ABSTRACT

Measuring the performance of any business process has attracted the interest of academics and practitioners in their attempt to evaluate ‘how a business works’ (Argyris, 1977) and to find ways of improving decision making. There have been many definitions of what performance means, and many performance measurement (PM) frameworks have been recommended reflecting the various perspectives in the academic community as well as changing needs in the business world. Perhaps the most common definition was given by Neely et al. (1995), who defined PM as the ‘process of quantifying effectiveness and efficiency of action’ offering researchers and practitioners a way to approach the complex reality of performance into ‘a sequence of limited symbols than can be conveyed, in a meaningful manner under similar circumstances’ (Lebas, 1995), enabling interested parties to monitor performance and diagnose problems (Waggoner et al., 1999). The most frequently used measures are financial and evaluate the financial performance by reporting costs, income and profits or the economic state of an organisation.