Selected papers from the 6th International PMA Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand, April 2009

Citation

Greatbanks, R. and Bourne, M. (2010), "Selected papers from the 6th International PMA Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand, April 2009", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 14 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2010.26714aaa.001

Selected papers from the 6th International PMA Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand, April 2009

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Measuring Business Excellence, Volume 14, Issue 1

In April 2009 the PMA Conference was held at the University of Otago School of Business, Dunedin, New Zealand. For the first time in its history the PMA Conference was held in the southern hemisphere, and provided an ideal opportunity for many Australasian academics and practitioners to meet and contribute to the field of performance measurement and management.

The 6th PMA Conference attracted a balance of international academics and practitioners with research interests and backgrounds as varied as public and private sector, local and central government, tertiary education, primary and secondary health, service consultancy, and manufacturing. The resulting diversity of experiences and personal perspectives was embraced within the discussions and debate in and around the conference themes, and is reflected in the selection of papers offered within this special edition of Measuring Business Excellence. These nine papers have been selected as they represent both a valuable contribution to the field of performance measurement, and appropriately reflect the major themes and debate of the 2009 conference.

The first paper, by Paolo Taticchi, Flavio Tonelli and Luca Cagnazzo, presents a general overview of the performance measurement and management (PMM) literature for both SME and large organisations and offers guidance for future research in these areas.

The second and third papers by Maria Rey-Marston and Andy Neely, and M. Sobótka and K.W. Platts, provide discussion of organizational and inter-organizational performance measurement. Rey-Marston and Neely consider the alignment of performance measures in a contractual inter-organizational relationship, and Sobótka and Platts examine the possibility of managing an organization without using performance measures.

Papers four to six, by Rodney Dormer and Derek Gill, Martin Broad and Andrew Goddard, and Doug Galwey and Barry Ogilvie all present a view of performance measurement within a public sector context, a major theme of the 2009 PMA conference. Dormer and Gill consider the use of different performance models within New Zealand’s public service agencies and offer an empirical insight on performance practice within individual public sector agencies. Broad and Goddard consider the role of performance measurement within the UK higher education system, and Galwey and Ogilvie focus on the management of the Crown’s (central government) interests in the New Zealand tertiary education sector.

Papers seven and eight, by André de Waal and Winnie O’Grady, Paul Rouse and Cathy Gunn, consider the role of management control systems. De Waal’s paper uses empirical data to consider the relationship between instrumental and behavioural dimensions in organizational performance. The paper by O’Grady et al. assesses two dominant accounting frameworks to look for potential enhancements and inform future management control research. Finally paper nine by Brudan offers a broad conceptual view of the development of performance management and proposes a systems thinking derived integrated model for the future.

The conference and papers presented in this special issue give some indication of the diversity of the field of performance measurement and management. The field is starting to mature as conceptual papers give way to more empirical studies, the role and consequences of performance measurement are considered in different settings and the fundamental underpinning beliefs are challenged. However, like strategy, performance measurement and organisational performance management is, and will remain, a field drawing on insights from multiple disciplines as well as practice, making this a vibrant field for future research.

Richard GreatbanksBased at the School of Business, University of Otago, New Zealand

Mike Bourne Professor of Business Performance in The Centre for Business Performance, Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield, UK.