Reconciling Effectiveness and Equity in Performance Management: A Stakeholder Synthesis Approach to Organizational Systems Design

Complex organizational systems have been studied using hard and soft epistemologies and each has contributed to understanding based on its logic of enquiry. However, both fail to engage fully with systems in their context and are increasingly recognized as such by researchers and practitioners. This paper reviews the epistemological debate and proposes that accommodation between quantitative and qualitative disciplines is both possible and appropriate. A case study of performance management systems demonstrates the synergistic benefits of integration within a mode of organizational enquiry based on stakeholder analysis and soft systems methodology. This enables the development of a stakeholder systems model of performance management that incorporates stakeholder consensus, organizational justice, and system effectiveness considerations.