ABSTRACT
Numbers and measurements are central devices in organizational planning and execution. The search for symbols of precision, accuracy, and accountability often leads to numbers. The bureaucratic model, with laws and regulations to be followed in both decisions and execution, implies the use of numbers to quantify organizational behavior. In New Public Management (NPM) and, more to the point, NPM tools such as Balanced Scorecard, proponents argue that the use of numbers is not merely a symbol, but the only way to both produce a secure coherence from goals through strategies to organizational outputs, and also to control the relation between resource input and production output (Carter 1989, 1991; Corporater.com; Mayston 1985; McNamara 2008).
