An empirical study of the use and usefulness of financial, non-financial and subjective measures for performance evaluation in industrial companies in Bahrain

This study uses survey data from 47 industrial companies located in the Kingdom of Bahrain in order to examine to the extent to which the companies combine the use of financial, non-financial and subjective measures in evaluating their performance. The survey reports that, although ROI is the most popular financial measure, industrial companies use an integration of financial and non-financial measures. Firm size also influences the use of these measures and significant differences were observed among the large and medium size firms with respect to operations-related measures. With the exception of ROI in a few cases, the use of performance measures was not found to be significantly different between industries. However, significant differences are found in the use of measures, particularly in financial and non-financial measures, when the data is analysed by line of business (by number of divisions). Furthermore, the study indicates that the various types of measures have different impacts on important employee actions, such as 'contribute to the quality of the short-term operational decisions', 'contribute to the quality of the long-term strategic decisions', 'encourage gamesmanship or manipulation', 'encourage innovation' and 'provide focus on the goals of the departments in the firm'.