Reviewing Performance or Changing Routines? An Analysis of the Experience of Participants in Performance Management Review Meetings

摘要

The problem examined in this thesis falls under the broad question of the nature ofeffect of performance measurement and management (PMM) on organizationalperformance. Responding to the unsuccessful attempts of the current literature toproduce conclusive evidence of the effect of PMM on performance and building on therecent studies documenting the effect of PMM on organizational processes, the workreported in this thesis employs the organizational routines perspective as an analyticallens for examining the way in which a particular PMM practice – a performancemanagement review meeting – affects organizational processes that generateperformance. More specifically, the study uses Feldman and Pentland’s (2003) model ofroutines in order to explore the ways in which organizational actors experience theostensive aspect of organizational routines in the context of a performance managementreview meeting.Based on two case studies conducted in the UK in 2009, the thesis develops a modelsuggesting that performance management review meetings influence the dynamics oforganizational routines by affecting a number of specific processes that constitute theengagement of the participants at the meeting with the ostensive aspect of the routine.The results highlight the critical role of attention in these processes and suggest anumber of ways in which the attention of the participants may be influenced. As such,the study explicates the micro dynamics of the link between a PMM intervention in theform of the performance management review meeting and the organizational processesthat generate performance, thus making a step towards increasing the understanding ofthe direct impact of PMM on performance.