BITITCI, U. (2015).

MANAGING
BUSINESS PERFORMANCE: THE
SCIENCE AND THE ART. CHICHESTER,
UK: JOHN WILEY & SONS

Howard Harris

Why is there a review of a book about performance management in an

ethics journal? Because the book’s author, Prof Umit Bititci from Heriot
Watt University in Edinburgh, recognises the moral nature of many of the
relationships which underpin successful organisations. The emphasis is on
the creation and nurture of ‘a humanistic organisation that puts the focus
on teamwork, camaraderie and compassion’ (p. 246).
Performance measurement is all around us in a contemporary complex
society. We measure the waiting time of ambulances at hospital emergency
departments, the number of papers academics publish each year, the delay
in having a call answered by a telephone help line and the number of peo-
ple attending a sporting event. Not only do these get measured, they get
managed. Bititci takes to task those who misrepresent Deming’s axiom
‘what gets measured gets managed’ to make it a clarion call for measure-
ment and the basis of management systems grounded in intrusive, mechani-
cal counting of outputs and activities. Bititci reminds us that Deming was
‘reflecting on Albert Einstein’s famous quote: “Not everything that can be

The Contribution of Love, and Hate, to Organizational Ethics

Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations, Volume 16, 241 244
Copyright r 2016 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
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241
242 HOWARD HARRIS

counted counts … and not everything that counts can be counted” (p. 28,
emphasis in the original)’. Thus there is a science of performance measure-
ment and performance management, and equally importantly an art.
The book is divided into four parts, with the central chapters, in Parts 2
and 3, dealing with the science and the art respectively, while the introduc-
tory section provides a short history of performance measurement and
management, and the final section looks more closely at what managers
and employees can actually do to enhance performance.
The book is written in an engaging, personal style that reflects Bititci’s
close involvement with businesses in Scotland and elsewhere. It is not a
book written for academics there are neither equations nor dense
tables of data but a book written in the hope that it will move managers
to place greater trust in the people in their organisations. Thus it is the
humanistic organisation which Bititci sees as the one that can provide
the right balance between the science and the art of managing business
performance. Humanistic organisations, he argues, ‘are more resilient and
innovative; they attract and retain the right talent. In short, they are good
all-round companies to have around and to work in’ (p. 172).
Bititci provides a description of humanistic management that makes
sense in the real world of competition and quality control. He emphatically
rejects the notion that organisations that are concerned with harmony and
balance, with compassion and camaraderie, are ‘mystical hippie commu-
nes’. Throughout the book he uses many pithy examples taken from actual
businesses to provide evidence of humanistic management at work and to
show how the humanistic organisation can lead to success and sustain-
able growth.
Providing a summary of the book is made easier by its clear structure.
The introductory chapters show how the theory of performance manage-
ment has developed from its initial concern with measurement through a
focus on instrumental control mechanism designed to manage performance
in terms of measured outputs to a contemporary concern about organisa-
tional performance. Bititci shows how many sensible performance measure-
ment ideas (such as Six Sigma and Balance Scorecard) can become ‘toxic
weapons that destroy the very organisation we are trying to improve’
(p. 27). Culture, dialogue the art of management and people needs to
have a more prominent place if businesses are to respond effectively to the
challenges of the twenty-first century.
The focus of Part 2 is the science of management, especially the theory
of organisations that deals with complex systems, complexity and the crea-
tion of value. If a business or organisation does not understand how it
Bititci (2015). Managing Business Performance 243

creates value or what demands it seeks to meet then it will have great diffi-
culty being effective, and perhaps greater difficulty in understanding
whether or not it is effective. These ‘science’-oriented chapters begin to link
the terms and ideas of the manager (such as value chain, process, dash-
boards and scorecards) with ideas such as capabilities, purpose and flow
which might seem more at home in the social science classroom.
The art of managing performance is covered in Part 3. A turning point
comes in chapter 8 with its discussion of capabilities, culture and perfor-
mance. Bititci identifies four organisational capabilities learning, opera-
tional, dynamic and ambidexterity each with dimensions of capacity and
maturity. There are echoes here of the capability theory of Amartya Sen
and Martha Nussbaum (Sen, 2004) and of the capability maturity model
(Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, Paulk, Weber,
Curtis, & Chrissis, 1994). As the concern of the book turns from measure-
ment tables to awakening, enlightenment and wisdom as steps towards
maturity and operational excellence the importance of moral and ethical
issues in organisations becomes apparent. Bititci bemoans the lack of
understanding that managers and, in particular, performance management
researchers have of the social aspects of management, even though they are
of the utmost importance if performance is to be improved in the long run.
As an aside I would disagree with Bititci’s use of ‘certainty’ as the label
for the highest level of maturity (p. 145). It seems at odds with the idea of
art and would seem to equate the ultimate in maturity with the mechanistic
science with which he is trying to contrast it. I doubt that there can be cer-
tainty in art (see, for instance, Gardner’s Truth, Beauty and Goodness, 2011,
for a further discussion of this point).
Interventions are considered in Part 4. Bititci is especially critical of
interventions designed by those outside the organisation in which the inter-
vention is to take place; in this category he includes interventions developed
in head office and by consultants. All too often, he suggests, these forget
the social dimension so that the involvement of people in the management
of change becomes a ‘bolt-on’ (p. 247). That said, Bititci does believe that
significant changes to the behaviour of the whole system can be achieved
by change programmes that have a clear and constant purpose (as opposed
to one that changes from intervention to intervention) and pursue one
change at a time, allowing the new, changed system to be reviewed before
the next intervention is attempted. That prescription is consistent with
Deming’s plan-do-check-act cycle, to which Bititci refers as a virtuous circle
(p. 209) and is reminiscent of the reflective approaches applied and lauded
in many business ethics and professional development courses.
244 HOWARD HARRIS

The book concludes with two useful appendices. One provides brief
descriptions and reference sources for 10 popular performance measure-
ment models and frameworks. The other provides a glossary of common
performance measures grouped by the four facets of the Balanced
Scorecard finance, customer, internal processes, learning and growth
(Kaplan & Norton, 1992). Here once again Bititci presents practical exam-
ples that reveal how to balance the practical concerns which can dominate
the world of management, competition and production with the (wider)
interests of corporate social responsibility and business ethics.
Managing Business Performance: The Science and the Art will be a useful
book for those who teach ethics in business schools. Bititci, equipped with
practical hands-on industrial experience, writes about operations and man-
ufacturing management using words like wisdom, compassion and sustain-
able growth. His easy-to-read style will help the business ethics academic to
understand the concerns of the manager while reviewing evidence that
humanistic organisations are not mystical hippie communes but can
be successful.

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Gardner, H. (2011). Truth, beauty, and goodness reframed: Educating for the virtues in the
twenty-first century. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Kaplan, R. S., & Norton, D. P. (1992). The balanced scorecard Measures that drive perfor-
mance. Harvard Business Review, 70(1), 71 79.
Sen, A. (2004). Why we should preserve the spotted owl. London Review of Books,
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