Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Free from the Annual Performance Trap.

• Author: Marhsall, Jeffrey
• Position: BookShelf

Beyond Budgeting: How Managers Can Break Free from the Annual Performance Trap. By Jeremy Hope and Robin Fraser. Harvard Business School Press, 232 pages. $35.

Every senior manager at a company of any size has had to grapple with annual budgets, and the exercise is too often tedious and frustrating. More than that, many critics say, the focus on fixed targets and incentives can trigger unethical behavior.

Enter "beyond budgeting." Authors Hope and Fraser are directors of the Beyond Budgeting Round Table, an international group dedicated to a new management model that attempts to replace centrally determined goals with self-regulating, marketplace-based benchmarks...