Purpose: The purpose of this study was to developand validate an instrument for measuring and assessingperceived performance management practices in Institutionsof Higher Education in Uganda. These practices are based onmetaphors derived from the agency, upper echelon, resourcebased view, dynamic capability and goal setting theories.Design/methodology/approach:Item development was aresult of an intensive literature review, reliability assessment,exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. A survey thatinvolved a sample of 447 respondents in four Institutions ofHigher Education in Uganda was conducted. Findings:Results show that the items are related to individualmember’s perceived performance management practices thatwere based on appropriate employer-employee relationships,locus of decision making, identifying and utilising availableresources and involving employees in goal setting to achieveperformance in an ever changing environment. Using theconfirmatory factor analysis (CFA)/ structuralequationmodelling (SEM), moderate model fit indices and constructvalidity results plausibly yielded a model that fits the data.Goodness-of-fit index (GFI= .961), comparative fit index (CFI= .977) and normed-fit- index (NFI = .944) and Tucker LewisIndex (TLI = .969) were above suggested threshold values>.90 and RMSEA = .039 was obtained. Research limitations/implications: The data used is a singlesample from a studied population even when a systematicprocedure of instrument development (i.e. descriptivestatistics, reliability and inter-correlation analysis, exploratoryand confirmatory factor analysis) was conducted could limitgeneralisability of the results. The procedure could bereplicated using different samples in the same population.Originality/value:Scores at the individual level could be usedto promote performance management practices in Institutionsof Higher Education in Uganda.