The existing body of literature on performance management has primarily focused on the attributes and determinants of public performance, mainly overlooking the reverse flow from current performance data to subsequent citizen perception, managerial decisions, and performance improvement. This gap has been slightly narrowed post-2010, with an emergent scholarly interest in performance feedback research. In the growing body of research, there remains a critical need for a more detailed examination of three key areas, which constitute three objectives of this research.

Firstly, existing empirical studies in the field have not consistently demonstrated the relationship between performance feedback and subsequent outcomes. There is a pressing need to disentangle the complex effects of performance feedback, clarify the direction and significance of various relationships, and identify moderating variables. This foundational work is essential for charting future research directions and defining key research questions in the field of performance feedback, which constitutes the first research objective of this paper. Secondly, research on performance feedback has predominantly focused on its impact at the meso- and micro-levels, largely overlooking its role at the macro-level. However, the influence of performance feedback at the macro-level should not be ignored, as its intensity and reach are greater, and its mechanisms may differ from those at the meso- and micro-levels. Investigating the macro-level mechanisms of performance feedback is the second research objective of this paper. Finally, the process by which managers make decisions based on performance feedback is not a single-objective framework. Nevertheless, nearly all studies have idealized it as such, resulting in findings that significantly diverge from reality and offer limited practical value for public policy. Therefore, the third research objective of this paper is to explore the role of performance feedback within a dual-goal system.

To achieve these three research objectives, three specific research questions were formulated and addressed. (1) What relationships do the current studies reveal between performance feedback and managerial responses? To answer the first question, this dissertation uses meta-analysis to analyze 31 studies and 104 effect sizes of performance feedback research. It reveals that performance information that falls short of aspirations can positively affect future performance. Moreover, meta-regression analysis shows that performance feedback has a more pronounced effect on perceptual assessments of performance than management decisions and subsequent performance. Feedback from higher-level organizations is shown to have a greater influence on managerial responses than feedback from peers, citizens, or self-assessments. These results clarify the mixed results of previous studies and suggest directions for future research on performance feedback.

(2) How do governments respond to performance feedback on the macro level? To answer the second question, the dissertation employs a global perspective by analyzing a cross-national panel dataset of the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business reports, covering 190 countries from 2007 to 2020. The findings indicate a polarization effect, where high-performing nations see reinforced performance while lower-performing countries experience exacerbated outcomes. This insight into the feedback-reform mechanism of how national governments react to performance rankings offers a novel understanding of the impact of benchmarking compared to that of micro and meso-levels.

(3) How do governments respond to performance feedback under the dual-goal perspective? To answer the third question, this dissertation utilizes GDP and air quality data to examine 168 cities from January 2014 to December 2019, by adopting a dual-goal perspective on economic development and environmental protection. The empirical analysis reveals an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic performance feedback and environmental data manipulation, highlighting a delicate balance between economic growth and environmental data accuracy. This introduces the concept of goal conflict into performance feedback research, broadening the scope to include the complex decision-making and strategic behaviors of governments managing conflicting objectives.

Overall, this research enriches the literature on performance feedback in public organizations by leveraging diverse datasets and extending the existing framework to include macro-level responses and the challenges of goal conflict. It contributes to understanding performance feedback mechanisms by clarifying the mixed results of previous studies and suggesting directions for future research. Additionally, it enhances the theoretical framework of performance feedback by explaining how national governments respond to such feedback, highlighting the different response logics at the micro and meso levels. It also reveals the nuanced strategies governments employ in the context of conflicting goals, broadening the horizon of performance feedback research to incorporate a dual-goal perspective.