Optimisation of performance management for housing services

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how performance management control should be optimised for housing management services, through two different organisational contexts in the social housing sector.

Design/methodology/approach
Case study methodology was used to examine the performance management control of one typical local authority in England where housing management services are run by a non‐profit‐making Arm's Length Management Organisation, and of another major housing organisation, the Hong Kong Housing Authority, where the services are contracted out to profit‐making consultants.

Findings
In a non‐profit‐making organisational context, housing management services should be measured by performance indicators related to the strategic objective of providing efficient and effective services. Benchmarking should be conducted to supplement performance control. In a profit‐making organisational context, market competition should also be introduced so that more tendering opportunities are given to the best performers to optimise the performance of service providers.

Research limitations/implications
The findings of this research are based on two cases representing the social housing sectors in England and Hong Kong. The research forms a conceptual baseline on which further research can be built to find out effective control to optimise the performance of property management services in many other housing and facilities management organisations.

Practical implications
Performance management of housing management services can be optimised by benchmarking and market competition.

Originality/value
This study contributes to performance management of housing management services by conducting empirical confirmatory testing of the validity of performance management theory.