for continuous performance enhancem

for continuous performance enhancement, it also opens the possibility of employee stress and performance ‘burnout’, particularly where performance potential has technological limits. After all, only so much extra output can be extracted from a given mode of technology and mode of work organisation. In this respect, goal-setting may be inappropriate to narrow, routine jobs of the type commonly found in organisations structured on mechanistic lines. Here, it is likely that employees will be able to work only to a technologically determined standard of performance proficiency and not according to the dictates of ‘continuous improvement’. In such situations, performance improvement targets may amount to ‘snap’ goals rather than stretch goals. Further, goal-setting may be a poor fit in situations of contextual uncertainty, since the goals set today may well be rendered redundant tomorrow by changes that are beyond employees control (Latham & Pindcr 2005:497-8). At the very least, then, in such situations - including those that are likely to prevail in high-risk/high-return contexts, such as those likely to be sought by prospector firms - provision should be made for goals to be altered or updated during the cycle if circumstances change.
The balanced scorecard
Like goal-setting theory, the concept of the balanced scorecard is also relatively recent in origin; its authors, Robert Kaplan and David Norton, published their initial formulation in the Harvard Business Review (Kaplan & Norton 1992) soon after Locke and Latham released the first fully developed version of goal-setting theory. This close timing may not be entirely coincidental since, as we shall see, multifactor and multilevel goal-setting is a defining feature of the balanced scorecard model.
The balanced scorecard ideal
The balanced scorecard is a holistic formula for managing organisational goals and results in an integrated and strategically aligned manner. It seeks to do so by recognizing multiple stakeholder interests in organisational success and by systematically pursuing synergies between these stakeholder interests. It also sees human resource managers as vital ‘strategic partners’ and human resources as the key ingredient for business success.
Being results - focused, it subscribes to the assumption that ‘what you mea¬sure is what you get’, and it entails setting and communicating strategically aligned goals and measuring and rewarding goal achievement. As a….