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Performance: A concept to define
Poster · May 2016
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24800.28165
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Performance: A concept to define!
La performance: Un concept à definer!
Âta GHALEM (1); Chafik OKAR (2), Razane CHROQUI (2), SEMMA EL ALAMI (3)…
(1) Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, University Hassan 1er, Settat.
(2) LAMSAD, School of Technology, University Hassan 1er, Berrechid.
(3) Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, University Hassan 1er, Settat.
Résumé:
Dans la multitude de définitions existantes dans le domaine de management, le besoin
d’en choisir une seule devient présent, il semble que chaque chercheur refait le même
effort afin de comprendre le concept, de ce fait, nous présentant dans ce travail un
ensemble de définitions afin de cibler la raison pour laquelle la performance est un
terme assez compliqué à définir. De plus, nous présentons une définition adapté, selon
nos perspectives, au domaine de l’aviation plus précisément le système de gestion de
trafic aérien, étant donné que celui-ci est notre terrain d’étude.
Mots clés: Définition, Performance, Gestion de la performance, système ATM.
Abstract:
From the multiple existing definitions in the field of management, the need to choose
the appropriate definition becomes necessary. It seems that each scholar reproduce the
same conclusions. For this reason we present in this work a number of definitions to
point out the controversy about the term and we propose the definition that seems to
us to encompasses all aspects of performance. Moreover, our choice will be able to
adapt to any field especially the Aviation sector more specifically the Air Traffic
Management system.
Key words: Definition, Performance, Performance management, ATM system.
A. Introduction:
In the wide field of Management, terminology is a delicate material to use, as each
term defines a specific concept, and based on their definitions concepts can be
developed and used in other fields, in our case it’s the aviation sector precisely the Air
Traffic Management System, as the term performance, in the last decade, captured a
massive interest in the aviation sector on both international and European scale.
Through our researches on the Performance Management System (PMS), it was our
first concern to be able to understand each term separately starting with the term
Performance. But, we came to face some difficulties in finding a single definition of
the word, in fact, multiple definitions came-out, as we shifted from an article to a
another new conceptualizations of the concept were found. If we can’t get a hold on
the definition of the term how can we use it, and improve its use? How can we
enhance the Performance of a system, if we don’t specify what is this performance we
are going to improve?
B. Performance in literature:
If we are to consider the linguistic form of the word, the oxford English dictionary
takes performance to be as how well or badly you do something or how well or badly
something works, it is also defined as the act or process of performing a task, an
action, etc. while the verb perform means to work or function well or badly.
Through the literature, scholars continuously insist that no standardized or uniform
definition of performance exists, and they argue on how it is a multidimensional
concept. Still Tatjana Samsonowa (2012) argues that all the different definitions she
had to review, in the performance measurement literature, have one common
characteristic; they all are related to two terms: effectiveness and efficiency;
effectiveness as an indicator of the degree of a goal attainment, and efficiency as an
indicator of the resources that were consumed to reach the level of achievement. In
her work (2012), she uses the term “performance” as the level/degree of goal
achievement of an organization/department rather than of individuals. This chosen
definition is mainly inspired from Krause’s work (2005).
Here are the definitions she built her conclusions on:
o Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986): Performance is the time test of any
strategy.
o Cordero (1989): Effectiveness (i.e. measuring output to determine if they help
accomplish objectives). Efficiency (i.e. measuring resources to determine whether
minimum amounts are used in the production of these outputs).
o Lebas (1995): Performance is about deploying and managing well the
components of the causal model that leads to the timely attainment of stated
objectives within constraints specific to the firm and to the situation
.
o Neely et al. (1995): Efficiency and effectiveness of purposeful action.
o Rolstadas (1998): Performance is a complex interrelationship between seven
performance criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, quality, productivity, quality of
work life, innovation, and profitability/budget-ability.
o Dwight (1999): the level to which a goal is attained.
o Hoffmann (1999): The term “performance” describes an evaluated contribution
to the attainment of organizational goals.
o Andersen and Fagerhaug (2002): We believe it is sufficient to have reached a
point where performance has replaced productivity and is generally accepted to
cover a wide range of aspects of an organization – from the old productivity to the
ability to innovate, to attract the best employees, to maintain an environmentally
sound outfit, or to conduct business in an ethical manner.
o Hauber (2002): The term “performance” describes the contribution of specific
systems (organizational units of differing sizes, employees, and processes) to
attain and validate the goals of a company.
o Wettstein (2002): Performance can be understood as the degree of stakeholder
satisfaction.
o EFQM (2003): Performance is the level of attainment achieved by an individual,
team, organization or process.
o Grüning (2002): Performance is understood as the ability of a company to
achieve goals, i.e. meet expectations, and is therefore influenced by results in a
wider sense, but also by the corresponding goal setting.
o Krause (2005): Performance refers to the degree of the achievement of objectives
or the potentially possible accomplishment regarding the important characteristics
of an organization for the relevant stakeholders. Performance is therefore
principally specified through a multidimensional set of criteria. The source of the
performance is the actions of players in the business processes.
Actually, Samsonowa seems to present a strong and simple definition of the concept.
However, if we are to relate the term performance with managerial concepts, we don’t
fully agree with Samsonowa. On the one hand, be cause a level/degree of goal
achievement doesn’t mean achieving the goal totally and 100%, in the Oxford English
Dictionary the degree means the amount or extent to which something happens or is
present. From our point of view the degree/level of goal achievement only means the
on-going process to the final step that is attaining the goal. For example, 0 degrees of
achievement or level 3/5 of achievement are only the steps towards achieving the goal
of 360 degrees or level 5/5 of the goal. In fact, we believe that Grüning (2002)
confirms our idea when he defines performance as the ability of a company to achieve
goals, so for him a company should be able to achieve goals, not just to be able to
reach a level of the goal achievement. We assent Grüning and believe that
performance is about achieving the goal entirely, while the level/degree of goal
attainment is just the progress carried out by the organization towards its final aim,
and we take this level of goal attainment to be a level of performance. In fact,
Samsonowa (2012) stated that performance to Grüning (2002) depends on the one
hand from the results (over or under performance) and on the other hand from the
goal setting, in the light of Grüning’s ideas we define three levels of performance:
level (-1) is the under-performance level; at which the company is going through a
process to achieve its pre-defined goals and trying to reach them, level (0) is the
performance level; in other words the goal achievement level, it’s the stage where the
company successfully achieves it’s pre-determined goals, the level (1) is the over-
performance level, which we like to name as the excellence level; at this level the
company is beyond its expectations of only achieving it’s goals, it exceeded expected
results and got better results.
Figure 1: Performance as goal attainment (Source: Grüning 2002, extracted from
Samsonowa 2012)
On the other hand, if Samsonowa relates performance to the terms effectiveness and
efficiency, wouldn’t it be logical to insert both terms in the definition, we noticed that
she used only effectiveness (degree of goal attainment) to define performance, and
omitted the efficiency when she didn’t mentioned the resources consumed. Therefore,
we suggest a small modification to Samsonowa’s definition, where both effectiveness
and efficiency should be taken into consideration, and the terms degree/level are to be
eliminated. So the new definition would be:
‘Performance is the goal achievement of an organization rather than of individuals,
with the minimum resources consumed to reach the goal’.
Reviewing only Samsonowa’s work isn’t enough to give a definition of such a
controversial concept, although we consider her definition to be a solid foundation to
build our work on. Beside the definitions mentioned above, other scholars suggested
different propositions based on their perspectives. In fact, in 1999 Otley considered
that performance is an ambiguous term, and capable of no simple definition. He starts
at an organizational level of analysis and assumes that “an organization that is
performing well is one that is successfully attaining its objectives, in other terms, one
that is effectively implementing an appropriate strategy”. But in 2001 Otley made the
choice to use the term freely, we quote: “The word ‘performance’ is something of a
weasel word in that it appears to mean very different things to different people, Thus
we use it quite freely, apparently understanding its meaning, but actually often using
it to cover a lack of shared understanding ”. In fact, Otley (2001) chooses to consider
the word performance only in the context of a business or public sector. He argues
that it is the public sector that gives a useful start in their use of the three ‘E’s’ of
performance, namely:
Effectiveness [delivering desired outputs, and even outcomes]
Efficiency [using as few inputs as possible to obtain these outputs]
Economy [buying inputs as cheaply as possible]’
Otley wasn’t satisfied by the use of only effectiveness and efficiency to define such a
concept as Samsonowa did, but he also considered the economical factor. Actually, he
wasn’t the only one to use the three ‘E’s’ to describe performance. Dominique Bessire
(1999) used a constructivist model (trialectic perspective Subject-Object-Project) to
study performance through evaluation, where he considered performance as a
criterion associated to the objective dimension of the three dimensions of evaluation,
while the subjective dimension is Relevance, and the rational dimension is Coherence.
According to Bessire, the criterion of performance leads to the same three ‘E’s’ Otley
employed from the public sector: Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Economy. In fact,
Bessire (1999), in his attempt to define performance, admits how impossible it seems
to find a consensus on a single definition of this concept. He was convinced the
concept has multiple dimensions from the conclusions of Morin and al (1984), who
identified four dimensions: social, economic, politic, and systemic, and La Villarmois
(1998) who reduced these four into only two dimensions: objective and subjective.
From the many definitions proposed by the scholars Bessire (1999) chooses to give
the example of Bourguignon (1997) who was conducted to identify three main senses:
1. Performance is success, performance doesn’t exist by itself; it is a function of
representations of success, variable according to enterprises, according to actors;
2. Performance is the result of action, oppositely to the previous; this sense doesn’t
have a value judgment. Performance measurement is “understood as the ex post
evaluation of results” Bouquin (1986);
3. Performance is action. In this sense performance is a process and “ not a result
that appears in a moment in time” Baird (1986).
In another attempt of his, Bessire shows an interest in Le Moigne’s (1996) study of
the articulation between the three terms; performance, relevance and coherence. To
Le Moigne performance seems to be whether the result of a simple summation of
relevance and coherence, or the product of an iterative loop between the same three
terms.
From another viewpoint in the field of public management, Wouter Van Dooren,
Geert Bouckaert and John Halligan (second edition 2015) argue that performance in
the public sector is about intentional behaviour, which can be individual or
organizational […], performance has a quality that can be either high or low. First,
when performance is about the quality of the actions, performance is conceptualized
as a competence or capacity. Second, when it’s about the quality of the achievements,
performance equals results. Finally, when performance is conceptualized with the
attention to both the quality of actions and the quality of achievements, it may be
typified as sustainable results.
Summary:
This relativity between performance and quality of actions/achievements, in the
public management, changes the shape of the performance itself, once it’s defined as
capacity, once as results, and once as sustainable results. To Bourguignon (1997),
performance in the field of accountability management has three senses it can be
success, the result of action, or action itself. And in the performance measurement
literature, Samsonowa (2012) relates performance to the two concepts: effectiveness
and efficiency. While Otley (2001), in the management accounting research field, and
Bessire (1999) in the Management control field, both relate performance to
effectiveness, efficiency, and economy. This shows how performance is not an
independent and self-determining term. It is always related to other concepts, and
needs to adapt to each new different context or field. Which makes its management to
also depend on the context in which it is discussed.
Moreover, the definition of performance and the management of performance can
also change with the culture of each country as argued by Arup Varma, Pawan S.
Budhwar and Angelo DeNisi (2008) in their work on studying PMS on a global
perspective ‘Clearly, since performance is viewed differently in different cultures, the
mechanisms to evaluate and manage performance must be designed to address the
local context’. This statement opened our eyes on the fact that the broader our
research gets the more complex and multidimensional the definition of performance
became. Still we cannot use the term freely as Otley (2001) did, and no matter how
numerous the definitions of performance are, we still need to choose a definition that
is adaptable to all fields, and especially to the aviation field, more specifically the Air
Traffic Management (ATM) system.
Conclusion:
We are convinced that performance is a multidimensional term capable of no single
definition, and is inclosing a changeable nature depending on the context. Therefore,
our proposed simplified and flexible definition founded on the proposition of
Samsonowa and the choice of Otley, should be general and not related to any sector
or field. For this reason, we decided to keep a modest definition of performance and
stick with the basic common elements defining the term: effectiveness, efficiency. We
believe that Performance is the combination of these two terms, however, and
depending on the context in which the performance might be used, other elements can
be added to define the term, such as relevance, economy, efficacy…etc. Our
conclusions until now don’t give one standard definition as promised, but they
respond to one definition that, in our viewpoint, is appropriate to fit any field and can
adapt to any concept. It is the definition of Otley1999:‘An organization that is
performing well is one that is successfully attaining its objectives’ Otley 1999. This
definition has the key words to define performance, which is first the word
‘successfully’ for it embodies all aspects of performance: effectively, efficiently,
economically, with quality…etc, and second the word objectives, for attaining the
objectives is the main aspect of performance. This definition can serve as a reference
to build on it our future work regarding the performance management and, however to
use it in a specific field, we recommend to precise which aspects to be chosen
depending on the requirements of the field. This how we can adjust the definition
according to the requirements of the ATM system, so what is the definition given by
the ATM system? And what are the characteristics it requires to define performance?
C. Performance in Aviation sector:
1. ICAO definition
On the international scale, According to the International Civil Aviation Organization
(ICAO), the ATM system is the collective integration of services, humans,
information and technology, (Doc 9854: Global Air Traffic Management Operational
Concept). And the understanding of this definition is the key to The ATM system
performance requirements. ICAO actually considers the performance orientation as
the key tenet of the Operational concept, the concept is defined in the Doc 9854 as:
‘…. a description of the anticipated level of performance required from, and the
interaction between, the ATM services, as well as the objects they affect’.
The performance orientation is the new focus of the ICAO since September 2003,
where the eleventh Air Navigation Conference exhorted the ICAO to develop a
performance framework for the air navigation systems. And since then the term
performance became the hub of interest of the aviation people, however, the focus
was mainly on the operational side of the concept and not much attention was given to
its definition, most of the documents we had to review, if not all, don’t give a
meticulous definition of performance, it is like they skip the stage of defining the term
and they just move directly to the second step, which is the deployment of the term.
Through the ICAO documents: Doc 9882 (Manual on ATM Requirements), Doc 9883
(Manual on Global Performance of Air Navigation System), we couldn’t find a
definition of the term performance, however they define all the terms related to it,
such as: performance targets, performance objectives, performance indicators,
performance metrics, and key performance Area.
2. European Union definition
The absence of a definition of performance in the ICAO documents pushed us to dig
even deeper not just internationally, but also in the European documents and
regulations, and on a regional level specifically the EUR REGION Doc 030.
Performance in the ATM system should be no different from what the literature has
presented, according to researchers it is supposed to be a multidimensional term of no
standard definition wherever it is used. But, in such a specific domain as aviation, are
we allowed to accept this controversy about the term? For us, we strongly believe that
the ATM system should be able to present a precise definition, which we can
conclude from the multitude of definitions from literature.
According to the EUROCONTROL lexicon, performance is: A measure of what is
achieved or delivered by a System, person, team, Process, or IT Service (ITIL V3
Glossary v3.1.24, 11 May 2007). Here they consider performance as a measure of
achievement, so the first basic element, effectiveness, is taken into consideration, yet,
efficiency and the other elements are not mentioned. In this case, we assume that, on
the European scale, the definition of performance is incomplete. Rather, it should
cover all aspects of performance required in the ATM system. Especially, since
through our review of the documents: Regulation Nº390/2013, and Regulation (EC)
Nº 549/2004, and EUR Region Doc 030, in describing the operational concepts of
performance both terms effectiveness and efficiency were used in a confusing
manner. This lack of precision in the use of the terms makes it difficult to describe
performance, which urged us, firstly, to specify the meaning of each term using the
definitions of Samsonowa 2012 mentioned above: effectiveness as an indicator of the
degree of a goal attainment, and efficiency as an indicator of the resources that were
consumed to reach the level of achievement.
Conclusion:
Through the document review there wasn’t much to say about how the ATM system
defines performance, neither was there any requirements. The ATM system was only
interested in the operational use of the term, focusing on its management and
measurement, which gives us the freedom to use the proposed definition combining
basically both effectiveness and efficiency to define the ATM performance, and we
insist that it is only through the study of the operational use of the concept through the
performance management that we can discover the elements defining performance
according to the requirements of the ATM system. And this will be the next step in
our thesis.
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