Strategic Performance Management in Practice: Advantages, Disadvantages and Reasons for Use

Abstract:     
Strategic performance management (SPM) has become an important vehicle for business management in today's turbulent business environment. Therefore SPM has attracted much research interest from the side of both scientists and policy-makers. The question is however whether SPM has brought added value for organizations. This paper examines the advantages, disadvantages and reasons for use of SPM which organizations experienced in practice. Based on literature research and interviews at seventeen prominent Dutch organizations, four main advantages, (higher result orientation, better strategic clarity, higher people quality, higher organizational quality), two main disadvantages (badly aligned system, low information quality) and two main reasons for use (focus on control, focus on strategy) were identified. The research showed that in general the advantages were experienced to a much greater degree than the disadvantages, and that specific reasons for use achieved specific advantages. With the research results, management can convince organizational members that SPM is indeed beneficial for the organization. Management can also check whether full benefit has been achieved by using SPM.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 19

Keywords: strategic performance management, organizational results, management control, performance-orientation

JEL Classification: M49

working papers series