Performance management tools in innovative and uncertain environment : a comparative study of eight startups companies
A comparative study of performance management tools in eight startup companies within the same ecosystem shows that these companies use cash flow and income statements, then production or commercial dashboards, and, only after that, conventional tools of management control such as cost accounting, budgets and strategic balanced scorecards. In an innovative and uncertain environment, the introduction of management control is not always necessary when the company is very small, when it is closer to its scientific focus than markets (eg in the case of biotechs), and also often rely on French state aid system that reduces the need for urgent venture capital. When the use of performance monitoring systems is in place, it is often slowed down by the understandable focus of directors on technical and business objectives and by their primary scientific concern. Finally, management control tools are reduced to a psycho-cognitive use for decision support for directors in the exploratory phase or are more developed in the exploitation phase, but then used generally by a financial controller limited to the role of watchdog and an interactive process between different layers in the company. Ten propositions summarize the findings of this research.