The current wave of privatization, abroad more aptly referred to as denationalization, has achieved decidedly mixed results. Performance shortfalls have been fostered by operational weaknesses in the nature of the denationalization process, and by structural deficiencies which impede the...

The evaluation of business performance is of crucial importance to the business community, and this is reflected in the size of the discourse addressing empirical research, critical evaluation of techniques available and theoretical perspectives. Considers such research against the purposes for...

Discusses the role of internal audit in the socialist market economy, the need for supervision of enterprises through internal audit and the way in which various stakeholders benefit. Makes a case for why internal audit uniquely fulfils the supervisory role and should not be substituted by...

The ability to define and measure standards of performance and the quality of service is crucial to the effectiveness of internal auditors and their accountability. A series of key quality measure‐ments and standards has been determined, against which performance is then monitored and...

Provides an overview of UK public and private sector organisations’ use of performance information relating to service quality. While they have made some headway in improving the range of performance information they have available, and in their use of such information, significant problems...

Purpose Managerial usage of performance measurement and management systems (PMMS) is commonly far from what theory advocates as ideal. Based on this, the purpose of this paper is to identify the justifications for using PMMS and how much each of them explains the actual use of these systems....

Noting the claim that 70 per cent of balanced scorecard implementations fail, sets out to explore the two main reasons for the failure of measurement systems – namely poor design and difficulty of implementation. Considers the measurement revolution over the past 20 years noting developments...

By almost every measure manufacturing quality has improved tremendously in the past decade; unfortunately, the same is not true for service. Yet, manufacturing processes represent less than 5 per cent of all business processes. Clearly, the opportunity area for the twenty‐first century is in the...

Why is it so difficult to make change happen? Many companies fail because they do not have the right internal structure and mindset to succeed. The author illustrates how to manage change effectively by examining how product‐based companies must transform to launch true service‐driven...

In an age of an ever‐increasing number of mergers and acquisitions, why do so many fail? Throughout the 1990s, and on into the 2000s the newspapers are full of reports of frenetic M&A activity. Yet horror stories highlighting failed mergers and acquisitions – AT&T, Quaker Oats, Disney, Sony,...