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The Exceptional Manager

Chapter 6: Measuring Performance in Innovative Firms

Is it the technique or the way it is used? One study on the impact of balanced scorecard in controlled comparisons suggests that up to 40% of the performance differences between similar units might be attributed to the adoption of management practices such as balanced scorecard (Griffith et al., AIM), but this of course does not address the question of the technique or how it is used, but only give some idea what magnitude of improvements might be achieved.

Another study sets out to address the question of whether the effect of organizational performance measurement diversity on product innovation will differ depending on how organizational performance measures are used. (Yaghi, B.and Neely, A., 'Performance Implications of Performance Measurement Diversity in Manufacturing Firms', EurOMA Annual Conference, 2007, Ankara).

There remain a number of key questions related to the notion of the ambidextrous organization, including the unit-of-analysis issue; how and in what ways can this be enacted: individual, team or business unit? One key question is clearly the relationship with the corporate HQ and in particular the nature of innovation within the multinational enterprise (see Birkinshaw, AIM).

There is no significant further research to report in this particular area but it is worth noting that some of the description of the approach could be seen to fit well within the so-called 'Five Whys' element in the Toyota production system (TMMK).