Both in economic literature and in operational practice, methods of multi criteria
decision-making are applied in different contexts, even though the areas of application
turn out to be rather similar. The four application domains of performance
measurement, productivity analysis, efficiency analysis and effectiveness analysis are
discussed most frequently. Up to now there is no unified way in which these terms are
used. In the paper at hand, the following working definitions are used. Performance
measurement is the most general approach for the multi criteria analysis of the
economic performance of organizational units, which are deciding autonomously about
their economic actions. In the area of performance measurement no restrictions are
made with regard to the kind of criteria used. Productivity analysis and efficiency
analysis are considered to be synonyms. They are understood as special kinds of
performance measurement that are used fairly frequently in economic analysis. Both
conceptualize economic actions as transformation processes that generate products
(outputs) to satisfy needs by employing resources (inputs). From this point-of-view, the
economic performance of organizational units is measured by the ratio of the outputs
produced and the inputs employed, which is referred to as productivity as well as