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T h e cu rre n t iss u e a n d fu ll tex t a rch iv e o f th is jo u rn a l is a v a ila b le a t http://www.em eraldinsight.com/0144-3577.htm

IJOPM 22,11

1288

The success and failure of performance measurement initiatives

Perceptions of participating managers

Mike Bourne and Andy Neely

Centre for Business Performance, Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield, UK, and

Ken Platts and John Mills

Centre for Strategy and Performance, Manufacturing Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Keywords Performance measurement, Management, Implementation Abstract This paper investigates the success and failure of performance measurement system design interventions in ten companies. In each case, the senior management team was facilitated through a management process to redesign their performance measurement systems. Analysis of the initial pilot case studies suggested three important differences between companies that proceeded to implement the measures agreed during the process and those that did not. Post intervention semi-structured interviews with the directors and managers directly involved revealed two main perceived drivers of implementation and four perceived factors that block implementation. The results are of specific interest for performance measurement system implementation but have wider implications for our view of management commitment in change management.

Introduction With the balanced scorecard being cited by Harvard Business Review as one of the most important management tools of the last 75 years, performance measurement is currently attracting a great deal of interest among both industrialists and academics alike. However, although there are numerous balanced performance measurement frameworks (Keegan et al., 1989; Lynch and Cross, 1991; Fitzgerald et al., 1991; Kaplan and Norton, 1992; Neely et al., 2002) and management processes for the design of performance measurement systems (Bitton, 1990; Dixon et al., 1991; Kaplan...