Although the new public management (NPM)-inspired performance management reform has been embraced inrnEthiopian civil service since 2001, no attempt has been made by scholars and practitioners to empiricallyrninvestigate the institutionalization status of such an intervention and its relationship with the administrative culturernthat is presumed to shape and influence civil servants behavior within the civil service. In other words, those extantrnempirical studies on performance management reforms in Ethiopia have rarely made references to the nature ofrnadministrative culture and its relation with the institutionalization process of performance management reform.rnWhere there have been some references, they often based on no more than anecdotal evidence and as such do notrnprovide a systematic basis for assessing the real influence of administrative culture on the institutionalization of thernreform. This research was thus undertaken to look for empirical evidence of the nature of administrative culture andrnits relationship with the institutionalization status of the performance management reform in the Ethiopian civilrnservice with a particular focus on the state level civil service of the Amhara National Regional State (ANRS).rnIn so doing, the study has adopted a cultural approach to studying the administrative reforms and definingrnadministrative culture as values, beliefs, norms, and practices of civil servants; and principally a quantitativernmethodology that incorporates to some degree the qualitative approach was employed in investigating thernadministrative culture within the civil service in question. The institutionalization level of each aspect of thernperformance management reform, including the overall performance management reform, was also assessed andrnthe relationships between this reform institutionalization measures and the administrative cultural orientation ofrncivil servants were examined.rnThe analysis of the data revealed that performance management reform failed to take root within the civil service ofrnANRS partly because the administrative cultural orientations of the majority of civil servants appeared incompatiblernwith the reform requirements. The research particularly revealed that high power distance, strong uncertaintyrnavoidance, and collectivistic orientation were incompatible with the performance management reform which soughtrnto manage individual performance without considering the unequal distribution of power, collectivistic orientationrnand fear of innovation or new ways of doing things. The research has also demonstrated that the low performancernorientation culture and political patronage in the civil service were the other stumbling blocks to the performancernmanagement reform to take root in the civil service of the ANRS because they were opposed to meritocracy which isrnthe central element of the performance management reform.rnThe findings of this research support the thesis that administrative culture matters and sustained applicability of arnWestern-rooted performance management system cannot be taken for granted in a non-western context. It isrntherefore recommended that in order for the performance management reform to take root, the reformers shouldrnengage in the redesign of the reform to comply with the hard to change aspects of the prevailing administrativernculture within the civil service. At the same time, they should come up with a cultural change program with thernpurpose of weeding out obstructive elements of the administrative culture within the civil service in question