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A number of writers in the service management literature have observed that because service quality is difficult to measure there is a danger that service organisations will neglect to measure it, despite the fact that service quality is often critical to their competitive business success. The results of an empirical research project investigating the quality measurement systems of six multi‐site UK service organisations, all of which consider themselves to differentiate on the basis of service quality, are described. Two of the organisations were found to have very few quality measures and recognised that this was a major gap in their performance measurement systems. Two had developed a range of customer‐based measures of service quality which were reported regularly and widely in the organisations. The other two companies had developed a wide range of internal and external, hard and soft quality measures. These companies used managers as well as customers to measure both tangible and intangible aspects of service. Internal measures were used to corroborate the perceptual measures drawn from customers and, conversely, the external measures were used to support service design and the setting of internal quality targets.

The problem of using management accounting techniques to measure managers' performance in the service sector is examined. The essence of the problem, it is argued, is that organisations are being judged externally on one set of criteria while the internal control system measures a different set of criteria. Using a management accounting perspective the article identifies the dominance of accounting measures in performance measurement and demonstrates how this has led to dysfunctional behaviour of managers. It is then proposed that a control system be developed that aims to achieve organisational control by the specification of a range of control measures. Measures of finance, customer service, resource utilisation, employee attitudes and service development should be included. Furthermore, no one set of measures can be expected to satisfy all organisations, the exact set and relative weighting of each component being determined by the particular organisation's objectives.

Over the years manufacturing managers have been unified by their acceptance of certain terminology to describe generic production processes. This has facilitated the sharing of ideas and management techniques and the development of our understanding of process choice implications on manufacturing strategies. In the service literature, no process model has been so powerful or pervasive as the manufacturing model. Postulates that a service typology which transcends narrow industry boundaries may lead to some cross‐fertilization of ideas and to an understanding of the management methods and techniques appropriate to each service type. Proposes a model analogous to the production process model, which has achieved such universal recognition in the world of manufacturing. Just as production volume is used in the latter model to integrate a wide range of production process dimensions, so suggests that the volume of customers processed per business unit per day correlates with six classification dimensions developed from the service operations literature. Proposes that the three types of service process, professional service, service shop and mass service, give rise to different management concerns, and that service strategy, control and performance measurement will differ significantly between the three.

Considers the relationship between the types of targets or benchmarks used and reward structures adopted in two contrasting performance improvement strategies – continuous improvement and radical change. Hypothesises that the process of target setting and the reward structures adopted will be different between the two strategies. The propositions are that organisations involved in continuous improvement of a process will base their performance targets on past performance and internal benchmarking, arrived at through consultation and with a mixture of financial and non‐financial rewards for achieving targets. For processes involving radical change, targets will be based on external benchmarks imposed by senior management, with financial rewards for their achievement. The findings from a semi‐structured questionnaire conducted in 40 UK service organisations reveal that most continuous improvement targets were based on past performance and that processes undergoing radical change made limited use of external benchmarks. In the majority of cases, targets were imposed by managers without consultation, with rewards linked to theachievement of those targets. Financial rewards, particularly financial bonuses, predominated in both improvement strategies. The implications are that the potential benefits of adopting process changes are being constrained. In continuous improvement the lack of participation in target setting could be undermining the team‐based empowerment philosophy of the strategy. The aim of radical change is to achieve a paradigm shift involving revolutionary rather than evolutionary change which is less likely to be fulfilled with targets based on past performance.

This paper suggests that there is a natural tension between operations managers and management accountants. This tension is particularly evident when decisions are being made about process change. Semi‐structured interviews with 40 operations managers revealed that accountants were only involved in about half of change processes. Surprisingly this proportion was the same for both continuous and radical change programmes despite the latter involving greater risk and capital investment. Six case studies were then used to identify the factors which underpin the degree of involvement where there was close interaction between accountants and operations managers. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for operations managers and some suggestions for further research.

Regulatory efforts within the UK water industry in recent years have been predominated by the concern for measuring the cost efficiencies of the privatized companies. More recent regulatory work, however, has moved away from the assessment of performance on the strict basis of financial indicators to a multidimensional perspective that includes quality concerns, combining the interests of management, shareholders and consumers in the assessment procedures. This study adopts a similar perspective, describing a multi‐stakeholder performance model for UK water companies, which develops an understanding of performance improvement in financial and quality terms. Thus, the interests of shareholders and consumers are addressed – and differentiated – within a single performance frontier framework. The ways in which one approaches different regions of the frontier characterizes the different stakeholder perspectives, entertains the possibility of trade‐offs between them, and provides the basis of determining “balanced” positions in performance space.

Presents a number of papers from the Performance Measurement Association conference held in July 2002. Reveals that all the papers investigate developments in the field of performance measurement and management since the Kaplan and Norton Balanced Scorecard was first introduced.

The purpose of this paper is to offer novel insights into: knowledge of proto-feminism through description and analysis of the rule of the seventh century female Emperor Wu Zetian; postcolonial theory by revealing the existence and proto-feminist activities of a non-western female leader; and the literature on gender and invisibility through a study of a leading figure that is relatively unknown to western feminists and is even, in feminist terms, something of a neglected figure.

In order to examine Wu’s proto-feminist practices as recorded in historical materials, we use critical hermeneutics as a tool for textual interpretation, through the following four stages: choosing texts from historical records and writings of Wu; analyzing the historical sociocultural context; analyzing the relationship between the text and the context; and offering a conceptual framework as a richer explanation.

Wu’s life activities demonstrate proto-feminism in late seventh century China in at least four aspects: gender equality in sexuality, in social status, in politics, and women’s pursuit of power and leadership.

Future research may dig into the paradox of Wu’s proto-feminist practices, the relationship between organizational power and feminism/proto-feminism, and the ways in which Wu’s activities differ from other powerful women across cultures, etc.

The study encourages a rethink of women and leadership style in non-western thought.

The study supports Calás and Smircich’s 2005 call for greater understanding of feminist thought outside of western thought and a move to transglobal feminism.

This study recovers long lost stories of women leadership that are “invisible” in many ways in the historical narratives, and contributes to postcolonial feminism by revealing the existence of indigenous proto-feminist practice in China long before western-based feminism and postcolonial feminism emerged.