Sciences

This article assesses the past 15 years ’ evolution of Public Sector Benchmarking (PSB) research. We do so with a database of 147 peer-reviewed articles published between 1990 and 2005. Over this period PSB evolved into a mature and strongly international field of research. A theoretical and conceptual rift runs through the literature, with those advocating PSB as a tool for managed competition on one side, and those promoting benchmarking as a voluntary and collaborative learning process on the other. A first challenge facing future PSB researchers is that of clos-ing the gap between the managed and voluntary benchmarking perspectives; a second challenge concerns empirical tests that capture the effects of different benchmarking regimes on the performance of public sector providers. Points for practitioners Benchmarking is widely advocated as a tool for enhancing the performance of public sector providers. This article reviews the academic literature on benchmark-ing. This literature suggests that public sector benchmarking can fulfill its promise if only policy-makers pay sufficient attention to benchmarking design, particularly the development of appropriate accounting systems and the balancing of collab-orative and competitive elements. Dos and don’ts for PSB innovators are discussed in the concluding section. An extensive reference list is appended to the article