IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acctbr/v30y2000i4p275-286.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Performance measurement and the use of league tables: some experimental evidence of dysfunctional consequences

Author

Listed:
  • Kevin Keasey
  • Philip Moon
  • Darren Duxbury

Abstract

The practice of organisations adopting performance measurement systems that utilise a range of key performance indicators linked to various aspects of corporate strategy has become widespread. At the same time, however, many organisations are developing reporting frameworks that summarise these indicators in the form of a league table, ranking sub-units according to their achievements. The use of such league tables has the capacity to create a form of dysfunctional behaviour as managers focus primarily on their league table positions—the notion of measure fixation. This paper describes a new experiment that seeks to explore this possibility. The results suggest that information concerning the change in league table position leads to an increase in risk-seeking behaviour, particularly where a project proposal creates an opportunity for the manager's sub-unit to move to the top of the league table. This is an unintended dysfunctional consequence of using league tables within performance measurement system design.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Keasey & Philip Moon & Darren Duxbury, 2000. "Performance measurement and the use of league tables: some experimental evidence of dysfunctional consequences," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 275-286.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:30:y:2000:i:4:p:275-286
    DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2000.9728945
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00014788.2000.9728945
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00014788.2000.9728945?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Birnberg, Jacob G. & Turopolec, Lawrence & Young, S. Mark, 1983. "The organizational context of accounting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 8(2-3), pages 111-129, May.
    2. Bouwman, Marinus J., 1984. "Expert vs novice decision making in accounting: A summary," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 9(3-4), pages 325-327, October.
    3. Remus, William, 1986. "Graduate students as surrogates for managers in experiments on business decision making," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 19-25, February.
    4. Richard H. Thaler & Eric J. Johnson, 1990. "Gambling with the House Money and Trying to Break Even: The Effects of Prior Outcomes on Risky Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(6), pages 643-660, June.
    5. Ashton, Rh & Kramer, Ss, 1980. "Students As Surrogates In Behavioral Accounting Research - Some Evidence," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 1-15.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marcel Van Rinsum & Frank H.M. Verbeeten, 2012. "The impact of subjectivity in performance evaluation practices on public sector managers’ motivation," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(4), pages 377-396, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Duxbury, Darren, 2012. "Sunk costs and sunk benefits: A re-examination of re-investment decisions," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 144-156.
    2. Lorenz Graf-Vlachy, 2019. "Like student like manager? Using student subjects in managerial debiasing research," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 347-376, April.
    3. Anja Schwering, 2017. "The influence of peer honesty and anonymity on managerial reporting," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(9), pages 1151-1172, December.
    4. Insoo Cho & Peter F. Orazem, 2021. "How endogenous risk preferences and sample selection affect analysis of firm survival," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1309-1332, April.
    5. Andrew W. Lo & Dmitry V. Repin & Brett N. Steenbarger, 2005. "Fear and Greed in Financial Markets: A Clinical Study of Day-Traders," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 352-359, May.
    6. Peter John Robinson & W. J. Wouter Botzen & Fujin Zhou, 2021. "An experimental study of charity hazard: The effect of risky and ambiguous government compensation on flood insurance demand," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 275-318, December.
    7. Sergio Sousa, 2010. "Small-scale changes in wealth and attitudes toward risk," Discussion Papers 2010-11, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    8. Breaban, Adriana & van de Kuilen, Gijs & Noussair, Charles, 2016. "Prudence, Personality, Cognitive Ability and Emotional State," Other publications TiSEM 9a01a5ab-e03d-49eb-9cd7-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Min Gong & David Krantz & Elke Weber, 2014. "Why Chinese discount future financial and environmental gains but not losses more than Americans," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 103-124, October.
    10. Julien Jacob & Eve-Angéline Lambert & Mathieu Lefebvre & Sarah Driessche, 2023. "Information disclosure under liability: an experiment on public bads," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(1), pages 155-197, July.
    11. Alexandra Rausch & Alexander Brauneis, 2015. "It’s about how the task is set: the inclusion–exclusion effect and accountability in preprocessing management information," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 23(2), pages 313-344, June.
    12. Mohamed Es-Sanoun & Jude Gohou & Mounir Benboubker, 2023. "Testing of Herd Behavior In african Stock Markets During COVID-19 Pandemic [Essai de vérification du comportement mimétique dans les marchés boursiers africains au cours de la crise de covid-19]," Post-Print hal-04144289, HAL.
    13. Lovric, M. & Kaymak, U. & Spronk, J., 2008. "A Conceptual Model of Investor Behavior," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2008-030-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    14. Ispano, Alessandro & Schwardmann, Peter, 2017. "Cooperating over losses and competing over gains: A social dilemma experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 329-348.
    15. Chorvat, Terrence, 2006. "Taxing utility," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 1-16, February.
    16. Dalton, Patricio S. & Nhung, Nguyen & Rüschenpöhler, Julius, 2020. "Worries of the poor: The impact of financial burden on the risk attitudes of micro-entrepreneurs," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    17. Duncan Luce, R., 1997. "Associative joint receipts," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 51-74, August.
    18. Fellner, Gerlinde & Maciejovsky, Boris, 2007. "Risk attitude and market behavior: Evidence from experimental asset markets," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 338-350, June.
    19. Roy Brouwer & Solomon Tarfasa, 2020. "Testing hypothetical bias in a framed field experiment," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 68(3), pages 343-357, September.
    20. Elie Matta & Jean McGuire, 2008. "Too Risky to Hold? The Effect of Downside Risk, Accumulated Equity Wealth, and Firm Performance on CEO Equity Reduction," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 567-580, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:30:y:2000:i:4:p:275-286. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.