Collaborative Measures : Challenges in Airport Operations

Sammanfattning: Over the last 20 years, internal use of Performance Management(PM) within organizations has become much more complex in terms measurement techniques and approaches as well as their deployment within different organizational structures. In contrast to the traditional use of PM as an intra-organizational system, the emergence of networked operations, has extended organizational boundaries of Performance Management System (PMS) to new operational settings where actors often deal with a challenge of Collaborative Measures. Consequently, there is a significant lack of feedback and feedforward reporting mechanisms. This raises an important question for Performance Measurement & Management (PMM) literature. How do actors manage operations through inter- organizational performance measures? Hence, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate the management of collaborative measures in a quest to attain better operational performance for inter- organizational PM.The thesis builds on four studies investigating a collaborative PMS for capacity enhancements in airport operations. Due to their operational complexity and highly networked subsystems, airport operations provided a fitting empirical scene for studying PM that transcends organizational boundaries. Within the context of this thesis, airports are viewed as a System of System (SoS), and inter- organizational PM is investigated with the dimensions Organizational Complexity, Continuous Improvement and Social system. The studies use a multimethod approach, including longitudinal action research, multiple-case study, Systematic Literature Review (SLR), Classification and Regression Tree method (CART) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) Method.The findings show that that (1) inter- organizational performance is affected by intrinsic Performance Measurement Complexity (PMC) which aggregates as interactive complexity with many actors. (2) The challenge of feedback and feedforward mechanisms as a dual control for collaborative performance is analysed with four cybernetic functions: sensor, commander, actuator and process. (3) The concept of Reflective Performance Measurement System (RPMS) is introduced with general conditions to facilitate collaborative decision-making within such platforms.