Benchmarking for Routines and Organizational Knowledge

This paper adopts a managerial accounting perspective to propose and empirically illustrate a research design for firm decision making based on performance feedback. In doing so, it operationalizes the theoretical frameworks based on the endogenous components of across-firms heterogeneous resources and routines, which are fundamental for firm performance. The design focuses on industry-level benchmarking to study changes in performance and organizational knowledge investments, and proposes some indicators for firm-level strategic benchmarking. A profit-oriented analysis of the U.S. technology industry during 2000-2011 illustrates the usefulness of the proposals. Findings reveal that industry revival following economic distress comes along with wider gaps between best and worst performers. Also, increasing intangibles stocks is positively associated with fixed target benchmarking, while enhancing R&D spending is linked to local frontier progress. The discussion develops managerial interpretations suitable for control mechanisms and reward systems.