Formal Measures in Informal Management: Can a Balanced Scorecard Change a Culture?

We extend traditional agency theory by exploring the roles for formal measures when managerial behavior is not governed by rules, formulas, or contracts. Part I describes relational incentive contracts with informal weights on formal performance measures. More importantly, it also explores how forma...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gibbons, Robert S. (Contributor), Kaplan, Robert S. (Author)
Other Authors: Sloan School of Management (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Economic Association, 2015-09-18T17:22:59Z.
Subjects:
Online Access:Get fulltext
Description
Summary:We extend traditional agency theory by exploring the roles for formal measures when managerial behavior is not governed by rules, formulas, or contracts. Part I describes relational incentive contracts with informal weights on formal performance measures. More importantly, it also explores how formal measures could be used in models of informal management, such as adaptation and coordination, politics and influence, leadership, and informal authority. Part II considers the benefits from allowing key stakeholders to develop their own, potentially inferior, performance measures. The collaboration to create a "balanced scorecard" of performance measures can help change an organization's culture.