Sustainability strategies: from motivation to performance measurement system

Journal title MANAGEMENT CONTROL
Author/s Raffaele Fiorentino, Stefano Garzella, Rita Lamboglia, Daniela Mancini
Publishing Year 2016 Issue 2016/2
Language Italian Pages 28 P. 115-142 File size 324 KB
DOI 10.3280/MACO2016-002006
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The paper aims to examine the main changes that performance measurement systems of firms have to face after the adoption of sustainability strategies. The relationship between sustainability strategies and performance measurement systems is analysed along three main dimensions: the reasons that lead to the implementation of sustainability strategies; the changes that these strategies produce within the performance measurement systems; the feedback effects that the revised performance measurement systems determine on the sustainability strategies. We adopted a qualitative research methodology analysing a single case study: ASIA Napoli S.p.A. The case study and the results have been achieved through a theoretical framework built in the first step of the research. The case study allowed to examine the role of legitimacy and reputation when a company chooses to implement sustainability strategies, and confirmed, overall, that the decision to integrate sustainability into business strategy produces changes in performance measurement systems. Our findings showed that the implementation of sustainability strategies produce some changes in the performance measurement systems with regard to the processes and the tools for information and data collection. However, tools for information processing and analysing for decision-making support are less developed. The results also suggested that the measurement of social performance represents an incentive to revise sustainability strategies.

Keywords: Sustainability strategies, performance measurement systems, Legitimacy theory, Resource Based View, reputation, case study.

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Raffaele Fiorentino, Stefano Garzella, Rita Lamboglia, Daniela Mancini, Strategie di sostenibilità: dalle motivazioni ai sistemi di misurazione della performance in "MANAGEMENT CONTROL" 2/2016, pp 115-142, DOI: 10.3280/MACO2016-002006