Guest editorial

Citation

Holloway, J. (2009), "Guest editorial", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 58 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2009.07958daa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 58, Issue 4

In 1999 the British Academy of Management took the bold decision to establish Special Interest Groups (SIGs), emulating the divisional structure of the rather larger US Academy of Management. SIGs were seen as a way of organising and engaging a growing and diverse membership and providing new opportunities for less experienced academics to become involved with the Academy. These groups, it was hoped, would provide more activities for members, bringing people with similar interests together and (indirectly at least) improving management theory through its links with practice. Whenever possible SIGs were expected to avoid traditional academic or functional discipline boundaries, instead fostering the emergence of transdisciplinary management research. To a large extent this vision has been sustained, and ten years on new SIGs continue to be born. They are at the heart of the BAM Conference and events all year round, as well as generating research projects, seminar series’ and numerous book and journal publications.

This special issue of International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management showcases contributions from one of the earliest SIGs to be founded – the Performance Management Special Interest Group (PMSIG) – which has remained very firmly committed to the multidisciplinary ideal. An indication of the breadth of members’ interests is provided by the five papers presented here, which also introduce a number of issues that remain central to PM research and are highly relevant to practice.

Gavin Dick’s examination of the relationship between ISO 9001 adoption and performance change addresses a key concern head-on: what benefits are actually derived from adopting such performance improvement practices? From a study of the empirical literature he asks whether the practices directly “cause” improved performance, or whether the organisations that select and adopt them effectively are already successful performers. If so, there are fundamental implications for those who try to emulate them – the tool may not, in itself, be the solution. This study (on which a prize-winning BAM Conference paper was based) provides valuable analytical and methodological pointers for tackling some of the most challenging questions in PM research.

While quality management systems such as ISO 9001 have been with us for decades, the focus of Matthew Hinton and David Barnes’ study is the rather less well-charted territory of e-business. They set out to identify how firms with substantial e-business operations are measuring performance, looking for new measures and measurement systems that may be emerging to meet the demands of new business models. They conclude that the picture to date is far from clear – exemplary new practices are emerging, but in many cases based on existing measurement systems. While it is not too soon to provide some guidance to practitioners based on their findings, they identify a number of inconsistencies between theory and practice meriting further research.

Vinh Chau and Barry Witcher also adopt a case study approach, in this case longitudinal “tracer” studies of the influences on strategic performance of regulated public utilities. The focus here is not so much on the performance of the companies, however, as on the importance of understanding the nature and impact of “reflexivity” in rich qualitative “strategy-as-practice” case studies. Indeed, they argue that unless and until the relationship between the researcher and the context being researched is more explicitly articulated, the potential of such studies to contribute to theory-building cannot be fully realised.

As with all the other authors, André de Waal (here writing with Harold Counet) has been a PMSIG member since its early days and continues to be interested in “big” questions: what do we know about PM implementation problems and how they might be overcome? Researching “failure” is always challenging, but anyone who has tried to implement a PM system knows that it is rarely without problems. de Waal and Counet draw on messages in the literature, mediated by expert opinions, in order to identify barriers and contextual features which, if properly recognised, can be taken into account so that successful implementation is more likely to occur.

The kinds of challenges identified by de Waal and Counet’s study will resonate with many practitioners as well as PM researchers. This is certainly so in the case of PMSIG members! The papers in this special issue reflect the range of methodological approaches, industry contexts and types of PM which we study. A fuller flavour of the range of expertise in the group can be gained by participating in the PMSIG track at the annual British Academy of Management Conference, or following the leads given in the 2008 volume edited by Thorpe and Holloway, Performance Management: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, dedicated to the memory of one of the SIG’s founding members, Tony Beasley. That book’s conclusions form the basis for the paper by Holloway here, which draws together reflections on the strengths and limitations of contemporary PM research and the impact which a strong practice-relevant focus can have both on theory development and organisational improvement. A key message, echoing the other papers’ contributions, is that regardless of the “discipline” lens through which PM is viewed and the tools being employed, effective PM is almost always associated with effective management.

Jacky HollowayGuest Editor