Summary
Contents
Subject index
`Its emphasis on performance measurement affords rare insights into some innovative techniques. Moreover, institutional and other theories are deployed to explore the reasons for innovation.... The book should be a prized resource for postgraduate students who seek a deeper understanding of social enterprise measurement and management practices. It covers extremely and topical issues, while the case studies offer a perspective on the complexities of real social enterprises' - Prometheus `Recent years have seen the voluntary and social enterprise sectors embark on a tentative love affair with performance measurement. We should, it seems, be measuring, monitoring and reporting our performance for a variety of reasons - accountability, continuous improvement and self-motivation, to name a few. But has anyone stopped to consider the realities if implementing the range of tools on the market? Author Rob Paton does just this' - Voluntary Sector Managing and Measuring Social Enterprises examines the question of what happens when performance improvement techniques originating in the private sector are applied to public and nonprofit organizations. Managing and Measuring Social Enterprises looks critically at a range of performance measurements and improvement methods, including: · Outcome measurement · Using financial ratios for performance comparison · Social audit · Process benchmarking · Externally accredited standards (like `Investors in People' and ISO 9000) · Diagnostic models and other tools from the quality movements · `Balanced scorecards' Rob Paton offers a measured critique of the naïve realism and rhetorical excesses of the performance management movement but also shows why many of its critics are unduly pessimistic. Through a combination of theory and research, the book provides practical guidance to the problem of performance management outside of the private sector. This is an essential text for those interested in public and social enterprises, particularly MBA and Masters students in public administration/public management and non-profit management.
Do ‘Kitemarks’ Improve and Demonstrate Performance?
Do ‘Kitemarks’ Improve and Demonstrate Performance?
Introduction: The Audit Explosion
When achievements are hard to measure managers have always had another way to build and maintain the confidence of their sponsors and paymasters. This fallback is to show that the organization is well run, embodying the most appropriate modem methods and systems (‘rationalised practices’, in the terminology of institutional theory). One way of demonstrating this is through the use of audit and certification – that is, the independent verification that an organisation's procedures for an area of activity conform to a recognised standard of good practice. In some respects this is very familiar. The financial audit is an institution in the fullest sense of the term – widespread, taken-for-granted, and continually ...
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