Collaborative performance management: present gaps and future research

Purpose – To identify gaps in current research concerning the critical issues, threats and opportunities in the design of a system for managing performance in collaborative enterprises; and to define a performance management research agenda. Design/methodology/approach – An interdisciplinary study examines performance management from different disciplinary perspectives with the purpose of giving insights into the area, which is currently not sufficiently explained. Three sources of knowledge are investigated: scientific literature; practitioners' magazines; and research project reports. Findings – There is a lack of understanding of what collaboration means and what it implies on the development of appropriate performance measurement systems. Future research should study the nature of collaboration and the characteristics of performance indicators to support it. Research limitations/implications – The selection of the disciplines to be investigated and knowledge sources to be searched is based on the authors' definition of collaborative performance management. This implies that different definitions of the same concept could lead other researchers to study different disciplines, reach different conclusions and define a different research agenda. Practical implications – It helps researchers build a sound knowledge base in collaborative performance management and focuses their research efforts on the most relevant issues. Originality/value – The value of this paper resides in its ability to structurally gather most of the information available in the area, which is usually scattered in several different disciplines. This paper's contribution should be seen in the context of an ever‐increasing use in performance management research of the constructive approach, where a priori knowledge is very important.