ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION SYSTEMS IN SMEs: THE CASE OF THE TRANSFORMING INDUSTRY IN PORTUGAL

Abstract

The competitiveness of organizations depends, among other things, of their performance levels. For such, it is vitally important that they have a measurement and evaluation system that, from a set of indicators, provides them reliable information to reflect their goals and evaluate their performances. The aims of this study are: (i) to identify the most discussed approaches in the literature to evaluate the organizational performance, and (ii) to carry out a diagnosis of how small and medium enterprises with economic activity in Portugal measure and operationalize the evaluation of their performance. To meet the objectives of the study, we proceeded to the analysis of published studies in scientific journals and conducted twelve interviews in SMEs. The results indicate that, in addition to the majority of the studied organizations not having a formal process of their strategy, they also do not measure their results in an integrated system that would allow them to make an evaluation according to their strategic goals.