The conflict between accountability and effectiveness
Les Binet and Peter Field
Accountability sounds good doesn't it? You require people to measure the value of their actions, and you incentivise them to ensure that they meet pre-defined targets. Occasional raising of the bar drives continuous improvement, and the business prospers. The trouble with applying 'accountability' to marketing is that the evaluation is widely flawed, the targets are usually the wrong ones and the result too often leads to the destruction of shareholder value. Those are the most worrying conclusions of our meta-analysis of 880 national case...