ABSTRACT
The study of what constitutes work and how it should be assessed must surely be as old and as venerable as the human race. In one way or other, people must have had to work out how best to hunt, to sow seed, to cultivate, and to harvest. Inevitably this would have involved determining how effectively the processes associated with these operations were being carried out. Effectiveness is a core concept of modern management and depends on an understanding of the process and an ability to measure it. In this chapter, we explore the development of various attempts to measure performance that have the objective of improving processes and entire organizations. Abdel-Maksoud et al. (2005) conducted a literature survey and found that improvement initiatives, such as total quality management (TQM) had a better chance of success if coupled with performance measurement systems and that these initiatives required systems that went beyond solely fi nancial measurement. The literature on performance measurement is so diverse that many areas of management consider it their “patch,” including most notably accountancy; however, Ittner and Larker (1998) surveyed the literature and subdivided its approaches into three categories: value-based, nonfi nancial, and public sector. Waggoner et al. (1999) construct six: engineering, systems, management accounting,
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statistical, consumer marketing, and conformance to specifi cation approaches.
