سیستم‌های اندازه‌گیری عملکرد معاصر: مروری بر نتایج آن‌ها و چارچوبی برای تحقیقات

The main purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the literature on the consequences of contemporary performance measurement (CPM) systems and the theories that explain these consequences. The framework is based on an in-depth review of 76 empirical studies published in high-quality academic journals in the areas of accounting, operations, and strategy. The framework classifies the consequences of CPM into three categories: people's behaviour, organizational capabilities, and performance consequences. This paper discusses our current knowledge on the impact of CPM, highlighting inconsistencies and gaps as well as providing direction for future research.

The use of performance measurement systems is frequently recommended for facilitating strategy implementation and enhancing organizational performance (e.g., Davis and Albright, 2004). Today, contemporary performance measurement (CPM) comprises the use of financial as well as non-financial performance measures linked to the organization's business strategy. For instance, balanced scorecards (BSC) (Kaplan and Norton, 2001) and multi-criteria key performance indicators (KPI) can be considered CPM systems (Cheng et al., 2007 and Hall, 2008). The adoption of this type of system has increased steadily in the last two decades (Rigby and Bilodeau, 2009). Organizations are under great pressure to deliver value not only to their shareholders but also to other stakeholders, and they believe CPM systems can help them in this task (Ittner and Larcker, 2001 and Ittner and Larcker, 2003). This may explain why many organizations are investing heavily in the development and maintenance of CPM systems (Neely et al., 2008). From a research point of view, we have some knowledge about why organizations adopt these systems (e.g., Chenhall and Langfield-Smith, 1998, Henri, 2006a and Hoque and James, 2000). We are, however, less knowledgeable about their actual consequences (Lee and Yang, 2010). Accounting, operations, and strategy researchers have examined the effects of CPM systems. Researchers have used an array of research methods, such as case study research (e.g., Bititci et al., 2006 and Kolehmainen, 2010), survey research (e.g., Burney and Widener, 2007, Cheng et al., 2007 and De Waal et al., 2009), quasi-experimental research (e.g., Davis and Albright, 2004 and Griffith and Neely, 2009), and experimental research (e.g., Lipe and Salterio, 2000, Lipe and Salterio, 2002 and Tayler, 2010). Researchers have focused on different levels of analysis. For instance, the work of Hall, 2008 and Hall, 2010 focuses on how CPM systems affect the behaviour and performance of individuals, whilst the work of Scott and Tiessen (1999) concentrates on how CPM systems affect team performance. Researchers have also investigated the effects of CPM systems taking into consideration aspects such as their particular design, implementation, or use (e.g., Speckbacher et al., 2003). Nevertheless, there is still a lack of consensus on the actual consequences of CPM. Furthermore, to our knowledge, no integration study has been conducted to better understand the diverse effects of CPM systems as well as how these effects occur. Integrating our research knowledge in this area is important to progress the CPM field and to support evidence-based management initiatives (Rousseau, 2006). The aim of this paper is to integrate our knowledge on the consequences of CPM systems by conducting a review of the existing empirical evidence on this topic. Specifically, we pursue two objectives. Our first objective is to identify and categorize the consequences of CPM systems studied in the literature, providing a guiding framework that integrates them. We classify the consequences of CPM into three categories: people's behaviour, organizational capabilities, and performance consequences. This comprehensive yet parsimonious categorization allows us to accommodate the numerous variables that may be affected by CPM systems, thereby facilitating the understanding of this complex phenomenon. Our category encompassing people's behaviour refers to consequences related to the actions or reactions of employees (e.g., motivation, participation) and their underlying cognitive mechanisms (e.g., perceptions). Our organizational capabilities category refers to consequences associated with specific processes, activities, or competences that enable the organization to perform and gain competitive advantages (e.g., strategic alignment, organizational learning). Finally, our performance category comprises the different effects that CPM systems can have on financial and non-financial results at all levels of the organization (e.g., firm performance, managerial performance, and team performance). Our second objective is to explain the different mechanisms by which CPM is presumed to affect people's behaviour, organizational capabilities, and performance. In the literature, several theories have been proposed to explain the consequences of CPM. Theories such as agency theory and goal-setting theory present strong arguments as to how the use of CPM affects behaviour and motivation. However, there are other less widely used theories that have also been adopted in the literature and deserve some attention. For instance, Schiff and Hoffman (1996) use attribution theory to explain how executives use multi-criteria performance measures and how these measures affect their decision-making processes. Another example is the work of Malmi (2001), who adopts neo-institutionalism theory to explain why companies adopt CPM systems and the consequences of these decisions. Understanding the underlying mechanisms that generate the different consequences of CPM is critical for determining how to maximize the effectiveness of these systems. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we provide a definition of CPM and a full description of the three categories of CPM effects. In Section 3, we discuss our method of literature review, explaining in detail the process adopted and our research selection criteria. In Section 4, we present our framework for research, comprising the findings of our literature review. In Section 5, we discuss the findings of our review, along with their implications for practice and suggestions for further research. We also outline here the limitations of our study. Finally, in Section 6, we draw our research conclusions.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a more complete understanding of the actual consequences of CPM systems. The evidence from our review of 76 empirical studies suggests that CPM systems significantly affect people's behaviour, organizational capabilities, and performance. More specifically, the data support the claim that CPM systems play a key role in strategy, communication, and management processes, generating organizational capabilities that enable the organization to excel (e.g., Eccles, 1991, Ittner and Larcker, 1998, Kaplan and Norton, 1996, Kaplan and Norton, 2001 and Melnyk et al., 2004). CPM systems facilitate the development, implementation, and review of business strategies by focusing people's decisions and actions on strategic goals and by encouraging a continuous dialogue about strategic endeavours. CPM systems affect communication processes by requiring and providing relevant information that influence how people think, act, and interact. CPM systems influence organizational routines and management practices by changing the way leaders behave. All of these effects have a subsequent impact on performance at all levels. The evidence reviewed also supports the claim that the extent to which a CPM system is able to positively influence people's behaviour, organizational capabilities, and, ultimately, performance is directly related to the way the system is designed, developed, and used, and to how well it fits the context in which it operates (e.g., Otley, 1999, Neely, 2005 and Franco-Santos and Bourne, 2005). Regarding CPM systems design, researchers agree that to be effective these systems must comprise performance measures and targets that have high strategic alignment, controllability, timeliness, and technical validity (especially when used for compensation purposes). They should also state how the performance measures are interrelated using cause-and-effect relationships. Regarding CPM systems development, there is consensus on the importance of adopting a fair, transparent, and consultative process where people feel empowered and involved. CPM systems development should be iterative and incremental to allow continuous improvements. Regarding its use, there is agreement about the importance of finding a balance between diagnostic and interactive uses, and between informational and motivational uses of CPM systems, even though the literature provides little guidance on how to achieve this balance. Finally, the data suggest that the effectiveness of CPM systems is moderated by internal contingencies such as the employees’ experience or the organization's strategic orientation, structure, information systems, culture, and management style, along with external contingencies such as competition or the degree of environmental uncertainty in which the organization operates. On the less positive side, the evidence suggests that CPM systems in some cases may be time-consuming exercises that can increase costs and workloads, and generate internal tensions. CPM systems can also bring about judgement biases and perceptions of unfairness or subjectivity when they are used for performance evaluation and compensation purposes. In the last decade, the judgement biases produced by CPM systems have received considerable attention from researchers, and many tools and ideas have been proposed to rectify these biases. There is, however, a gap in our knowledge about the impact of CPM systems on costs, workloads, tensions, and subjectivity. We believe that these issues require further investigation as they may have a significant influence on the long-term consequences of CPM systems, as suggested by the work of Ittner et al. (2003a). When looking at the theories that have informed this area of research, we find, in the main, that six well-known theories have been adopted. These are agency theory, contingency theory, goal-setting theory, equity theory, resource-based view of the firm, and cognitive-based psychology research. Based on this finding, it can be argued that the consequences of CPM systems might be best explained by adopting a meta-theory approach, as has been proposed in other complex fields (e.g., Mauldin and Ruchala, 1999 and Tsoukas, 1994). A meta-theory approach will help to provide an understanding of what theories explain specific CPM system effects and when they do it. It is important to highlight here that a third of the studies reviewed had no explicit theoretical underpinning, which suggests that our knowledge in this area is still at the modelling stage. Phenomena are being described, but explanations of why effects happen are not yet provided. The remaining studies use existing economic, psychology, and sociology theories for moving from the modelling stage to the theory stage. Our findings have a number of implications for researchers interested in the area of CPM. Two research guidelines and several areas for further research emerge from our review. Regarding the research guidelines, we believe that future studies should clearly specify the CPM features being investigated along with the level at which they are examined in order to avoid confusion and increase comparability. We propose and validate a classification of CPM systems that was useful for us in our attempt to compare and extract insights from the literature. Feedback and extensions of this classification would be more than welcome. We also believe that the use of a contingent approach is highly recommended in this particular area of research, as we suspect that many of the inconsistencies found in the literature could be explained by looking at the context where the studies took place. As for the new areas for further research, we emphasize the following. Firstly, this review highlights the idea that it is not only the CPM system that matters but also the capability of managers and employees to respond to it. We still know little about the extent to which individual characteristics affect the impact of CPM systems. Some work has already been conducted in this area (e.g., Hall, 2008, Hall, 2010 and Burney and Widener, 2007), but more would be welcome. Studies could examine the effect of managers’ cognitive biases such as cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957), hindsight bias (Fischhoff and Beyth, 1975), or black swan bias (Taleb, 2005), which may shed some light into why many of the current CPM systems, despite their claimed positive effects, failed to predict the current financial crisis. Studies could also look at the effects of managers’ experience, age, gender, skills, or abilities, as contradicting evidence has already been found (Hall, 2010 and Griffith and Neely, 2009) and this needs clarification. Secondly, new research could further investigate the impact of CPM systems on innovation, as this area remains unclear. As found in our review, Bisbe and Otley (2004) find no effect of CPM systems on innovation, whilst Henri (2006b) finds a positive effect. Why is this the case? Is there any missing variable that we should be considering in this relationship? Further research in this area could benefit from current work taking place in the fields of operations and corporate entrepreneurship (e.g., Goodale et al., 2011). Thirdly, the use of performance measures for determining monetary rewards also deserves further attention, as many of the potential CPM system issues tend to be reinforced when the measures are linked to pay. For instance, Webb (2004) suggests that there is no need for the non-financial performance to be linked to pay (only the financial measures) if the cause-and-effect relationships among all the performance measures included in the CPM system are clear and strong. This idea, however, has not been fully explored in the literature. Further, measures are context and purpose specific, so measures that are designed for informational purposes (i.e., to evaluate firm performance at a corporate level) might not be adequate for motivational purposes (i.e., to decide monetary rewards at different levels of the organization). Research in this area could advance our understanding about why organizations struggle with the use of non-financial measures in incentive systems (Ittner et al., 2003a). Fourthly, we still know little about how CPM systems are used in international organizations to facilitate strategy implementation. The studies of Cruz et al. (2011), Dossi and Patelli (2010), and Kraus and Lind (2010) are a good start in this area, but their inconsistent results deserve further attention. Moreover, in our review we found no evidence regarding the consequences of using CPM systems for assessing the performance of international teams (i.e., teams created from individuals working in different subsidiaries and in different countries). Fifthly, our knowledge about the effects of CPM systems on change management is at an early stage. The work of Kolehmainen (2010) has stressed the positive impact of CPM systems on flexibility and adaptation, but previous work in the performance measurement literature (Euske et al., 1993) has suggested otherwise. To what extent do CPM systems support organizational change? How can CPM systems encourage flexibility and dynamism? These research questions remain unanswered and, especially in the current economic climate, require further attention. Sixthly, previous research has looked at the effect of CPM systems on positive employee attitudes and behaviours. Further research could also explore whether CPM systems have any effect on negative employee attitudes or dysfunctional behaviours, as it has been suggested in related areas of research (e.g., Chwastiak, 2006, Jensen, 2003 and Ordóñez et al., 2009). Finally, the impact of CPM systems on firm performance requires further investigation, as there is a lack of consistent evidence in this area. Researchers have argued that looking for a direct link between CPM systems and organizations’ superior performance might be misleading due to the internal and external factors that play a role in economic performance evaluation (e.g., Lee and Yang, 2010). Insights from activity-based costing research (ABC) suggest that ABC may not, per se, add value, but merely be correlated with other organizational variables that are the true value drivers (Kennedy and Affleck-Graves, 2001). Taking this approach with CPM, we suggest that further CPM systems research should explore how this system interacts with other organizational variables, which, once again, supports the importance of using a contingency approach (e.g., Fisher, 1995) in this particular area of research. Although the purpose of this literature review was to provide a guiding framework for further research rather than to generate any kind of practical prescriptions (Baldvinsdottir et al., 2010), our findings can also be useful for practitioners, especially those interested in adopting an evidence-based management approach (Rousseau, 2006). Understanding the consequences of CPM systems is an important topic for organizations because of the high investment that these systems require. From this review, three key implications for practitioners can be highlighted. First, practitioners can learn how important the processes of developing, implementing, using, and reviewing CPM systems are, and such practitioners can be informed of the tools that have been found useful in undertaking these processes. Second, they can learn how essential it is to pay attention to how people respond to these systems and to the different factors that affect their responses. Finally, practitioners can learn that the mere act of developing a CPM system is unlikely to enhance performance. In this paper, we find that numerous contingencies can influence the impact of these systems. Some of them are controllable, whilst others are not. Thus, practitioners must be aware of these contingencies and of the way they affect the effectiveness of CPM systems. This study is not free of limitations. It is based on a literature review method that, despite being systematic and rigorous, might have missed some relevant work that (a) has been published in a journal outside our list of selected journals and has not been referenced by any of the work published in our list of selected journals; (b) has been published in areas other than accounting, operations, and strategy (e.g., information systems); (c) has been published in lower-ranked journals (e.g., Maiga and Jacobs, 2003); (d) has been published in a non-English-language journal; or (e) refers to public sector organizations (e.g., Cavalluzzo and Ittner, 2004, Carmona and Gronlund, 2003, Johnston and Pongatichat, 2008, Moxham and Boaden, 2007 and Umashev and Willett, 2008). Besides, when examining the work of qualitative studies we have relied on our own judgement and interpretation about the variables and relationships studied. This interpretation might not correspond entirely with the findings highlighted by the original authors of the studies.