Na zo’n tien jaar onderzoek, honderden schrijfuren en duizenden espresso’s, ligt De Meetmaatschappij nu in de boekhandels als paperback, ebook en luisterboek! In het boek ga ik in op de vraag waarom we toch alles in cijfers willen uitdrukken – van schoolprestaties tot patiënttevredenheid, en van SMART doelen op het werk tot ranglijsten van de beste universiteiten. Daarbij bespreek ik wat deze cijferobsessie met ons en onze maatschappij doet. In deze blog houd ik bij wat er in de media verschijnt over De Meetmaatschappij.
Continue readingTag Archives: accounting
7 observations from a review of performance measurement research
What drives the use of performance measurement (PM) systems in the public sector? And what are the effects of PM use? In a recent study in Financial Accountability & Management (Van der Kolk, 2022, open access), I address these questions. In this blog, I highlight seven observations from the review.
Continue readingPublication: A review of performance measurement research
Recently, my paper “Performance measurement in the public sector: Mapping 20 years of survey research” was published in Financial Accountability and Management, a scientific journal dedicated to study management practices in governments, charities and public services.
Continue readingDo experience and gender impact auditors’ moral awareness?
An auditor’s signature signals to key stakeholders whether a firm’s financial information is to be trusted or not. Their ability to recognize inconsistencies and ethical issues is of paramount importance in this process. But what impacts their ability to identify ethical issues? The study in which we address this question was recently accepted for publication in Managerial Auditing Journal, and below we present our key findings.
Continue readingHow change begets change
Organizations are frequently confronted with environmental shifts and change. In our recent publication (Toldbod and Van der Kolk, forthcoming in the European Accounting Review), we examine how environmental shifts can trigger cascades of management control changes, how this creates incoherence, and how managers can use the incoherence to stimulate organizational dialogue.
Continue readingNote on motivating civil servants
The journal Public Money & Management (PMM) has both an academic and a practitioner readership, and called for contributions to a special issue about developing civil servants. A brief note on motivating civil servants that I submitted was published online this week.
Performance measurement in hospitals
This week, our study of the use of performance measurement in hospitals was published in Health Care Management Review – and the best part: it’s open access!
Writing for Follow The Money
In an effort to not become an “ivory tower academic“, I accepted the invitation from Follow The Money (a Dutch platform for investigative journalism) to start writing some brief articles. In these articles, I focus on issues related to management, accounting, behavior and ethics, and try to communicate research findings from the fields of management, accounting and business ethics to a wider audience.
Employee motivation as a driver of performance
(This article was also published via IE Insights)
All organizations want motivated employees, but how can management practices contribute to employee motivation? A recent study points to the importance of organizational values and training opportunities to facilitate intrinsic motivation of employees, and the role of performance measurement to enhance extrinsic motivation. Furthermore, the findings suggest that if organizations focus on motivating their employees, performance will follow.
New publication on public sector management
Last week, one of my research projects related to public sector management was published in the academic journal Public Money & Management.