Supply Chain faculty win Best Paper award for metrics alignment study

Steven Melnyk

Marketing and Supply Chain Management Professor Steven Melnyk won a Best Paper Award at the Performance Measurement Association meeting for the International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management. His paper, titled, "Linking Customers, Strategy and Activities: An Empirical Investigation of the Metrics Alignment Process," was co-authored by Eli Broad University Professor of Business Roger Calantone, Accounting and Information Systems Professor Joan Luft, Marketing and Supply Chain Management Assistant Professor George Zsidisin and former Broad School Marketing and Supply Chain Management Assistant Professor Douglas Stewart.

Study findings show that metrics are more than numbers - they're a critical form of communication that is used by the formal system to influence and shape the actions of the informal system. Understanding how metrics are generated and shaped requires that the researcher and manager understand the belief structure of the people involved in the process, and cognitive awareness of the need for change is not enough.

According to Melnyk, people view changes through a lens that reflects their "zone of indifference," and when the strategic changes desired by top management lie outside of this zone of indifference, numerous instances of subtle managerial intervention aimed at changing the intent and the metrics so that they fall within this zone were observed at numerous levels.

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