5. Discussion and conclusions
This paper sought to examine the links among the firm’s business strategy, external
environment, the use of measures for performance evaluation, and organizational
performance. To test these relationships, the study surveyed 52 New Zealand
manufacturingfirms.
As expected, the results suggest no direct relationship between business unit
strategy and organizational performance. Rather, the relationship between these
two variables appears to be significantly indirect, as hypothesized. In addition, a
significant and positive association between strategy and management’s use of nonfinancial
measures for performance evaluation has been found. These results suggest
that business unit strategy is an important antecedent of performance evaluation
systems design and use of non-financial measures is an important antecedent
of organizational performance. This evidence is consistent with the view that a
congruent (good fit) matching of strategic priorities and the choice of performance
measures in performance evaluation is essential to enhanced organizational
performance (Govindarajan & Gupta, 1985; Ittner et al., 1997; Lynch & Cross,
1991; Simons, 1987, 1995). In contrast, the path model results provide no support