Accountable business performance measurement for sustainable business excellence

摘要

Sustainable business excellence, in the sense of achieving long-term, stable, and excellent financial and nonfinancial performance, is still rather an exception than a rale in the business community. It is argued that one reason for this situation is the widespread ignorance among management concerning the importance of information on nonfinancial business performance; information that must be based on consistently integrated high-quality measurement. It is also argued that measuring nonfinancial performance with procedures designed to meet the highest requirements of relevance and reliability is a prerequisite for sustainable business excellence. The most widely used structure in Europe for achieving BE (business excellence) is the EFQM (Ref. 1) excellence model (frequently applied in the United States), and Kanji's business excellence model (Kanji, Ref. 2 and Kanji and Wallace, Ref. 3). The degree of BE could be manifested by different indicators. EFQM organizational excellence, for example, is measured by the European Quality Award (EQA) assessment criteria. Kristensen, et al. (Ref. 4) introduced an organizational excellence index based on PLS estimation of a structural equation system called the Danish Excellence Index. The empirical evidence based on European data is so far more scattered. (For Scandinavian results, see for example Hansson and Eriksson (Ref. 5), and Kristensen and Westlund (Ref. 6)). Accountability here refers to various quality requirements, standards and verifiability. The latter is, of course, required, in particular, when performance measurement is done with the purpose of externally reporting the performance. The authors briefly discuss these issues. They then argue that comparability, benchmarking, external reporting, but also internal management and monitoring of performance, imply the need for and information currency (as in the financial area), best-practice standards,- which will be recommended by accountants, and business performance measurement expertise. They, for example, argue that the EPSI rating methodology is an important starting point for such an information currency in the area of customer results performance. The authors also point out possible structures for other nonfinancial areas. Finally, the authors summarize the present situation, indicate some of the future challenges, and provide some recommendations.