Target Gaming, Organizational Deviance and the Unintended Consequences of Performance Measurement [PhD Project]

Strong candidate sought to study the impact of performance measurement on organizational behaviour.

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www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/phd

working on understanding the full effect of using performance measurement in organizations and will challenge the prevailing view of performance measurement as an effective instrument for leading change and managing strategy execution.

Admission requirements: • a strong first degree (UK level 2.1 minimum) • please see website for English language requirements.

Deadlines: • applications for scholarships – mid-April.

Expressions of interest, alongside a CV, are invited via email to andrey.pavlov@cranfield.ac.uk in the first instance.

See full details on our website.

The concepts of “alignment”, “cascading”, and “strategic performance management” have come to dominate recent research in performance measurement. They have also been eagerly adopted by many organizations, where performance measurement has become the standard tool for implementing strategies and ensuring consistent behaviours.

However, the dismal success rate of performance measurement initiatives and the additional problems they cause are starting to raise serious questions. Recent revelations of data manipulation by the NHS and the Police in the UK as well as in the Education sector in the USA suggest that measures can - and do! - drive behaviours that were not intended by those who put the measures in place. Performance measurement may in fact be a crude way of interfering in organizations rather than a sophisticated instrument for implementing strategies. Moreover, the use of measurement may be driven by its ability to mask managerial incompetence and serve the desire for control rather than by its benefits for managing organizations.

So what drives the dysfunctional consequences of measurement? What is its impact on people’s behaviour? How does it affect collaboration, cooperation, and trust? You will be

Supervisors: Dr Andrey Pavlov, Professor Cliff Bowman & Professor Mike Bourne