Organizational Performance – A Concept That Self-Seeks To Find Itself

This article proposes a brief approach to the concept of performance starting from both Marston’s motto “Don’t lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations” and the opinions, views and definitions expressed in the scholarly literature by various authors. Diversification and increase in the complexity of activities of national and multinational organizations have generated significant changes in the conception and philosophy of their establishment and operation. Organizations are in a constant search for performance; they want to achieve performance or to improve performance, or more often, to measure the achieved performance level. In this context, it appeared the need for a new reconsidering of organizational performance. Due to its polysemantic nature, performance proves to be a concept difficult to characterize, and associated definitions are often too general or too specific, ambiguous or even abstract. Theory and practice in the field of performance management demonstrate the influence of external and internal factors in understanding and defining performance. Achievement of an economic and financial balance ensuring customer needs satisfaction is the goal of any organization. Performance must be analysed and defined closely to targeted objectives. As an entity’s objectives are volatile, controversial and contradictory, performance is a phenomenon with a strong subjectiveness.