Performance Measurement in Dynamic Environments

The 2021 PMA Conference and related Special Issue of MAR welcome research on performance measurement and management in a dynamic environment. Whereas the conference aims to offer a stimulating opportunity to present and discuss novel work in this area, the Special Issue of MAR welcomes paper submissions on this theme both within and outside of the PMA Conference route.

A rich seam of prior work has highlighted and informed the need for performance measurement and evaluation systems to respond to external changes. Research suggests that there are several challenges in effectively designing and using these systems even in relatively stable environments, where an organization’s activities are comparatively predictable and there are few disruptions.

In a dynamic environment, not to mention a disruptive one, designing effective performance management systems is inevitably more challenging. How then is performance measurement used in fast moving, more uncertain, complex, disruptive, or ‘new’ environments? Examples include technological disruptions; constraints to globalization such as recent supply-chain disruptions and reversals of global networks through ‘reshoring’; new forms of collaboration between organizations as well as new forms of ‘employment’ (e.g., remote working, ‘gig’ work); vast data and information challenges arising through the ‘Internet of Things’ and from social media.

There is a need for honing our knowledge to inform our understanding of the use of performance measurement and management in these settings. For this conference, our intent is to bring together studies at the leading edge of performance measurement and management. We are interested in the relationship between performance measurement and strategy; in the ways in which these systems operate in fluid and dynamic organizations; and how they are used in specific situations such as decision-making, monitoring, and control. We are also interested in different settings, both within and across organizations. We are interested in performance measurement in financial (cost effectiveness, profitability, returns) and nonfinancial terms, using a wide range of data, both historical and predictive. We are also interested in trends and developments, especially when these engage conceptually with the literature.

Topics captured by this call include, but are not limited to:

• The use of different types of performance measurement systems for decision making in dynamic environments.
• The influence of crises or major shocks such as Covid-19 on planning and control, performance measurement and management.
• Capturing performance ‘through the business cycle’ and the relative importance of efficiency vs. resilience to buffer uncertainty ‘pro-cyclically’ through peaks and troughs.
• Integrated performance measurement and risk management systems.
• The role of performance measurement in corporate governance, including stakeholder concerns.
• Performance measurement and management in supply chains and networks of organizations to underpin trust, mitigate risk, and support ‘contracting’.
• The use of technology and technological innovations in performance measurement systems to help overcome the challenges of managing and controlling performance in dynamic environments.
• The role or use and usefulness of big data, machine learning, and other advanced technologies (e.g., blockchain) in performance measurement and management systems.
• Data protection and data security-related issues of performance measurement and related safeguards/risks and regulatory concerns and compliance.
• The predictive capacity of performance measurement systems.
• The measurement of service performance.
• The development and usage of performance measurement for organizational learning and, more generally, in capability development.
• The role of performance measurement in transformation programs, especially where there is a major change in strategy.

We welcome studies drawing on any relevant theoretical source discipline and employing any relevant research method, including case/field studies, surveys, archival studies, experiments, ethnographic and historical papers, as well as conceptually engaged descriptive work or thought pieces.

The 2021 PMA Conference (www.pmaconference.co.uk) will be at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, on June 27-30, 2021. Authors are welcome to submit their papers for consideration in a special issue of Management Accounting Research. Whereas the conference aims to offer a stimulating environment to present and receive feedback on novel work on the theme of performance measurement in dynamic environments, the Special Issue of MAR also welcomes papers on this theme outside of the PMA Conference route.

Papers will be subject to MAR’s normal review process. Please submit your paper via MAR’s submission system (ees.elsevier.com/mar/default.asp), but once inside the system, follow a designated Special Issue track. This “Performance Measurement in Dynamic Environments” Special Issue track will open on the MAR submission website on May 1, 2021. We anticipate that this track will remain open until August 31, 2021. It helps if authors also mention their intention to have their paper considered for the Special Issue track in their cover letter.

Guest Editors for the Special Issue of MAR:

• Paula van Veen-Dirks (University of Groningen, The Netherlands) – p.van.veen-dirks@rug.nl
• Marc Wouters (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany) – marc.wouters@kit.edu

Please contact them if you have any questions related to the special issue.

Although first published as regular articles in MAR, accepted papers for this Special Issue will eventually be available as a Virtual Special Issue. This means that accepted papers considered for this Special Issue are published and citable on a timely basis before they appear together in a virtual special issue.