Performance measurement systems and the enactment of different institutional logics: insights from a football organization

This paper examines the role of performance measurement systems (PMS) in managing the co-existence of different institutional logics in a football organization. We show that while the sports and business logics at times compete with each other, in other situations they are in harmony. We explain this with reference to an ambiguous cause-effect relationship between these logics which allows for different ways of enacting the logics. Our study thus demonstrates that compatibility of logics may vary not just between fields and organizations, as the literature has emphasized, but also between situations within an organization. Furthermore, our paper highlights how varying outcomes of the performance measures affect the way in which compromises between the two logics are made. While the literature has mostly focused on examining how compromises can be designed into the PMS, we draw attention to how situation-specific compromises are made on the basis of such PMS. The meaning attributed to different levels of sports performance was key for understanding the differences in compromising behaviour.