Computing who deserves the cold stars

Budgetary control systems measure organization performance in financial terms, by accounting standards. The assumptions on which such budget structures and reporting systems have been built have gone unquestioned, and perhaps even unrecognized, for too long. And as the years have passed, these assumptions, unexamined, have become less and less valid, while at the same time the budgetary control systems based on them have become more and more complex. In many businesses today, precisely interrelated financial models are constructed, reporting procedures developed, and budget variances analyzed in many dimensions, and in great detail. While this effort provides many hours of work for accountants, computer specialists, and managers, its contribution to business operations is often minimal.