Editorial

Citation

(2008), "Editorial", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 12 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2008.26712aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Measuring Business Excellence, Volume 12, Issue 1.

The first issue of Volume 12 begins with a hot topic in the field of organisational performance and its management corporate responsibility. It is an issue on the agenda of most organisations and has broader implications for society at large. In their paper Pedersen and Neergaard address the key issue of how Corporate Responsibility (CSR) is integrated into mainstream performance management frameworks. They suggest that if CSR is to be integrated into mainstream management then it must be integrated into the frameworks used to manage. Using a case study the paper investigates how CSR can be integrated into the Business Excellence Model and some of the issues and difficulties in achieving integration.

There then follow two papers concerning measurement and management of customer related performance. Wang’s paper discusses relationship building activities amongst retailers and their effect on the attitude and behaviour or customers. The paper highlights the importance of building relationships with customers and the need to train and develop staff to support such activity.

Rajagopal’s paper discusses the importance of measuring brands if organisations are to build their brands and understand their impact on overall performance. The paper discusses the components of a brand metrics strategy and application of brand scorecard as an approach to measure the overall performance of brands.

In their paper Olsson et al. discuss the measurement and management of projects. They highlight that traditionally projects have been assessed based on delivery within a defined timeframe, budget and specified quality. However they highlight that this does not necessarily consider the project fully from the project owners’ perspective. Using a number of case studies they take a stakeholder view of project performance. They find that projects often have multiple stakeholders and that identifying owners, whilst not always straightforward, is important in assessing its performance.

The final paper in this issue discusses another highly topical issue in the field, that of corporate governance. Chambers’ paper explores whether boards get the assurance they need from internal audit that their policies are being implemented by management as intended and that the future risks are being anticipated and communicated clearly to the board. The paper argues that governance processes and risk management have joined the traditional internal control as being within the remit of internal audit. The paper finds that currently many internal auditors are only just tentatively testing the water with respect to the audit of internal governance processes and suggests that it is imperative to strengthen internal audit’s link with the board, and particularly to its non-executive directors.