Conflicting interests but filtered key targets: Stakeholder and resource-dependency analyses at a University of Applied Sciences

Abstract

Stakeholder theory (SHT) emphasizes that different stakeholders and their interests need to be identified and addressed to maximize firm performance. This emphasis can make the design of performance measurement systems (PMS) challenging because the interests of stakeholders are often in conflict. Based on previous research and using stakeholder and resource dependency theories, we develop a theoretical model suggesting that resource dependency acts as a “filter” in selecting which of the PMS design measures are emphasized for decision making. We find various conflicting interests between stakeholders in our case organization (a unit of University of Applied Sciences in Finland) that affected PMS design. Contrary to the earlier studies, however, we found that despite conflicting interests, all of the different stakeholders considered one nonfinancial indicator to be the most important: attractiveness, or the number of applicants divided by number of new students. As suggested by resource-dependency theory (RDT), the stakeholder providing the most resources had the most significant impact on the selection of the key performance indicators used. The key resource provider may also have had some effect on the expectations of other stakeholders.