In the early 1920's, appearance of big companies like GM and DuPont asked for the development of efficient management tools and measures of corporate performance. Since then, measures used by management include Net Income, EPS, Cash Flows, ROI, RI, M...
In the early 1920's, appearance of big companies like GM and DuPont asked for the development of efficient management tools and measures of corporate performance. Since then, measures used by management include Net Income, EPS, Cash Flows, ROI, RI, Market Value, Economic Income and EVA. These performance measures have been used variously in different times and in different industries. This paper tries to provide historical perspectives on the development of such measures. Especially the demand for, development processes, and traits of those measures used heavily y current management will be explained.
The development of corporate performance measures over the past century has its genesis in the works of statisticians, economists and managers who sought to understand the functions of the statisticians, economists and managers who sought to understand the functions of the American corporation, and-through this understanding-to improve its operation. Early attempts by academics to compare economic performance across firms using empirical data as well as significant developments in economic theory that are relevant to the performance assessment of firms are reviewed.
We argue that, even though several of the key concepts of corporate performance measures have their origins in the 1920's, much of today's debate about evaluation of corporate performance has to do with their ability to generate relevant accounting numbers when employed in the theoretically correct economic models.
Net Income, EPS, ROI, RI and EVA are measure frequently used by both academics and practitioners. Especially, ROI and EVA are preferred and are expected to be favorites in the future.