Author: Ma Liang

Abstract: Third-party evaluation has been more and more widely used in the fields of project evaluation, performance evaluation and policy evaluation, but whether third-party evaluation can effectively improve government performance and in what ways and under what circumstances, these issues have not been systematically studied. By constructing an integrated theoretical framework and proposing some intermediary variables such as performance feedback, performance accountability, organizational learning and organizational innovation, this paper explains the mechanism of third-party evaluation affecting government performance. The purpose, participation, support and use of evaluation are regarded as independent and moderating variables to influence the effectiveness of third-party evaluation, and the conditions under which it can improve government performance are explained. In the future, empirical research can take the performance evaluation of fiscal expenditure, the evaluation of targeted poverty alleviation projects and the evaluation of economic policies of governments at all levels as research objects, and investigate the influence process and dependent conditions of third-party evaluation on government performance.

Key words: government performance evaluation; Third party evaluation; Performance accountability; Organizational learning; Management innovation;