research articles and theoretical framework that seeks to explain previously ambigious reasons for (non)use of performance information related to individual factors (i.e., demographic attributes, mental models, and power) and contextual factors (i.e., social pressures, information provider, information channel, and features of information), scratching the surface towards deeper, less evident layers of reasons behind use and non-use of performance information.
The dissertation offers archive of reasons that practicitoners can use to understand and enhance performance information use. Enabling information use creates grounds for shared information pool. Present dissertation also opens up new points of departure for more nuanced future research on use and non-use of performance information.
Professor Wouter Van Dooren from University of Antwerp acted as the opponent while Professor Jarmo Vakkuri acted as custos.
Tomi Rajalas dissertation is available in Trepo database: https://trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024/123820
Follow Tomi Rajalas work in Research Gate