Results-oriented Budget Practice in oecd countries odi working Papers 209

Value for money 
A general term embracing economy, efficiency and 
effectiveness 
UK National Audit 
Office, 2001a 

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Term Definition 
Source 
Value for money 
Value for money in procurement comes from focusing 
on the optimum combination of whole life customer 
quality, rather than initial purchase price. 
UK Office of 
Government Commerce 
(2002)

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Annex 2: Methodological considerations 
Kristensen et al note the problem that the terms outcomes and outputs (amongst others) do not 
translate well into many languages. Hence many OECD countries use the term results. 
Questions of organisational culture are likely to be underplayed because authors of the work 
reviewed tended to be hard-edged economists and accountants rather than writers from an 
organisational culture perspective. One of the few to discuss this is Schick who summarises 
the approach taken to cultural transformation in New Zealand: 
“First, it has brought in new leadership with a clear and strong mandate to overhaul 
operations. Second, it has shocked government departments with an avalanche of change, 
not just isolated innovations, but a critical mass of new procedures that can break old habits.
Finally, many departments have been rearranged or broken into pieces, so that the old 
organisation is no longer recognizable in the new (Schick, 1996). 
The types of papers considered in the review can be categorised as follows: 
•
Country papers by officials; 
•
Summaries of sets of country papers by officials; 
•
Evaluations commissioned e.g. by legislatures; 
•
Academic papers based on desk research; 
•
Academic papers based on primary research. 
A question arises here about how theories can inform reformers perception of the world. For 
example, Molander et al argue that the architects of the New Zealand reforms were schooled in a 
dogmatic version of principal agent theory which led to them to see civil servants exploiting 
information asymmetries to undermine ministers (Molander et al, 2002).