The Use of ‘Warm Fuzzies’ to Assess Organizational Effectiveness

Eccles Robert G. , ‘The Performance Measurement Manifesto’, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb. 1991, pp. 131. See also any Principles of Management textbook.

See ‘The Case for ‘Clean and Green’ in the Workplace’ by O'Farrel Kevin , Canadian Business Review, Vol. 17, No. 4, Winter 1990, pp. 269. or ‘How to Deal With Tougher Customers’ by Faye Rice, Fortune, Vol. 122, No. 14, December 3 1990, pp.38–48.

As one study states: ‘Reaching a particular level of quarterly profits is unlikely to be among those (performance measures) that will help the firm maintain its trajectory for long-term profitability.’ Johnson H. and Kaplan R. Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting, Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 1987, pp. 258

See for instance ‘Boycotting Corporate America’, Anonymous, Economist, Vol. 315, No. 7656, May 1990, pp.69–70, or ‘The Bunnies That Roared’ by Anonymous, Communication World, Vol. 7, No. 5, April 1990, pp. 3031.

For instance profits fell by 8 per cent the year Florida Light & Power won the prestigious Deming award for quality. Some critics claim that adopting TQM does not necessarily lead to long run profit enhancement. More and more companies are turning to a concept called Return on Quality (ROQ), which attempts to measure the impact of specific quality initiatives on the bottom line. See Business Weak, August 8, 1994 pp.54–9, ‘Quality: How to Make it Pay’. This may also be the cause for submissions for the Baldrige award beginning to tail off. See Globe & Mail, August 23, 1994, pp. B20, ‘What Happened to Quality?’.

See ‘Making New Technologies Work’ by Thorr R. , and Thiede E. Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 12, No 1, Feb. 1991, pp.46–49, or ‘Total Quality Management in Business and Academia’, by T. Stuelpnagel, Business Forum, Vol. 14, No. 1, Winter 1989, pp.4–9.

We do not claim credit for coining this phrase. Although a search of the ABI/INFORM index showed no citations, we are certain we have heard the term bandied around at conferences.

Adapted from Miles R. H. Macro-Organizational Behaviour, Scott, Foresman & Co., Glenview Illinois, 1980, pp. 35759. Adapted originally from Campbell, ‘On the Nature of Organizational Effectiveness’.

‘A Perspective on the Stock Market's Fixation on Accounting Numbers’ by Tinic Seha , Accounting Review, Vol. 65, No. 4, Oct. 1990, pp. 78196.

Adapted from Effectiveness Reporting and Auditing in the Public Sector, by the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation, Ottawa Canada, 1987.

21 different industries were represented with gross sales ranging up to $3,000,000,000.

This method of analysing the responses is similar to the methodology of Harper, Academy of Management Executive, 1992, Vol. 6 No. 3.

We are not reporting the full list. These are the focus of study in another paper.

B. Perin in an address to the Canadian Evaluation Society in 1992 entitled ‘What the Private Sector Can Learn From the Public Sector’ suggested that there is a widespread movement in the private sector to expand organizational effectiveness performance measures beyond traditional profit-based measures.