Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding regarding how managers attempt to make purposeful use of innovation management self-assessments (IMSA) and performance information (PI).Design/methodology/approachAn interpretative perspective on purposeful use is used as an analytical framework, and the paper is based on empirical material from two research projects exploring the use of IMSA and PI in three case companies. Based on the empirical data, consisting of interviews and observations of workshops and project meetings, qualitative content analysis has been conducted.FindingsThe findings of this paper indicate that how managers achieve a purposeful use of PI is related to their approach toward how to use the specific PI at hand, and two basic approaches are analytically separated: a rule-based approach and a reflective approach. Consequently, whether or not the right thing is being measured also becomes a question of how the PI is actually being interpreted and used. Thus, the extensive focus on what to measure and how to measure it becomes edgeless unless equal attention is given to how managers are able to use the PI to make knowledgeable decisions regarding what actions to take to achieve the desired changes.Practical implicationsGiven the results, it comes with a managerial responsibility to make sure that all managers who are supposed to be engaged in using the PI are given roles in the self-assessments that are aligned with the level of knowledge they possess, or can access.Originality/valueHow managers purposefully use PI is a key to understand the potential impact of self-assessments.
Highlights
The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding regarding how managers attempt to make purposeful use of innovation management self-assessments (IMSA) and performance information (PI)
Exploring measured? Who will you become? In this paper, we focus on how first-line and middle purposeful use managers engage in a particular innovation management self-assessment (IMSA) that measures innovative climate in organizations (Ekvall, 1996) and how they engage to achieve a of IMSA
To provide a thick description of how the participants engage with the continuous self-assessments as a part of the IMSA, as well how their engagement changed over time, we use the case of John at case A as a storyline
Summary
The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding regarding how managers attempt to make purposeful use of innovation management self-assessments (IMSA) and performance information (PI). Despite the differences in setting, they all share problems concerning subjects like analyzing and contextualizing the PI that is generated from the IMSA, and/or the organizational integration and transformation of PI into more knowledgeable actions – that is, a purposeful use (Kroll, 2015; Moynihan, 2009) These are problems that the organizations share with other organizations described in previous research on the use of PI in the context of performance management and self-assessments (Chiesa et al, 1996; Kerssens-Van Drongeln and Biderbeek, 1999; Loch and Tapper, 2002; Moynihan, 2009; Panizzolo et al, 2010; Samuelsson and Nilsson, 2002; Tarí, 2010; van der Wiele and Brown, 1999). Performance management systems generally generate a bunch of so-called hard measures (e.g. sick leaves, grades), whereas self-assessments generates different kinds of socalled soft measures (Dalton et al, 1980), which many times focus on tacit dimensions of organizational life, and becomes even more open to interpretations
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