Managerial Use of Discounted Cash-Flow or Accounting Performance Measures: Evidence from the U.K. Life Insurance Industry

Owing to the increasing prevalence of value-based methodologies and the competitive and political pressures faced by the industry to improve its performance, the U.K. life insurance industry provides an interesting environment in which to examine whether senior management uses accounting vs. projected cash-flow-based financial performance measures for both managerial performance evaluation and strategic budgetary planning and control purposes. A survey is employed to examine what economic and organizational factors could condition managerial propensity to use three alternative measures: traditional accounting-based measures, Economic Value Added (EVA) and multiperiod, actuarial cash flow based measures such as embedded value (EV). Survey evidence suggests that life insurance CEOs are more likely to use EV for strategic management planning and control purposes, and that this preference is strongly conditioned by the firm's ownership structure. These results support the managerial incentive hypothesis, after controlling for the effects of other organizational structural and behavioural variables that potentially influence the choice of financial performance measure. The Geneva Papers (2005) 30, 171–186. doi:10.1057/palgrave.gpp.2510010