Performance improvement is high on the agenda of many companies around the world and with the growing number of improvement models now available care has to be taken to adopt an approach that will yield the most attractive return on investment. This paper compares and contrasts two widely known and wellpublicized improvement models: Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard and the EFQM Excellence Model. Each consists of a non-prescriptive template offering managers a relatively small number of categories of key performance metrics to focus on. Here, they are examined from a critical perspective with regard to ®ve central issues represented by ®ve questions relating to objectives, strategies and plans, target setting, reward structures and information feedback loops. The analysis conducted reveals that despite having some signi®cant differences both approaches seem to be developed from similar concepts. The paper concludes that it is dif®cult to ®nd a perfect match between a company and a performance measurement framework and that further research should concentrate on how to implement strategic performance frameworks effectively in speci®c types of organization.

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Purpose-This study explores the impact of cultural values on the importance individuals assign to project success/failure factors.Design/methodology/approach-Themes emerging from 40 interviews of project practitioners based in Brazil, China, Greece, Nigeria, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States are integrated with literature evidence to design a survey instrument. 1313 practitioner survey responses from the eight countries are analysed using multi-group, structural equation modelling. Research limitations -The snowballing method used to gather survey data and analysis of relationships at individual level reduce generalisability.Practical implications -The results reveal insights on how best to match the cultural values of project participants to project characteristics. They also increase knowledge on the likely perceptual differences among culturally-diverse individuals within projects.Originality/value -This research contributes to the literature on culture in project environments by defining a factor structure of multiple-dependent project success/failure indicators and increases insight on how specific cultural values may impact on the perception of the so-defined project success/failure factors.3

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