Discussion of "Managers' Commitment to the Goals Contained in a Strategic Performance Measurement System"

A casual perusal of cases and practitioner articles describing strategic performance measurement systems (SPMS) yields examples of proposed causal links that range from the highly probable to the dubious. Webb (2004) argues that this variation has important consequences: if the causal links among th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Contemporary accounting research 2004-12, Vol.21 (4), p.959-964
Main Author: LUFT, JOAN L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Decision making
Experiments
Objectives
Performance evaluation
Social psychology
Strategic management
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Summary:A casual perusal of cases and practitioner articles describing strategic performance measurement systems (SPMS) yields examples of proposed causal links that range from the highly probable to the dubious. Webb (2004) argues that this variation has important consequences: if the causal links among the performance measures are strong, managers will estimate a higher probability of achieving their financial goals and will be willing to exert more effort toward both these goals and the nonfinancial goals that lead indirectly to financial-goal achievement. This discussion focuses on three questions that provide three ways of unpacking Webb's results to generate further questions and add to our understanding of SPMS: 1. Why is goal commitment higher when the causal model is stronger? 2. Are the social-psychology constructs in this study significantly different from related economics constructs? 3. Why do firms have causally weak SPMS?
ISSN:0823-9150
1911-3846
DOI:10.1111/j.1911-3846.2004.tb00076.x