Editorial

Citation

Bourne, M. and Kennerley, M. (2007), "Editorial", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 11 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2007.26711baa.001

Editorial

The second issue of volume 11 Measuring Business Excellence begins with another look at Strategic Performance Management. In his article Andre de Waal observes that 56 per cent of performance management system implementations fail. He argues that many PMS projects fail not because of problems designing performance measures or a Balanced Scorecard, but in embedding the systems so that it is actually used to gain sustained benefits. He particularly observes the common failure to consider and effectively address the behavioral side of performance management systems. As a result his paper presents, and demonstrates through a case study, a strategic performance management development cycle which incorporates the design of a strategic performance management model, a strategic reporting model and a performance driven behavioral model.

In their paper Atkinson and Maxwell continue the theme of performance management and specifically the development of performance measures to drive performance in a partnership environment. They present an interesting case of a multi-agency approach to delivering public services. The paper reports a shift from collecting activity data on an organization by organization basis to managing information on a multi-agency basis using indicators based on outcomes as part of an integrated performance measurement system.

In the third paper, Charles Emery discusses the difficulties in driving through performance improvement in practice. The paper identifies common problems of inadequate tracking and follow-through of cross-functional corrective actions and strategic objectives. The paper presents an approach for improving the effectiveness and accountability of implementing action plans that has been applied in practice.

The final three papers of the issue discuss the common issue of customer satisfaction. The first of these papers by Dimitriades and Maroudas discuss satisfaction with public services in a Greek context. Their approach is to look at the way that demographic factors, particularly age and gender, influence people’s satisfaction with public services.

Setijono and Dahlgaard take a slightly different take, looking at customer value as a performance indicator to aid performance improvement. They integrate the concept of customer value with quality and performance improvement tools to develop a customer-value-driven quality improvement framework. They bring together approaches that enable operation performance improvement actions to be linked to things that customers value.

In the final paper Liang and Wang discuss the effect of relationship bonding tactics on the relationships with customers and their loyalty. They present different actions that organizations can take to build relationships with customers, and describe a model of how these actions influence customer loyalty.

Mike Bourne, Mike Kennerley