An investigation into the practice of critical success factors by Irish publicly listed companies in performance management

Abstract

Overview Globalisation, increased competition and the fact that both strategy and performance must stay abreast of rapidly changing conditions has led to an increase in the use of performance management tools by organisations to improve the quality of their products and services, providing a sense of direction for performance improvement which supports strategy execution. One such performance management tool is the critical success factor method. The performance indicators from the csf method provide an accurate indication of performance and determine how business processes could be improved to achieve strategic objectives, offering real-time performance management. Purpose This paper explores the practice of csfs within the performance management of the publicly listed companies in Ireland. It specifically focuses on the purpose and extent of their practice, while simultaneously acquiring the opinions of publicly listed companies on the merits and demerits of using csfs in performance management. Findings Csfs were found to be widely practiced in both strategic management and performance management and in general, organisations see the benefits of their use. However, discrepancies to the literature have occurred in the practice of csfs in both the strategic management and performance management processes with a possible gap emerging between strategy and execution leading the researcher to recommend further research to explore that gap. Future research The researcher also discovered that the balanced scorecard had perhaps, been used in every aspect except name only, prompting their recommendation for further research to evaluate this analysis.