Strategic development process: investigating the relationship between organisational direction and performance measurement

Abstract

Strategy development is an issue of great importance for the practitioners and at the centre of the academic research over the last century. This thesis concentrates on the investigation of strategy from the development and implementation process point of view. In particular, this thesis presents a study on the relationship between organisational direction and performance measurement. Organisational direction manifests the purpose of the existence for the organisation and its future desired state, while performance measurement is a monitoring and control mechanism for the assessment of the performance achievements. It is a common place that organisational success requires the alignment between organisational direction and performance measurement. On this topic, the existing published literature includes a significant number of recommendations on how to manage effectively the relationship between organisational direction and performance measurement; nevertheless, there is a distinct lack of empirical evidences on the current status and trends of this relationship. Therefore, this thesis examines the interrelationship and interdependencies between these two concepts. The present research has been conducted through three different empirical investigations: an exploratory case study, a survey and follow up interviews. The exploratory case study examines the relationship between organisational direction and performance within an academic institution, the University of Warwick. The survey, was built on the observations made on the exploratory case study, and examined the role of organisational direction and performance measurement in the success of the strategic development process. Finally, the follow up interviews have been undertaken in order to enhance the findings of the survey and to provide insights and explanations for the variations observed in the survey. Synthesising the results from the three empirical investigations, it is attempted to describe the trends, dynamics and practicalities of the relationship between organisational direction and performance measurement and to present the determinants of this relationship