Performance Measurement Systems and Organizational Effectiveness - Research Paper Example

CONSULTANCY REPORT PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS AND ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS Executive summary Performance measurement has always been viewed as an insignificant factor in most of the organizational settings. Most organizations never stop to think it is through the performance of the individual workforce of the organization that the organization is able to realize all the achievements that it has. In the current business operational environments there is a great interest in performance measurement models with most companies trying to find out on effective models. This is with the sole objective of trying to bridge the gap that exists between performance and organizational effectiveness. Performance measurement is extremely important including its role in the determination of various organizational performances. Typically with a different set of employees, the arrival at the best possible performance measurement model for any given form of organization is quite a hell of a task. This is the main essence of this form of report, after an assessment of the various models used by various organizations in Swansea. The study goes to an extent to evaluate how each of the models brings out the aspect of organizational effectiveness. The document will report on a research project conducted by our group on organizations, how they employ performance measurement in their organizations and the effectiveness of the models used in such organizations. In particular, from 50 interviews in 5 organizations including 3 case studies, the research identified: Performance measurement implementation in organizations as quite unsuccessful is necessitating the need for the reviews of the various performance measurement techniques, the system design as applied in the comparison of the various approaches towards an improvement of the same. Introduction Performance measurements in organizations and government departments in the practical and theoretical approaches has been a subject of concern in the recent years. This is coupled by several relevant departments in these organizations trying the much they can to contribute to the modern knowledge for the sake of conjoining the varied departments of the organization to perform (Thomson, 2007: 217). These fields include those of organization there, production management and strategic performance analysis. The setback as indicated by such studies has been the fact that the studies have never been conducted jointly hence disparate findings have been reported in the past. Right from the development of organizational theory, the subject that has been vastly discussed is that of organizational effectiveness with most of the research findings reported so far revolving around the same topic (Whittington and Molloy, 2005: 67). Several researchers have had an agreement on the subject with a lot of significant disagreement still reported among the researchers themselves. This performance measurement systems and organizational effectiveness faces a lot of controversy with most of the researchers in the field failing to agree on the definition of such concepts as well as their operationalization. As a fresh field in the field of academia, performance measurement concepts or models have to rely on this shaky field of limited organizational effectiveness. The major aim of this paper is to provide a report on the findings of the appropriate performance measurement models that are applicable in ensuring organizational effectiveness is achieved in the desired manner. This will involve a reconciliation of the two complementary streams of research derived from the two schools of thought as to an extent an analysis of the resulting convergences and divergences will thus follow. Although the scope of this analysis tends to be narrow in its coverage I have integrated a lot of literature in my literature review. This integrates the performance measurement techniques that have been used in the past and the evolution of these models at each of the stages (Vitale, and Mavrinac, 1995:47). I have my focus on the performance management techniques and their impact on the organizational performance and effectiveness. In trying to find their relevance towards the organization’s effectiveness, I have tried to integrate the impacts that the various models would have on the attitudes and the manner in which the employees will handle their tasks. This approach as devised; looks at performance management models and techniques at the organizational levels as opposed to integrating performance evaluation and the impact of agency theory on the subject. This paper will be streamlined to align its coverage on specific developments that have been realized primarily with the aim of providing for the importance of the alternative approaches and not to reduce the scope of the study. It is important to note that the coverage of performance measures is not limited to only specific investigations of performance models but also on organizational performance to an extent. Particular attention will be paid to the various performance measurement models and the evolution of the same. This will also involve how the measurement model impact on the human capital (Venkatraman, and Ramanujam, 1996: 805). And then further find out how such evaluations have resulted into improved organizational performance and effectiveness. The central idea is though performance measurement as the central concept and the literature will share in those involving organizational effectiveness. With the concept of Management Control Systems (MCS) brought on board, the study of performance measurement is likely to be quite interesting as this is one of the subsystems of performance measurement models. The rest of the paper will entail coverage of the methodology employed to come to the findings which will later be explained. The central methodology in this case will entail the use of qualitative data given the nature of the subject which is subjective. The findings and recommendations will be based on the fact that the implementation of performance measurement models has never been that successful (Tushman, and E. Romanelli, 2005:183). The paper will therefore bring forth recommendations which will have the likelihood of influencing the success or point out the factors that have contributed to failure. The literature review part of the paper will begin by defining some of the aspects applicable under performance measurement given that the field is rapidly evolving. The paper will then look at a bit of the background of performance measurement and the main frameworks employed in performance measurement (Simons, 2000:56). After these a definition of the major management procedures for designing and implementing performance measurement systems will be mentioned. This will update the knowledge on the current models in use today. Implementation of the identified techniques will then be looked at. Literature Review Definitions The understanding of performance measurement from definition will take the scope of the concept as employed in literature. Broadly, performance measurement is a way in which effectiveness and efficiency of an action can be quantified (Simons, 2005:234). This brings us to the concept that performance measurement models and organization effectiveness are like two brothers born at the same time so that immediately they are born each of them took their own path (Eccles, 1998:132). A measure or a model of measuring performance can be given the definition of a metric that is employed to give an efficiency and effectiveness in terms of a quantified value (Schneiderman, 1999:11). A performance measurement system is therefore a given number of metrics that are used to measure the effectiveness of an organization alongside its efficiency in terms of how it runs its operations. The definitions are though not a precise of what is yet to be seen in the literature review given the brevity portrayed in such definitions. The measure of performance as seen in literature and their applications in the organizations which the research has been conducted gives multi-dimensional components of the required performance measures (Fitzgerald and Moon, 1996:145). This is so because the measures that are to be seen and discussed incorporate both financial and non-financial measures. In addition, the measures as will be seen incorporate both internal and external measures of the organizational performance. The measures of those aspects that have been achieved as well as those for future predictions are therefore seen to apply in most of the circumstances (Rucci, Kirn, and Quinn, 1998:82). On its own performance measurement and evaluation is not possible, this is because such measurements are only doable under a given set of frameworks. This is because it is within such frameworks that efficiency and effectiveness parameters can be judged in quantified terms. A set back that has been seen in the past is the employment of wrong parameters in measuring performance of a given organization (Norton, 1997:128). This has even gone as far as using wrong parameter on a wrong variable. A strategic approach is therefore applicable in most of the cases today when it comes to measuring performance of both human and capital resources in the organization. As opposed to asset resources, the human resources are living things and this makes it irrelevant using the same approach to measure these performances (Fry and Cox, 2009:55). It is as well important to note that performance measurements always have an impact on the environment in which it operates. The commencement of measuring such performances, the decision on the parameters to involve in the measurement exercise, the mode used to conduct the measurement and the expectations are all a matter that involve both the individuals in an organization as well as the various groups (Neely, 1999:210). The measurement may be a success but a challenge comes in again during a review of such measurements given they had been based on given targets and parameters. Therefore, based on the challenges that are likely to be experienced as outlined above, it is paramount that we base performance measurement on strategic issues such as planning and the control system of the organization (Ghalayini, Noble and Crowe, 1997:210-17). This is because the path currently taken by performance measurement is that which also involves the external stakeholders of the organization and how the internal performance of the organization affects the third parties that the organization deals with (Neely, Mills, Gregory and Platts, 1995:90). This is categorized under the quantification of the efficiency and the effectiveness of an action with regards to customer and client satisfaction. This is apart from using the models to determine the internal affairs of the company such as the satisfaction of the organizations employees. Therefore, as will be observed in this paper, performance measurement and models will be given the approach of the multidimensional concept, McCunn, (1998:34) for the broader goal of planning and management of the organizations that are surveyed. The development of performance measurement This concept has its roots in the early accounting and management system where accurate data of both internal operations and external matters were kept to aid in the decision makings concerning the direction or path that an organization was destined to take in its operations (Gardiner, 2005:56). Later on industrial revolution ensured that new needs for measures came up and this only meant that new measures had to be brought on board (Mia and Clarke, 1999: 140). This came in through the concept of management accounting and it was due to the evolvement of organizations from piecemeal operations to wage systems. Other developments which came up during this period were those of moving from single operations to multiple, individual production plants to integrated and more complex production plans (Mia and Chenhall, 1994:6). Furthermore, it was during this time that organizations were moving from sole proprietorships to multi divisional organizations. It is in record that after the first world war most of the world’s largest firms started using more complex budgeting and management accounting models like standard costing and variance analysis (Goodge, 2007:63). By the year 1991, most of the established firms in the US employed the use of the budgetary control systems in manning their operations as agents of control and by 1948 about 95% of the firms operating in the economy had adopted the use of the budgetary system for control purposes (Abernethy and Lillis, 2005:250). The development of these new concepts of establishing control saw the traditional based approaches criticized on the basis that they were dysfunctional in ensuring the control that was direly needed day by day (Argenti, 2007:444). As opposed to ensuring long term decision making techniques; the traditional models were known for their short term approaches as well as their inappropriateness in handling modern day manufacturing functions. The main challenges that were shown by the traditional accounting techniques that did not portray it well for use in determination of the performance of any company included: the approach being financially based with internal focus and regressive in nature. The system was accused of only being concerned with local departmental operations and performances of an organization (Johnson, 2005:98). This was opposed to the desired overall health and performance assessment of the business organization. This lead to the onset of vigorous research in the 1980s and 1990s with the aim of coming up with a comprehensive, balanced systems for use in the progressively advancing firms (Atkinson, Waterhouse and Wells, 1997:32). As a result; measures such as the matrix, SMART pyramid and the balanced scorecard was developed for use in determining the performance of given organizations. The result was the minimization of the shortcomings of the traditional measures which were solely financially based with new frameworks still being seen to develop (Johnson, 1991:512). According to Banker, Potter and Srinivasan, (2000:70) frameworks alone are not the ultimate solution to performance measurement and organization effectiveness. This is due to the fact that such frameworks will only provide us with the parameters to categories the measures that we intend to use I conducting the measurements of performance. Categorization is not actually what we want as what is needed is far much more of creation of the balance on all the demand on the organization (Hudson, Smart and Bourne, 2001:1100). There is therefore a need to further find out a way of finding the exact aspect to be measured as well as the mechanism to measure the exact approach and clearly defining the objectives of such exercise. Performance measurement should be approached strategically by making it part of the management of the business operations. Design procedures of performance measurement Through theory and practice we find that performance measurement models have been developed both jointly and severally by both the academicians in the field together with the experts. The approach that has been taken to identify the performance measurement models is that which involves a categorization of the existent management processes after which we will be able to identify the performance measurement model that fits into each of the categories. Categorization It has never been an easy task trying to categorize the various forms of the existing management. While some are just a mere description, others are a whole series of existing task and still we have the complete processes (Bourne, Mills, Bicheno, Hamblin, Wilcox, Neely, and Platts, 1999:157). This is because the procedures that will be used in determining performance are never the same for any given situation. Some like Kaplan will tell us that the assessment of customer satisfaction is the way to determine the performance of an employees while some like Dixon will tell us that it is through audit that we are able to determine the performance effectively. The differences that exist in terms of the procedures used to arrive at the performance a measure lands us to the first categorization (Gordon and Narayanan, 2004:40). Those who are not in agreement with the structural approach will therefore adopt an approach perspective. They argue that the proponents of procedure as a categorization do not stop to mention how the procedure is conducted, the process of consultation and facilitation (Bouwens and Abernethy, 2000:234). They consider such elements critical that ignoring them would be a recipe of disaster. From the procedural point of view, three distinctive models had been advanced: the need led model, the audit model and the model led model. The first one is a top down procedure employed in the determination of the performance measures. Using this approach, the needs of the customers, the business organization and the owners or members are identified and they are hence used as the parameters for measuring performance (Buttrick, 2005:220). These needs will used in the onward determination of the onward performance of the business organization. The second approach is the audit led approach which has faith in the conduct of audits throughout the organization at intervals. This approach takes the bottom top approach in its advance to measure performance of the organizational resources (Hayes and Abernathy, 2000:97). The audit of the existing performance measures is conducted before recommendations are made on the modes of improvements that can be adopted. The model led procedure on the other hand will follow the theoretical model of the organization to help in determining the model that is most appropriate for the performance evaluation of the organization (Meyer and Gupta, 2002:320). This model is integrative as it brings on board both the organizational performance in terms of finances as well as all the other desired approaches. The approach on its part normally takes the consultant lead approach or the facilitator led approach. The former implies to a case where the performance measurement is conducted by consultants who is either a single individual or a group of people (Holden, Fish and Smith, 2001:561). The consultants will take the approach of conducting personal interviews throughout the organization and then an outcome is formulated through an analysis of the outcomes. As opposed to the consultant lead approach, the facilitator lead approach involves the work of the management team through facilitated workshops (Merchant and Simons, 2006:190). Here, the management will involve them by trying to identify the sources that might have lead dismal performance and seek for favorable recommendations from their own employees. It would be quite risky for the management to use such forums to critique their own employees hence the soft approach is taken. Performance measurement models The models are numerous and they get developed progressively from day to day. For now; we will see the balanced score card and the performance model. The former was developed by Kaplan and Norton and it has been developed and reformed over time through consultancies. This model in its efforts to assess the performance of an employee they devise the approach of both consultant interviews and workshops. From this approach it will be able to formulate a fair platform for assessment in terms of both the business objectives and performance measures. They though use the customer perspective approach since according to Kaplan; the customer is always the boss and hence dictates performance on customer satisfaction (Kaplan, 2004:395-410). The performance model on the other hand is based on preformed belief by the managers on the direction that they expect the organization to take. This model already has prefromulated measures that the employees are dictated to meet and it is against such measures that the employee is assessed (March and Sutton 1997:700). The formulation of such measures only involves the top management team and they are facilitated for this task by providing them with the revised strategic objective of the business organization. The other model is the ECOGRAI which is more inclusive in its approach to performance measurement. This is due to the fact that the approach gives a consideration to physical. Information and decision making systems in its efforts to set out the performance measures. The approach starts by the analysis of the manufacturing systems of the organization in case one exists; it then brings the control mechanisms on board (Maylor, 2003:512). Thereafter, a review of he identified functions is done at all the three levels of an organization. Performance models must always be objective and effective for the sake of a realization of the corporate objectives. When wrong parameters are used to assess an organization’s performance for example; a setback such as a decline in performance is likely to come in which may not be so good for the objectives of the business. Successful implementation of any given form of performance measurement systems has never been easy and a lot of caution has to be taken. The success in implementation of a performance measurement system depends on the development of a supporting technology in the company, incentives should also be aligned to the system to be newly used and then the walk will depend on the CEO’s support (Lewy and Mee, 1998:225). Methodology This research was conducted by using some of the primary data collection methods and secondary methods with the secondary methods taking a big portion of the resources that were used to conduct the studies. The research was conducted from 5 organizations within Swansea with a main objective of finding out on the various models they use in performance measurements within their organizations (Burns, 2002:267). The setbacks they experience and the impacts on the organization’s effectiveness were as well sought. The research was not exploratory in nature given the fact that there has been previous research on the topic. A lot of secondary material was used to develop the concept with the exploratory part being that where personal interviews was conducted on 50 participant. The research is qualitative in nature as mentioned from the start. The analysis of the information is conducted by experts in form of consultants after obtaining the same information from the staff of such organizations who acted as internal outsiders to the organizations visited. The staff proved so useful given their expertise and willingness to provide the required information. The interviews used to collect the data were semi- structured interviews with the employees of the selected organizations within Swansea. Alongside the primary data by way of interviews documentary data was used to a very large extent. In addition to the formulations of the interviews, 5 case study firms were selected from across the divided and specifically financial services firm, health institution, telecommunication, and manufacturing and to add to the list was a local government institution which represented the public sector (Burns, 2004:132). Interviews were also conducted with some of the clients of the firms and their respective sponsors, not forgetting the public with little observation being carried out. In total 50 personalities were interviewed from 5 Swansea organizations and this was a record for being one of the largest ever done on studies on performance measurement in this small town of Swansea. One is able to note that the span of the interviews is conducted across several sectors within this economy. Given the challenges that are involved in the implementation face of most of the performance measurement models, it is not easy to establish the representativeness of the sample precisely. Organizations were approached by our group and random sampling conducted across each organization through the corporation of the Human resource departments within the organizations. Case studies were selected from journals on the basis research access and sector variety. All the participants who were called upon for their contribution in terms of the required information were assured of their confidentiality as an ethical measure (Baron and Armstrong, 2007:628). This has resulted into organizational pseudonyms being used in both outputs and presentations which as well includes this report. The main idea behind the use of interviews was to establish the original reasons behind the adoption of the performance measurement models in each of the organizations uniquely. We also sought the participants views on the traditional approaches and the main challenges they faced during their efforts to implement the identified performance measurement techniques. This approach has been a productive methodological feature and it has helped in making us get findings dynamics or narratives of performance measurements (Brierley, 2006:312). In particular, the methodology revealed the progressive evolution of performance measurement and as well exposed the challenges that are faced at the implementation face. Research Findings Overall, the research exposed the organizations’ and all the dynamics revolving around performance measurement. Specific attention has been drawn towards the dilemmas and the mysteries surrounding the implementation of most of the models. Researchers are therefore provoked to conduct more research and come up with not only easier to implement models but also more modern implementation criteria. Development and formulation of a performance model is one thing with its implementation to realize its benefits being the other one (Brown, Caldwell and White, 2004:78). It is worth noting that the identification of the impacts of performance measurement is always a difficult task if not impossible. The approach we took was meant to focus on different types of performance measurement models. These were strongly brought out through the responses that we managed to get from the categories or respondents we managed to interview. Even within this constraints, after the analysis of the information collected we were able to come up with very interesting findings concerning the use of performance measurements and their impacts on the organizational performances and effectiveness (Cannell, 2007:45). The findings also provide a very strong indication of all the specific types of the performance measurement practices employed by a cross section of the employers in the industry. Four out of the 5 organizations that we were lucky to interview all employed the performance model. It so happened that all these were private organizations with a majority of shareholding by the public. The results also indicated that the effective employment of the performance measurements models effectively has the broad impact of helping the organization in terms of cost savings, process improvements and general integration of the organizational activities depending on the analysis of duties and responsibilities. Through our analysis of the costs savings, process improvements and integration we were able to find out each based on each of the organization. The local government authority set out a four year strategic plan over which they expected to employ the ECOGRAI model in an effort to help it cut on the unnecessary cost through improved performance (Cameron and Whetten, 2003:289). The telecommunication firm also had the same aspirations of reducing its costs by over 40% through an improvement in performance. This means that at the end of the strategic period the organization would be able to develop measure whether there was an improvement in the performance of its human resource and hence reduced costs. Apart from the strategies being viewed to simply result into cost reduction, they were also seen as aspects to help in the change in organizational culture. From time to time the organizations conducted reviews to enhance the performance of the available systems despite the fact that resistance were experienced often than not. Process improvements were as a result of the efficiencies realized in terms of cost savings (Chandler, 2002:156). From all the 5 organizations that we integrated, one of the final outcomes was always and improvement in the performance hence organizational effectiveness. This makes us comfortably conclude that organizational effectiveness is one thing that goes hand in hand with performance measurement. This is further enhanced by the model that is chosen by any given organization. Performance measurements have nature of making resources become more productive especially the human resources. The speed of operations would be for example enhanced and this would not only build the name of the firm but as well result into improved results in form of financial performance and returns (Chan and Ho, 2000:258). All the stakeholders of the respective companies gave a positive report when it comes to cost savings and process improvements. Conclusions and strategic recommendations In conclusion, performance measurement models irrespective of the one employed by an organization, always results into an improvement in the organizational performance of any given organization. The improvements that have been recorded in the past and through our research is based on cost saving and the improvement in the performances the various operational aspects of the organization (Daniel and Reitsperger, 2001:615). It is also prudent to realize the need to identify ways of improving the manner in which such models should be applied in organizations given the advantages they provide. The published approaches towards performance measurement as compared to the actual designs are quite different. In an attempt to try and find the relationship between performance measurements models and their roles in organizational effectiveness, the paper has defined and highlighted various models. The paper has also exhibited the findings under each of the models and a clear outcome has been witnessed in terms of cost savings and efficiency in operations of any given form of organization (Dixon, Nanni and Vollmann, 2000:56). 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