Holistic Performance Management Research Articles

Do external benchmarking mechanisms facilitate performance management in Malaysian local authorities?

PurposeThis paper investigates the extent to which externally led benchmarking may have facilitated performance management design and use in Malaysian local authorities.Design/methodology/approachA longitudinal qualitative study of local authorities in Malaysia was undertaken, comprising interviews with key officers during the introduction of process-based key performance indicators (KPIs), and following the imposition of benchmarking (i.e. relative performance evaluation) on local authorities. Complexity theory was used in the analysing and theorising of data.FindingsExternal benchmarking mechanisms facilitated only operational performance management, with strategic performance management merely ceremonially adopted. As the focus was on mainly operational KPIs, strategic goals were not translated into detailed action plans and outputs at departmental level. In addition, operational and strategic performance management packages were decoupled. Thus, the efforts of external actors resulted in operational controls suppressing rather than facilitating strategic processes.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a need to transition from purely externally led benchmarking to internally driven benchmarking in local government, whereby benchmarking forms part of the interactive performance management mechanisms that lead to institutional learning and improvement.Practical implicationsBenchmarking activities should be based on comprehensive analyses of performance management design and use. A reflective approach to continuously identify gaps or weaknesses in performance management systems will enable local government administrators to improve systems and processes in a timely manner to meet stakeholder needs.Originality/valueThis paper explains the impact of central government policy and benchmarking initiatives on other levels of government. We have built on previous literature by examining the connection between external benchmarking and internal performance management design and use in local government. In relation to this, and following calls for research on holistic performance management, the integration between operational and strategic performance management packages was also examined.

How Under Armour accelerates and sustains omnichannel start-up success with performance management

In the last decade, retail and distribution operations have experienced the ever-evolving omnichannel demand of their customers. For many supply chain organisations, solutions for the omnichannel shift were implemented in existing warehouse space. By taking to the oars, the marketplace has been able to meet their customers’ omnichannel demand, but for how long? In many cases, operations have been retrofit beyond reasonable efficiency and without room for scale. Under Armour’s Baltimore distribution house experienced the same. The strategy for a distribution house start-up, designed with omnichannel in mind, became the clear path forward. Much like the omnichannel shift, facility start-ups have many unique challenges. As Under Armour prepared to open the doors of the omnichannel distribution house (ODH), a broader start-up strategy emerged. The distribution team elected to implement a holistic performance management programme, including leadership training, process improvements, engineered labour standards and labour management software tools. Performance management, while not commonly implemented at the beginning of a facility life cycle, would create a continuous improvement culture for the ODH team, establishing resilience to change and motivation to overcome obstacles common with warehouse start-ups. In this paper, we will share how Under Armour utilised this performance management strategy to overcome human and operational start-up challenges and accelerate success in their ODH.

John “Brian” Cocking

After a stroke and being in hospital for five weeks, John “Brian” Cocking sadly died in the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital (QUQM), Margate, Kent, where he had served...

The ELIAS framework: A prescription for innovation and change.

Healthcare is a complex adaptive system with multiple stakeholders and dynamic environments. Therefore, healthcare organizations must continuously learn, innovate, adapt, and co-evolve to be successful. This article describes a systematic, comprehensive, and holistic performance management framework that healthcare managers can use to achieve these goals. The framework involves the ongoing assessment, modification, or replacement of current programs or services aimed at adapting successfully to achieve the organization's strategic objectives. This is engendered by the presence of a culture that is premised on continuous learning and innovation. The foundation of the framework is based on accountability, the organization's strategy, and its culture. This then acts as the basis for an ongoing process of measurement, disconfirmation, contextualization, implementation, and routinization that enhances learning, innovation, adaptation, and sustainability within the healthcare organization.

The role of enterprise social networking in the measurement and management of competences

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to examine how enterprise social networking (ESN) measures and manages competences and the impact of this on the development of a holistic performance management and measurement system (PMMS).Design/methodology/approachA multiple-case methodology was used to carry out a qualitative meta-analysis on published case studies from 32 multinational companies.FindingsIt was found that the use of ESN was supportive in the development of a holistic PMMS based on high maturity in performance measurement and democratic and participative approach in performance management.Practical implicationsThe study shows ways in which ESN implementation can be used in PMMS to transform individual competences into firm-specific competences, thus improving outcomes for the success of a business.Social implicationsThis study shows that ESN can be of value to the workforce in social terms by giving them an outlet for self-expression to promote their well-being.Originality/valueThis paper shows originality, in that it contributes to the research in support of the role of ESN in performance management and measurement and the effective inclusion of competences in a holistic PMMS.

A Holistic Performance Management Approach in Business Networks

Companies want to achieve a sustainable financial success through process and performance improvements. Increasing the company’s performance is a good way for sustainable success. Typically, the success is measured by process output metrics. This output mirrors the performance of a company’s processes in the end. It is obvious that for being able to cope with complex business network structures in a derivative supply-demand-structure as well as collaboration cooperation incentives, performance needs to be managed across the whole network to strengthen the own network centrality. The present paper contributes to the development of a new holistic Performance Management in business networks. Thus, a Network Performance Wheel - for a more network oriented approach, and a Process Management Balanced Scorecard - to close the gap between internal and external impacts, are introduced. Also, a PM-VICTORY model is launched for implementing the whole network directed Performance Management.

Airport Business Excellence Model: A holistic performance management system

This study proposes for the first time the Airport Business Excellence Model (ABEM) as a specific version of the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) and tests it in 143 airports worldwide. Based on diverse theoretical premises and applying a Structural Equation Modelling, the study first maps the main Key Performance Areas (KPAs) with their individual indicators and then explores the complex network of causal linkages among them within the multidimensional airport business system. The causal paths are conceptualized in a performance pyramid, where influence flows from the top Strategic Enablers through Human and Operational Enablers to produce Primary and Secondary Results. In addition, Importance Performance Analysis reveals that Employee Results are the most Critical Success Factor for airport excellence, followed by Leadership and Operational Results. Overall, the study sheds light on the airports' ‘black box’ and exhibits the interactions of its ‘software’ assets nested in the multiple airport stakeholders.

Toward holistic performance management in clouds: taxonomy, challenges and opportunities

Cloud computing is an evolving paradigm with tremendous momentum. Performance is a major challenge in providing cloud services, and performance management is prerequisite to meet quality objectives in clouds. Although many researches have studied this issue, there is a lack of analysis on management dimensions, challenges and opportunities. As an attempt toward compensating the shortage, this work first gives a review on performance management dimensions in clouds. Moreover, a taxonomic scheme has devised to classify the recent literature, help to standardize the problem and highlight commonalities and deviations. Afterward, an autonomic and integrated performance management framework has been proposed. The proposed framework enables cloud providers to realize optimization schemes without major changes. Practicality and effectiveness of the proposed framework has been demonstrated by prototype implementation on top of the CloudSim. Experiments present promising results, in terms of the performance improvement and management. Finally, open issues, opportunities and suggestions have been presented.

Levels of Value Integration in Federal Agencies' Mission and Value Statements: Is Open Government a Performance Target of U.S. Federal Agencies?

Abstract The Barack Obama administration advanced open government initiatives to make federal administration more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. Yet a question remains whether federal administrators took notice. This article examines changes in the extent to which U.S. federal agencies have integrated the three core principles of open government—transparency, public participation, and collaboration—into their performance planning. By analyzing 337 annual performance plans of 24 major federal agencies from fiscal years 2001 to 2016, the authors found that, overall, the level of integration of open government into performance planning has been trending higher since the early 2000s. During the Obama presidency, integration initially rose sharply but later declined. Findings also show that agencies' stated core values regarding open government are not consistently integrated into their performance plans. The implications of these findings for incorporating democratic‐constitutional values into holistic performance management are considered.

Pursuing Sustainability with the Balanced Scorecard: Between Shareholder Value and Multiple Goal Optimisation

A rising awareness about the limitations of measuring organisational success merely with financial metrics has motivated researchers and practitioners to call for more holistic performance management and measurement systems. The balanced scorecard (BSC) as proposed by Kaplan and Norton is maybe the most popular framework which aims at a balance between multiple performance dimensions and objectives. Moreover, the increasing strategic importance of environmental and social aspects have led to the suggestion of a so called sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC), which promises the consideration of even further performance dimensions. More specific, the SBSC aims at balancing financial objectives with environmental and social objectives. However, the SBSC approaches proposed strongly differ in the way they deal with managing multiple objectives. Against this background, we conduct a systematic review of the research field dealing with the SBSC in order to advance the knowledge on managing multiple corporate objectives. As part of our results, we first give a brief description of the research field using bibliographical analysis. Second, we derive a typology of generic SBSC architectures showing that the architecture is contingent on the value system the organisation chooses to operate in (profit driven, care driven, systemic driven) and the corporate sustainability strategy opted for (defence, accommodation, proaction). We further show that the architectures can generally be applied by various types of organisations (public listed, large private, and small and medium-sized companies), but that some combinations are more likely than others. Implications for management and research are also derived.

Information Society and Library Evaluation Transitions in Portugal: A Meta-evaluation Model and Frameworks (1970–2013)

The need for greater understanding of assessment practices and models highlights a deficit of an up-to-date meta-evaluation model, whilst articulating with new phases in Information Society (IS) development. This paper aims to discuss the meta-evaluation model and frameworks that were created to explain the relations between IS transitions and the development of library performance evaluation models in Portugal (1970–2013).The research is based on a qualitative methodology supported by a combination of literature review with the construction and application of conceptual models and frameworks.The meta-evaluation model of the impact of transitions on library performance evaluation provides an adequate representation and explanation of relationships between IS transitions and library performance evaluation models. The CLPET (Categorizing Library Performance Evaluation Typologies) Matrix, as well as the relational framework that was developed proved to be useful analytical tools.This paper highlights the current transition of performance models into a more holistic performance management, clarifying that diverse uses and components of performance are strongly linked to IS dynamics. It will also enable readers to discuss the impact of meta-evaluation models as a strong instrument to support the challenges of visions, strategies and best practices shifted over time.

Performance Appraisal or Praising Performance? The Culture of Rhetoric in Performance Management in Ghana Civil Service

This article examines the practice of performance appraisal as a critical element of administrative culture in the Ghana Civil Service (CS). It relies on three focus group discussions with senior civil servants to analyze the practice and its implications for performance of civil servants in Ghana. The article argues that: leadership seldom gives the needed attention to this administrative practice; the process lacks objectivity; it is fraught with superstition, spirituality, and fear; appraisers are rarely trained; and civil servants only become more interested in performance appraisals (PAs) during promotion-related interviews. The article therefore concludes that this process has become rhetoric rather than an important practice and that performance only gets praised rather than being appraised. The article recommends an overhaul of the PA system by integrating it into a holistic performance management program; integrating PA training into civil service mandatory training programs; and the revision and computerization of the PA system.

OptiTuner: On Performance Composition and Server Farm Energy Minimization Application

This paper develops a software service for dynamic performance optimization and control in performance-sensitive systems. The next generation of performance-sensitive systems is expected to be more distributed and dynamic. They will have multiple "knobs” that affect performance and resource allocation. However, relying on the conglomeration of independent knob controls can become increasingly suboptimal. The problem lies in performance composability or lack thereof; a challenge that arises because individual optimizations in performance-sensitive systems generally do not compose well when combined. Performance adaptation in such systems needs to be carefully designed and implemented by holistically considering performance composability in order to achieve desired system performance. A flexible supporting software layer is therefore needed to easily apply different holistic performance management techniques. In this paper, we develop a software service, called OptiTuner, that monitors the current performance and the resource availability in performance-sensitive systems and allows easy implementation of different performance management schemes based on theoretical concepts of constrained optimization and feedback control. In order to show the efficacy of OptiTuner, we apply it to implement three holistic energy minimization techniques in a real-time web server farm comprising 18 machines. Using an industry standard e-Business benchmark, TPC-W, we demonstrate that the three approaches save up to 40 percent of total energy cost compared to the baseline approaches that do not holistically optimize the cost.

Employee significance within stakeholder‐accountable performance management systems

PurposeResearch has not fully recognised the significance of employee stakeholders to the design and effective operation of performance management systems. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the centrality of employees within the stakeholder systems model of performance management it proposes.Design/methodology/approachStakeholder theory is utilised to critique current scorecard‐type performance management frameworks with a particular focus on the balanced scorecard as the most popular of these. Conceptual analysis is supported by case study evidence relating to the effectiveness of performance management systems in knowledge‐intensive organisations.FindingsThe paper identifies the concept of the responsible organisation as a means of assessing organisational maturity in performance management, and links it to dimensions of organisational justice. Linkage enables stakeholder perceptions of equitable treatment to be combined with effectiveness measures in the more holistic performance management framework proposed.Practical implicationsThe paper demonstrates the significance and application potential of the stakeholder systems development of scorecard‐type performance management frameworks. Conclusions confirm the “why” and the “how” of a more participatory role for organisation stakeholders, and why employee stakeholders merit a “first among equals” status within these.Originality/valueThe paper shows that the stakeholder systems approach represents a holistic approach to performance management through its incorporation of stakeholder perspectives at system design, operation and evaluation stages. The paper responds to the need for a new philosophy of performance management in an era of stakeholder accountable organisations.

Holistic performance management: an integrated framework

PurposeThe work presented aimed at developing an integrated framework for holistic performance management.Design/methodology/approachThe research was carried out using an action research approach. A case study was used as the basis for developing a pilot framework for performance management, involving both employees in the case organization and researchers. The research is based on theoretical contributions within performance management, total quality management, and trend analysis.FindingsA generic holistic performance management framework is outlined, encompassing diverse areas that need to play together and reinforce each other to give full effect to an organization. The main focus is a case study of a bank office, where a tailored version of the performance management framework was developed to give a setting where all these elements now are harmonized and work together.Research limitations/implicationsThe framework must be viewed as a pilot that should be further tested in other types of industries/organizations to verify its validity on a broader basis.Originality/valueThe generic framework for integrated performance management is novel and seems suitable for adaptation to many different industries and types of organization and can function as a guideline to avoiding launching concepts and programs that ultimately do not cancel each other out as their inter‐linkages have not been understood.

Gaining Bilateral Benefit through Holistic Performance Management and Reporting

Studies show that companies with developed performance management systems typically tend to have superior success in terms of financial, customer satisfaction and shareholder value. This paper describes that the reason for this performance can basically be seen in either (1) a better commitment of process owners through the application of holistic performance indices, (2) a better internal and/or external perception of the companies’ values through holistic reporting or (3) improved strategic resource deployment based on holistic performance indices. A research design is described, which is intended to point out reasons for the improved performance depending on selected context-variables.