Manufacturing in the UK: contemporary characteristics and performance indicators

This paper provides a tentative framework for exploring the relationships between the measurement of non‐financial performance on the shopfloor of manufacturing firms and a range of organisational and environmental factors. It is part of an ongoing project examining whether the extent of innovative managerial practices, advanced manufacturing technologies, contemporary management accounting practices, employee involvement, employee skills and training, and aspects of the market competition affect the existence and importance of non‐financial performance measures actually used on the shopfloors of UK manufacturing firms. To achieve this objective a questionnaire survey of over 2,000 UK manufacturing firms was undertaken.