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The purpose of the study is to investigate how organizations can exploit performance management through reflective practice to foster innovativeness and performance.

A conceptual framework has been designed to link the studied concepts and to explicitly indicate current research gaps in the area. Moreover, the authors have conducted interventionist case studies to understand the interconnections between theory and practice.

This study showed that there are many possibilities with which to exploit performance management through reflective practice to foster innovativeness and performance. The study has three main implications. First, reflective practice can be learned and developed. Second, reflective practice is connected to innovativeness and performance. Third, performance management through performance measurement systems can assist in targeting the reflective practice.

New forms of performance measurement and management are receiving increasingly amount of attention, because the traditional forms of managing organizations do not fulfill the needs of rapidly changing environment. Prior studies maintain that a performance measurement and management supports the periodic execution of the same routines in organizations where changes are small or non-existent. In these forms, the role of reflection as an individual, collective or organizational practice is emphasized.

The aim of this chapter is to highlight the role of organizational reflectiveness as a possible enabler for innovation. In order to support the process of innovation, we need to understand organizational learning on a more detailed level, including reflection as an elemental sub-process in experiential, transformational, and action learning.

We present a tool and preliminary empirical findings for measuring an organization’s level of reflectiveness. We also provide some preliminary empirical results regarding whether reflectivity results in the generation of new innovations relating to work practices and processes.

The chapter fills two research gaps, and in doing so contributes to measuring and controlling organizational learning and innovation activities. First, we complement the existing conceptualization of reflective practice by utilizing the management control system (MCS) (Malmi & Brown, 2008) in the analysis of reflectiveness on the organization level. Finally, in the conclusion, we present reflective practice as a potential concept and practical tool for enhancing the interactive use of MCS. The interactive use of MCS has been recognized for its potential in boosting learning, creativity, and innovations in certain contexts (Davila, Foster, & Oyon, 2009), but so far the definitions for interactive use remain descriptive and varied among management accounting theorists.

The approach in this study is predominantly conceptual, with empirical and exploratory findings derived from measuring the level of reflectiveness in three organizations. The study enhances the understanding of management control based on the theoretical notion of multilevel reflection on a practice-based level. Empirically, reflective practices are often studied as a learning phenomenon on the individual and collective levels. However, such an approach generally does not incorporate managerial pragmatism regarding the causes of institutionalized learning or the means of managerial control for enabling reflection and, in consequence, innovations.

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of performance management (PM) in the use of reflective work practices.

The empirical evidence was collected during a one-year, action-oriented research project.

According to the results, PM can support the use of reflective work practices by affecting and guiding the human behavior in an organization. In this study, five roles of PM are emphasized in order to support reflective practices at work: making reflective work practices visible, supporting reflective dialogue, creating a favorable measurement culture, clarifying the goals at all organizational levels and motivating employees to use reflective work practices by means of compensation and rewards.

The results of the study can help professionals realize that reflective work practices may benefit organizational performance.

There is limited research and discussion on how a PM process through the use of reflective practices contributes to human resource management (HRM) and organizational effectiveness. In addition, PM literature has neglected the potential of reflective work practices in achieving performance at different levels (individual, group and organization). Reflective work practices, where individuals learn from their own and from each other’s professional experiences, may be the most important source of professional development and improvement. This paper argues that PM can also support this type of learning, and thus guide and motivate people in attaining business goals.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the outcomes of reflective practices in services. The paper contributes to the current understanding of the relationship between reflective practice and outcomes by presenting a description of the internal (i.e. what kind of reflection is required to attain the desired outcomes) and external (i.e. under what kind of circumstances does reflection result in the desired outcomes) factors of reflective practices.

The results of this investigation are based on a mixed-method research approach that utilises both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods.

According to the results, reflective practices are indeed connected to outcomes. Reflective practices foster better outcomes when they are more explicit and targeted through different organisational levels. The role of performance management and measurement is important in connecting the reflective practices with performance. Performance management must be considered as a communication and social system that allows the employees to discuss the learning and development process as a part of the results.

As a practical contribution, the results of the research may help professionals begin to understand that leveraging reflective practices may aid an organisation in achieving its desired outcomes.

Hitherto, studies that discuss the interphase of reflective practices and outcomes have mainly been theoretical considerations or surveys that lack an in-depth understanding of how the different methods operate in a real-life context. When focusing on the previous research, it is clear that in-depth empirical studies are needed to achieve a deeper understanding of the mechanisms and arrangements that connect reflective practice and outcomes. This research addresses this research gap by examining the outcomes of reflective practices in services.

This study aims to examine how to measure and evaluate the level at which the management control system of the organisation supports reflective practices. Though the literature on management control has recently recognised the value of reflection as a tool for organisational learning, there are few practical means of analysing the management control system alongside reflective activity. To improve and develop reflective practices for more comprehensive and systematic utilisation, the management control system has to support these practices.

The study is based on the current literature on reflection, reflective practices and management control and the pulling together of these three areas to determine how the evaluation and measurement of reflective practices should be organised. Based on that, the maturity model for measuring how the management control system supports reflective practices is elaborated. The empirical data testing the maturity model was collected from three case organisations.

As its main contribution, the study composes a maturity model for evaluating the stage of reflective practices within organisations/an organisation. The existing literature does not present models or frameworks for evaluating the maturity of this kind of competence development activity. The presented model has many advantages that make it useful for pragmatic assessment and facilitation of competence development processes.

As a practical tool, the maturity model helps to prioritise development actions when there is a need to enforce creative thinking (transformative learning) and sense-making within the organisation. Because an organisation cannot implement all the best practices in one phase, the maturity model can be used to introduce them in stages.

The study advances one way of defining measures for reflective practices such that they are led from the literature on such practices. In addition, the study composes a maturity model for evaluating an organisation’s stage of reflective practice. Before an organisation can develop and manage its reflective practices or identify necessary changes, the current state of its reflective practices should be analysed.