Performance Measurement in Multinational Firms: Accounting, ROI, and EVA

1. CHAPTER 23 Performance Measurement, Compensation, and Multinational Considerations

2. Financial and Nonfinancial Measures • Firms are increasingly presenting financial and nonfinancial performance measures for their subunits in a Balanced Scorecard, and it’s four perspectives: • Financial • Customer • Internal Business Process • Learning and Growth

3. Balanced Scorecard Flow • Firms assume that improvements in learning and growth will lead to improvements in internal business processes • Improvements in the internal business processes will lead to improvements in the customer and financial perspectives

4. Accounting-Based Performance Measures • Requires a six-step design process: • Choose Performance Measures that align with top management’s financial goals • Choose the time horizon of each Performance Measure • Choose a definition of the components in each Performance Measure • Choose a measurement alternative for each Performance Measure • Choose a target level of performance • Choose the timing of feedback

5. Step 1: Choosing Among Different Performance Measures • Four common measures of economic performance: • Return on Investment • Residual Income • Economic Value Added • Return on Sales • Selecting Subunit Operating Income as a metric is inappropriate since it obviously differs simply on the differing size of the subunits

6. Return on Investment (ROI) • ROI is an accounting measure of income divided by an accounting measure of investment

7. ROI • Most popular metric for two reasons: • Blends all the ingredients of profitability (revenues, costs, and investment) into a single percentage • May be compared to other ROI’s both inside and outside the firm • Also called the Accounting Rate of Return (ARR) or the Accrual Accounting Rate of Return (AARR)

8. ROI • ROI may be decomposed into its two components as follows: • ROI = Return on Sales X Investment Turnover • This is known as the DuPont Method of Profitability Analysis

9. Residual Income • Residual Income (RI) is an accounting measure of income minus a dollar amount for required return on an accounting measure of investment • RI = Income – (RRR X Investment) • RRR = Required Rate of Return • Required Rate of Return times the Investment is the imputed cost of the investment • Imputed costs are cost recognized in some situations, but not in the financial accounting records

10. Economic Value Added (EVA) • EVA is a specific type of residual income calculation that has recently gained popularity • Weighted average cost of capital equals the after-tax average cost of all long-term funds in use

11. Return on Sales (ROS) • Return on Sales is simply income divided by sales • Simple to compute, and widely understood

12. Step 2: Choosing the Time Horizon of the Performance Measures • Multiple periods of evaluation are sometimes appropriate • ROI, RI, EVA and ROS all basically evaluate one period of time • ROI, RI, EVA and ROS may all be adapted to evaluate multiple periods of time

13. Step 3: Choosing Alternative Definitions for Performance Measures • Four possible alternative definitions of investment: • Total Assets Available • Total Assets Employed • Total Assets Employed minus Current Liabilities • Stockholder’s Equity

14. Step 4: Choosing Measurement Alternatives for Performance Measures • Possible alternative definitions of cost: • Current Cost • Gross Value of Fixed Assets • Net Book Value of Fixed Assets

15. Step 5: Choosing Target Levels of Performance • Historically driven targets used to set target goals • Goal may include a Continuous Improvement component

16. Step 6: Choosing the Timing of the Feedback • Timing of feedback depends on: • How critical the information is for the success of the organization • The specific level of management receiving the feedback • The sophistication of the organization’s information technology

17. Performance Measurement in Multinational Companies • Additional Difficulties faced by Multinational Companies: • The economic, legal, political, social, and cultural environments differ significantly across countries • Governments in some countries may impose controls and limit selling prices of a company’s products • Availability of materials and skilled labor, as well as costs of materials, labor, and infrastructure may differ across countries • Divisions operating in different countries account for their performance in different currencies

18. Distinction Between Managers and Organization Units • The performance evaluation of a manager should be distinguished from the performance evaluation of that manager’s subunit, such as a division of the company

19. The Trade-Off: Creating Incentives vs. Imposing Risk • An inherent trade-off exists between creating incentives and imposing risk • An incentive should be some reward for performance • An incentive may create an environment in which suboptimal behavior may occur: the goals of the firm are sacrificed in order to meet a manager’s personal goals

20. Moral Hazard • Moral Hazard describes situations in which an employee prefers to exert less effort (0r report distorted information) compared with the effort (or accurate information) desired by the owner because the employee’s effort (or the validity of the reported information) cannot be accurately monitored and enforced

21. Intensity of Incentives • Intensity of Incentives – how large the incentive component of a manager’s compensation be relative to their salary component

22. Preferred Performance Measures • Preferred Performance Measures are those that are sensitive to or change significantly with the manager’s performance. • They do not change much with changes in factors that are beyond the manager’s control • They motivate the manager as well as limit the manger’s exposure to risk, reducing the cost of providing incentives • May include Benchmarking

23. Performance Measures at the Individual Activity Level • Two issues when evaluating performance at the individual activity level: • Designing performance measures for activities that require multiple tasks • Designing performance measures for activities done in teams

24. Compensation for Multiple Tasks • If the employer wants an employee to focus on multiple tasks of a job, then the employer must measure and compensate performance on each of those tasks

25. Team-Based Compensation • Companies use teams extensively for problem solving • Teams achieve better results than individual employees acting alone • Companies must reward individuals on a team based on team performance

26. Executive Compensation Plans • Based on both financial and nonfinancial performance measures, and include a mix of: • Base Salary • Annual Incentives, such as cash bonuses • Long-Run Incentives, such as stock options • Well-designed plans use a compensation mix that balances risk (the effect of uncontrollable factors on the performance measure, and hence compensation) with short-run and long-run incentives to achieve the firm’s goals

27. Strategy and Levers of Control • Levers of Control: • Diagnostic Control Systems • Boundary Systems • Belief Systems • Interactive Control Systems • Each lever is important and needs to be monitored • Levers should be interdependent and collectively represent a living system of business conduct

28. Diagnostic Control Systems • Diagnostic Control Systems evaluate whether a firm is performing to expectations by monitoring and evaluating critical performance metrics, including: • ROI, RI, EVA • Customer Satisfaction • Employee Satisfaction • MUST be balanced by the other lever of control

29. Boundary Systems • Boundary Systems describe standards of behavior and codes of conduct expected of all employees • Highlights actions that are “off-limits” • A code of conduct describe appropriate and inappropriate individual behaviors

30. Belief Systems • Belief Systems articulate the mission, purpose, and core values of a company • They describe the accepted norms and patterns of behavior expected of all managers and employees with respect to each other, shareholders, customers, and communities

31. Interactive Control Systems • Interactive Control Systems are formal information systems that managers use to focus organizational attention and learning on key strategic issues • Tracks strategic uncertainties that businesses face