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While management control and performance measurement research and practices have advanced significantly in the last decades, the research and applications to social impacts and social purpose organizations are underdeveloped. This chapter reports on three research studies that have important implications for future research and practice in the use of management control and performance measurement to solve global societal challenges.

This chapter provides new frameworks and performance measurement approaches used in three recent series of research projects. It also provides the results of this extensive research in using existing theories and managerial practices to improve success and the measurement of success in for-profit and nonprofit organizations that are focused on increasing their positive social impacts.

This research that spans more than 20 years and includes numerous projects and research methods in many countries has discovered a prior lack of application of existing theories, approaches, tools, and measures that are fundamental to management control and performance measurement. It found that much work is still needed in both academic research and managerial practices to apply them effectively in social purpose organizations and suggests areas for future research.

By reviewing the literature comprehensively and doing a series of related research projects, this analysis provides a foundation for future research in the applicability of management control and performance measurement approaches to the measurement and improvement of the social impacts of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Purpose – As corporations and capital markets become more global, it is increasingly important to understand the differences in corporate governance practices.

Approach – This chapter provides a framework for the implementation of corporate governance that can be used globally for study and adaptation. It also describes three corporate governance systems (Anglo-American, Communitarian, and Emerging Markets) and provides an analysis and comparison of how the framework for corporate governance is applied differently, and how success should be evaluated differently, in these three systems. Lastly, it considers the possibility of convergence toward a global system of corporate governance.

Practical implications – There is significant heterogeneity in corporate governance worldwide but there are universal aspects, such as roles, responsibilities, inputs, and processes, which result in effective corporate governance. Understanding the similarities and differences enables researchers and managers to work with multiple systems in different countries where corporations and stakeholders have varying objectives, structures, and internal and external determinants.

Value of chapter – This chapter presents a comparison of the three systems that is critical for further study of global practices. Additionally, the internal and external determinants that impact the varying corporate governance systems are analyzed to more carefully consider the performance measures that account for differences in objectives, motivations, and performance.

Marc J. Epstein

This paper reports the results of an extensive study of the effectiveness of MD&As. Our primary research question can be stated as follows: To what extent do MD&As, as currently issued, meet the self‐perceived needs of individual investors? To answer this question, we examine the responses to a survey questionnaire. The content of the questionnaire was based on an earlier survey conducted in 1973 by Epstein (1975). Our results are based on a random sample of shareholders owning at least 100 shares of one stock on either the New York Stock Exchange or the American Stock Exchange. We conclude that the MD&A section of annual reports is a potentially useful investment tool. In its current state, however, investors read it less, and rank it as less useful than the financial statements. Our survey indicates that it is not difficult to understand. We attribute its poor performance, in part, to a lack of credibility, and, to a larger extent, to a lack of prospective information. Evidence on the relationship between demographic characteristics and usefulness shows that wealthy, inexperienced investors are the only group of investors who are currently using the MD&A in any substantial way.

While balanced scorecards, strategy maps, and causal linkage models have been applied extensively by profit organizations over the last two decades, a similar approach to analysis, called logic models, has been increasingly applied by non-profit and other social-purpose organizations. This chapter provides a discussion of the basics of logic models and shows their application in three different settings, which include personal improvement, the social impact of business schools, and corporate governance. The chapter also provides an extensive discussion on field research and a case study of a leading international business school, wherein logic models were applied followed by social impact measurement. Finally, the chapter includes suggestions for future research that is needed to improve the applications of logic models and social impact measurement and the success of social-purpose organizations including business schools.

This paper provides a review of the progress made in both academic literature and corporate practice over the last forty years. Although there has been an increase in the number of companies producing social and environmental reports, the quality of the disclosures has not increased. Further, there is little evidence of progress in the integration of social and environmental impacts into management decisions. The paper provides suggestions on research needs to increase the integration of social and environmental impacts into management decisions and improve both the internal reporting and external disclosures and accountability of corporations.

Our study investigates the relationships between risk management systems (RMS), strategy and organizational performance. The existing research has extensively studied the effect of strategy on organizational performance. There is also a growing body of literature suggesting that RMS positively influence the achievement of organizational objectives. However, there are only a few conceptual papers (and no empirical evidence) on the relationship between strategy and RMS. We investigate whether different strategy types (defender, analyzer, prospector, and reactor) induce different levels of RMS development and, hence, affect performance indirectly, as well as directly. We use regression analysis and survey data to test the proposed relationships. Our results confirm the direct effects of strategy type and RMS development on performance. We confirm that prospectors perform better than defenders, analyzers, and reactors across five measures of performance (profitability, sales growth, market share, new product development, and customer satisfaction). We also find that companies with more developed RMS perform better in terms of non-financial performance (measured by new product development). Contrary to the prevailing evidence, we do not find significant results for financial performance. Moreover, our findings show that there is no mediating effect of RMS development in the relationship between strategy type and performance. This implies that RMS and strategy act as independent variables, each individually affecting organizational performance.

The management control and performance measurement literature reflects a long history of discussion related to organizational, team, and individual rewards. Yet, much of the research and guidance in the academic and managerial literature has been inadequate. Reflecting work on three current research studies, this chapter examines the gaps in our current understanding of the relationship of performance measurement, rewards, and performance and suggests some research questions that are of significant interest.

This book collects representative papers from the sixth conference on Performance Measurement and Management Control held in Nice, in September 2011. The conference has been running every two years since 2001 with increasing participation each edition. The number of participants as well as the quality of the papers highlight the relevance of this topic in the evolving world of organizational management.