Have any of you MBA/Bus Doc people come across studies of how to measure the effectiveness of particular (non-sales) departments within an organisation? Obviously "effectiveness "would cover a number of dimensions, including alignment with the business strategy. I'm thinking about a thesis in this area, for a specialist department, and beyond mentioning the importance of alignment with the business strategy, this sort of issue doesn't get mentioned in strat courses, and not being big on organisational theory, I don't know how (if?) it features there.....
Most companies I have worked for had techniques in place to measure department or team performance. Suggest you search under "Earned Value Management Systems" or "Cost/Schedule Performance Systems".
I would say the discipline is "Organizational Behavior" Search terems - Productivity, Effectiveness, Best Practices It depends on what department exactly, but there is plenty of research out there. Sales comes up the most, but once you weed through those, there is a great deal of info out there.
