Do we measure what we get?

Performance measures shall enhance the performance of companies by directing the attentionof decision makers towards the achievement of organizational goals. Therefore, goalcongruence is regarded in literature as a major factor in the quality of such measures. Asreality is affected by many variables, in practice one has tried to achieve a high degree of goalcongruence by incorporating an increasing number of these variables into performancemeasures. However, a goal congruent measure does not lead automatically to superiordecisions, because decision makers’ restricted cognitive abilities can counteract the intendedeffects. This paper addresses the interplay between goal congruence and complexity ofperformance measures considering cognitively-restricted decision makers.[...]