MEASURING CORPORATE PERFORMANCE

Recent annual reports highlighting the corporate performance of some large well-known companies such as BCCI, Polly Peck, Trafalgar House, Blue Arrow, and Maxwell Communications all had an unexpected feature in common. They turned out to be deliberately misleading. Other annual returns extolling the virtues of company performance could likewise be regarded as 'economic with the truth'. They also lack consistency in their methods and techniques of accounting making interpretation and cross-comparisons difficult. The authors review the attempts to measure corporate performance effectively and realistically so that a 'true' picture of an organization can be painted.