Challenges of Performance Evaluation in Practice

The previous two main chapters of this brief book describe a fundamental theory and an important methodology of non-financial performance evaluation. Traditional production theories and data envelopment models are generalised in such a way that key performance indicators are represented by multiple, a priori incommensurable cost and benefit functions which are defined on inputs and outputs of the activities to be evaluated. This last chapter sketches selected further aspects and challenges that are essential for performance evaluation in practice. In particular, it is concerned with (1) balance and specialisation as performance categories in addition to effectiveness and efficiency; (2) the identification, selection and qualitative differentiation of the inputs and outputs that determine the considered costs and benefits; (3) the influence of the choice of compared activities and of exogenous weighting factors on the relative performance; (4) approaches to detect dependencies of the performance indicators from the inputs and outputs, even though they are often not quantifiable; and (5) more comprehensive concepts and systems of performance management and management accounting which may include the topics covered in this book.