(Dys)functionality of intentions or outcomes? Performance funding of Danish schools
通过访谈丹麦一所大型市立学校的教师、管理层和行政人员，研究绩效资助如何被感知，并分析对项目意图、学校行动和学生结果的（失）功能看法如何影响不同反应。
Purpose This paper studies how performance funding of education is perceived by principals, teachers and administrative staff and management. The dysfunctionality of performance measures often reflects how the measures prevent an organisation from achieving its goals. This paper proposes that perceptions of dysfunctionality can be analysed by separating the perceptions of the programme's intentions, of the school-level actions and of the outcomes for students. Design/methodology/approach Following a qualitative methodology, semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers, school management, staff specialists and top management in a large Danish municipality when outcome-based funding was introduced. Findings The performance-funding programme affected teaching by changing educational priorities. Different perceptions of the (dys)functionality of intentions, actions and outcomes fuelled diverging responses. Although the performance measure was generally considered incomplete, interviewees' perceptions of the financial incentivisation and the dysfunctionality of actions depended on interpretations of the incentivisation and student-related outcomes of the programme. Research limitations/implications Dysfunctionality can be contested; the interpretations of the intention of a performance-funding programme affect the perceived dysfunctionality of reactions. Both technical characteristics of funding schemes and administrators' and principals' mediating roles are essential for the consequences of performance funding. Originality/value The paper examines conditions for dysfunctionality of performance measures. We demonstrate that actions can be perceived as dysfunctional because of a measurement's intentions, actions themselves and the actions' outcomes. Further, the paper illustrates how the reception of performance funding depends on how consequences are enacted based on educators' interpretations of the (dys)functionality of intentions, actions and outcomes.