Minja, D.M.Ogola, Humphrey Young2014-07-282014-07-282014-07-28http://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/10680Following the evolution of the public service over the past four decades, organization and management styles have had to change accordingly. Performance contracting has been used as part of the broader reforms aimed at improving efficiency and effectiveness in the management of the public sector organizations. In recent times, different governments have borrowed performance contracting ideology to improve performance of public sector institutions Kenya included. Several countries had earlier implemented performance contracts in their public institutions. Though found to have obtained varied results, most countries reported improved performance compared with period before contracts. Kenya borrowed the concept in 2003 to mitigate against poor public governance, wastage and misuse of public resources in the public institutions. There was need to examine the extent to which these contracts have enabled improved performance in Kenya. While performance measures were in wide use for many years, new frameworks have emerged in recent years that extend organizational perspectives beyond traditional performance measures. Among them the Balanced Scorecard is one of the most popular new frameworks. Balanced scorecard is a set of measures that consider both financial and non-financial perspectives in determining the overall performance of an institution. This study is dedicated to assessing the impact of performance contracts in Kenya Prisons Service using BSC. This will be achieved by implementing the following objectives; determining the extent of involvement of directors in the design of performance contracts, determining the extent to which performance has been influenced by performance contract, to establish the extent to which Performance contract has allowed autonomy in decision making and finally to establish challenges facing the implementation of performance contracting. This study is going to use both primary and secondary sources to gather information.enThesis