Non-Financial Measures in Corporate Management Strategy
This paper examines the role of non-financial measures in corporate management, tracing the concept from Dubin's 1958 observations on workplace incentives to contemporary frameworks such as Bhimani's "flexible management control" and the Triple Bottom Line. The paper argues that non-financial incentives have historically been treated as secondary to financial ones, a cultural assumption that limits organizational effectiveness. It contends that meaningful change requires redefining the bottom line itself to encompass corporate, social, and environmental responsibility — the three P's of People, Planet, and Profit — and considers how sustainability reporting and indexes such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index reflect this evolving management paradigm.
- Introduction: The Case for Non-Financial Measures: Global context motivating non-financial management reform
- Historical Context: Financial vs. Non-Financial Incentives: Dubin's 1958 view on incentive hierarchy in corporations
- Flexible Management Control and the New Economy: Bhimani's framework balancing innovation and profitability
- The Triple Bottom Line and Corporate Sustainability: People, Planet, Profit as a redefined corporate bottom line
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What makes this paper effective
- Integrates primary scholarly sources across different decades (1958 to 2007) to trace the evolution of a management concept over time.
- Uses direct quotations strategically to anchor each argumentative step, allowing the sources to speak while the author provides connecting analysis.
- Moves logically from the individual incentive level (Dubin) to organizational control systems (Bhimani) to macro-level corporate frameworks (Triple Bottom Line), building scope progressively.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis of sources across time periods. Rather than treating each citation in isolation, the author weaves Dubin, Bhimani, and Colbert and Kurucz into a single argumentative thread — showing how the same underlying tension between financial and non-financial priorities has persisted and evolved. This longitudinal synthesis is a strong technique for establishing the relevance and durability of an academic argument.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by situating the topic within the context of corporate excess and the need for management reform. It then grounds the discussion historically with Dubin's work on workplace incentives, transitions to Bhimani's contemporary concept of flexible management control, and concludes by broadening the argument to the Triple Bottom Line and sustainability reporting. Each paragraph advances the argument one step further, making the structure compact but well-organized.
Introduction: The Case for Non-Financial Measures
While one would hope that the current global economic meltdown — driven largely by the pursuit of increased financial gain by large corporate entities — would lead to a more fundamental restructuring of management, that transformation may still be a long time coming. The concept of non-financial measures being incorporated into management regimes has existed for many years, yet has not come fully to the fore.
Historical Context: Financial vs. Non-Financial Incentives
Dubin, in his book The World of Work: Industrial Society and Human Relations (1958), observed that non-financial incentives are generally offered when the actual financial incentives are not large enough. A large corporation may "give great prominence to the direct financial incentives of high pay… and favourable income tax treatment in order to attract and hold men for such work. Here the opportunities for non-financial incentives to operate may be small, so that the emphasis is put largely on the financial ones." (Dubin 1958: 246)
List of References
Bhimani, Alnoor, ed. 2003. Management Accounting in the Digital Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Colbert, B.A., & Kurucz, E.C. 2007. 'Three Conceptions of Triple Bottom Line Business Sustainability and the Role for HRM.' Human Resource Planning, 30.1: 21–33.
Dubin, Robert. 1958. The World of Work: Industrial Society and Human Relations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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