Editorial

Citation

Radnor, Z. and Heap, J. (2006), "Editorial", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 55 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2006.07955baa.001

Editorial

It is great to see the journal attracting a range of papers across a range of both subject disciplines and industrial sectors – from marketing through organisational behaviour to operational research and engineering and from private to public sector. This shows that performance measurement and management impacts on many aspects of our working and personal lives. In terms of promoting academic and practitioner debate, having such a wide range of papers creates a richer and deeper discussion with the opportunity to consider and reflect on many different perspectives. As part of the ongoing development of, and improvement to, this journal we aim to encourage such discussion and debate between academics and authors within the journal to further the establishment of productivity, performance measurement and management as a recognised and established discipline in its own right. At the same time as addressing “big ideas”, we want to point out the little things that we all come across that reflect in some small way on performance and productivity measurement and management.

For example … . have you recently seen a pledge from ORACLE, the software company, to maintain lifetime support for some of their new acquisitions? All well and good – but what do they mean by “lifetime”. All our past experience has shown that when a software house makes such a promise, they mean for as long as the product has a life – and they can end that life whenever they wish. So, if we were a customer of a software package recently taken over by ORACLE, alarm bells might be ringing.

We all know that there is a range of factors affecting attendance, attention and performance at work or wherever. But sometimes the breadth of that range surprises one. A student recently made a suggestion – via a formal suggestion scheme – that student performance would be substantially raised if the university (and we’re not telling you which one) made TVs available so that students could watch Trisha! (think Oprah or Jerry Springer if you’ve never seen Trisha) without having to go back to their hall or digs.

This example shows the importance of considering “human factors” when addressing performance management. Co-incidentally, (or do you credit us as editors with the ability to plan and connect?) many of the papers in this issue are concerned with the employee or human aspects of productivity and performance measurement. The first academic paper by Owen and Towill uses the Cusum procedure in order to guide management on how long it may take to obtain permanent improvement in operator performance. They argue that successful process improvement needs an understanding of dynamic response, rather than just observing the numbers. The second academic paper by Mendibil and MacBryde is concerned with team-based performance measurement systems. Through rich qualitative data they have identified eleven factors that affect the design and implementation of team based performance measurement systems suggesting that three in particular (team maturity, business process view and focus and content of appraisal and reward systems) have not been previously been addressed by previous research and literature. The final academic paper by Esain and Massey, moves into the public sector by considering the effect of temporary staffing in the health sector, through the analysis of the use of bank and agency nurses. The results of the diagnostic action research indicates that the requirement of temporary staff is predictable so it is possible for hospitals to replace agency nurses with bank nurses which the paper argues will improve outcomes of the quality in service, delivery and reduce cost.

The practitioner paper by Burke and Hsieh, reminds us that these human beings, our employees, respond to various stimuli and work for a variety of rewards. The paper addresses the issue of performance-related pay systems, suggesting that there can be an optimal balance of fixed and variable components, which equalises the benefits to the employee and the organisation. The second practitioner paper by Davis takes an established concept – the service-profit chain, and transfers it to the public sector, creating a model which public sector organisations can use to align internal processes with organisational goals.

The links between goals, employee performance and environmental variables may be complex. However, in many organisations and situations these links are straightforward. You wouldn’t always think so if you simply observe organisational behaviour, however. For example, it always amazes us how in school holiday time operations managers at tourist or leisure facilities seem to be surprised about the numbers of visitors rising! Or at least it appears so when in the restaurants and refreshment areas there are so few staff that the queue is out of the door and the tables are full of used plates and cups… with just a little thought and planning how different it could be … .

Good advice has always been … “Know what you don’t know”. It always helps to understand the limitations of your knowledge in relation to a particular issue. It also helps if you know what you can know (within time and other constraints to meet a particular objective) and accept what you can’t. Even better if you also know the extent of your opponents knowledge. Know what we mean?

One of the co-editors recently went on a media-training course. (Yes … the continual requests for radio and TV interviews are a bit tiresome, dahling!) The summary at the end of the session (which was both interesting and useful) was “Prepare, Think, Ask, Stay Calm … and work to your own agenda”. Not bad advice in other areas, is it?

Zoe Radnor and John HeapCo-Editors