Performance Management: In the News

Performance Management director Adam Presslee presented with the MAS Notable Contribution to Literature Award (Choi, W., and A. Presslee. 2023. When and why tangible rewards can motivate greater effort than cash rewards: An analysis of four attribute differences. Accounting, Organizations & Society, 104: 1-15.)

Anik Seth has been named a CPA Ontario 2023 Emerging Leader. This award celebrates and recognizes distinguished young members of CPA Ontario who are leaders in their industries, making notable contributions in Ontario. The CPA Ontario 2023 Emerging Leader Award is given to innovators who demonstrate significant impact while giving back to their communities.

Alan Webb received the Lifetime Contribution to Management Accounting Award. This is the most prestigious award at MAS, and recognizes individuals that have made significant contributions to management accounting education, research, and/or practice over a sustained period of time.

Tim Bauer received the Impact on Management Accounting Practice Award for his co-authored paper "Romana L. Autrey, Tim D. Bauer, Kevin E. Jackson, and Elena Klevsky. 2019. "Deploying “connectors”: A control to manage employee turnover intentions?" Accounting, Organizations and Society 79: 101059.”

Tyler Thomas received the 2023 Journal of Management Accounting Research Outstanding Reviewer award.

Congratulations to Adam Vitalis (CSPM) who received the inaugural Advocacy of the Profession Award” from the Toronto chapter of the Institute of Internal Auditors. Dr. Vitalis received the award for his efforts in the promotion and advocacy of the internal audit profession.

Performance Management director Adam Presslee was the keynote speaker for the Australian Experimental Workshop (University of Bern Seminar Series) with the topic of 'The Effort Effects of Employee Recognition Source in Highly Interdependent Group Tasks.'

Adam Presslee presented in the Society of Human Resource Management Webinar Series.

Here is the advertisement for the event:

"When developing recognition and incentive programs, the reward matters but maybe not for the reasons you expect. Effective rewards bring joy and create memories, and those positive feelings lead to better outcomes. This session will detail Mental Accounting Theory, explaining how our brains process different types of rewards and why certain rewards are more impactful than others. This webcast will help participants use that knowledge to develop better, higher-performing programs."

Adam Presslee co-authored a paper titled "The effect of functional diversity on team creativity: Behavioral and fNIRS Evidence" which was accepted and presented at the 2023 Management Accounting Section Mid-Year Meeting from January 5-7, 2023.

Adam Presslee co-authored a paper titled "Peer-to-peer recognition leaderboards and employee helping behavior” which was accepted and presented at the 2023 Management Accounting Section Mid-Year Meeting from January 5-7, 2023.

In May 2022 Adam Presslee (CSPM) presented his research at the prestigious Harvard Business School. Presslee presented a study co-authored with Yasheng Chen and Sue Yang, examining how expertise in a team-setting affects creative performance. The paper is entitled “The effect of functional diversity on virtual team creativity: Behavioral and fNIRS Evidence”.  For a copy of the full paper contact capressl@uwaterloo.ca.

Adam Presslee recently visited Monash University as part of the Distinguished Visitor Program.

Tyler Thomas' paper coauthored with Steve Smith entitled, ‘The effects of strategic alignment and strategic clarity on multidimensional task performance’, was accepted for publication in Accounting, Organizations and Society in November 2023.

Aligning performance measures with strategic objectives is important for management control, as performance measures and strategy are separate sources of information that can guide and direct workers’ effort. The coauthors evaluate whether the clarity in how strategy is communicated affects how workers respond to alignment between the strategy or the organization and the workers’ performance measures when workers need to balance multiple performance dimensions. They find that when the strategy is communicated generally or more vaguely to workers, performance measures aligned with the organizational strategic objectives lead to greater worker performance. However, this is not the case when strategy is communicated clearly, and greater performance is driven by less aligned performance measures, as a clear strategy and a fully aligned performance measure highlight the trade offs between performance measures reducing motivation and performance.

Read this paper.