Climate in the making: Using Delphi for Finnish climate policy

In the assessment of the present state of climate change and the projection of its future development and impacts on human society, one of the core issues is the interaction between decision makers and the scientific community. Knowledge of the human and natural processes behind climatic change and of the risks involved should be communicated to policy makers in a form that is both comprehensible and useful in the formulation of policy measures. At the same time, the scientific community must meet the practical requirements and goals for research set by decision makers, even if this creates problems involving the validity of overly hasty answers to questions of paramount complexity. The purpose of this paper is to present some results of the study dealing with these questions and in particular to discuss the future scenarios produced in the course of that project.     

Customer-centered measurement of service operations: a B2B case study

This study examines how the customer can be utilized in performance measurement and evaluation of complex engineered service operations in the business-to-business environment. The framework put forth by Ukko and Pekkola for a customer-centered approach to performance measurement in service operations is used, focusing on the special nature of service processes and the customer’s perspective. The results of this case study show that in non-interactive customer-related processes, performance evaluation can be a viable alternative to performance measurement. In addition, enabling the customer to participate in the evaluation and measurement of service operations will generate not only new measures but also new services.     

Exploring a `non-financial' management accounting change

Many normative calls have appeared for including strategic non-financial measures into management accounting systems. This paper explores the emergence of non-financial measures in the organizational context of Lever Industrial-U.K., a service-oriented British chemicals company. Tracing the mechanism of this management accounting change, the study identifies the dynamic forces which are driving it. The paper points at the systematization of non-financial measures as an essential phase of the change process. However, the paper also suggests that non-financial measures become a powerful vehicle for focusing interactive management control into the organization's strategic uncertainties. This interactive `Focus Potential' of non-financial measures goes beyond their diagnostic role as strategic controls.@e$g0