Behavioral Public Administration and the Implementation of Performance Contracting in Kenya’s Public Universities

Performance contracting (PC) was introduced in Kenya’s public sector in the early 2000s as part of a broader effort to enhance efficiency, accountability, and service delivery. Public universities, as critical institutions in the knowledge economy, have been required to adopt PC frameworks to align their operations with national development goals and to strengthen managerial accountability. Yet two decades into implementation, the effectiveness of performance contracting in universities remains contested. Evidence suggests that compliance has often been mechanical, with reporting geared more toward meeting bureaucratic requirements than achieving substantive institutional transformation.This paper applies the Behavioral Public Administration (BPA) framework to examine how cognitive biases, bounded rationality, incentives, and perceptions of legitimacy shape the implementation of PC in Kenya’s public universities. By problematizing PC as not merely a managerial or institutional reform but also a behavioral challenge, the study highlights how over-optimism bias, present bias, and status quo inertia among university managers influence outcomes. It further shows how performance targets are often framed in ways that privilege short-term visibility over long-term improvement, and how the erosion of trust between universities and oversight bodies undermines the credibility of the reform.The paper argues that embedding behavioral insights into the design and monitoring of PC could enhance compliance, legitimacy, and impact. Specifically, reframing targets, redesigning incentive structures, and fostering narrative legitimacy may help universities move beyond symbolic adoption toward genuine performance culture.