Ambiguous social goals cannot benchmark whether frontline practice is succeeding

Evidence

Goal ambiguity, intrinsic to street-level bureaucracies, affects performance measurement. Such goals as developing a well-educated citizenry or securing public safety are ephemeral. But putting these general goals into operation is a practical matter, since we evaluate achievement in terms of goals. As we have seen, there is no agreement in society about objectives of public education and public safety forces. How then to operationalize ambiguous objectives? — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 388

Categorization

• QUESTION: Directly relevant to the reader’s speed-differential claim: if goals cannot be operationalized, then changes in cultural narrative have no measurable target against which to track stereotype routinization.
• XREF: connects to: Ambiguous societal goals make street-level performance measurement nearly arbitrary — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 388

Broader Connections

• Ambiguous societal goals make street-level performance measurement nearly arbitrary #corroborates (0.95) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 388