Exploring the interdependence between gainsharing and performance evaluation in a credit union*,**

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the interdependence between gainsharing and performance evaluation (objective and subjective) in a credit union. There is a recent debate on the interdependence between management control practices, which emerges from the discussion of control packages or systems. This study delves into this discussion by investigating the complementarity between gainsharing (group incentive modality) and performance evaluation in a credit union context, given the need for qualitative empirical studies on this phenomenon. This study is considered relevant because the joint use of management control practices can allow organizations to effectively mitigate control problems such as lack of direction, motivation, and competence. This research promotes insights into management control practices’ operation – given the discussion of complementarity between gainsharing, which is not a prevalent incentive system in most organizations – and objective and subjective performance evaluation. The methodology consists of a qualitative field study in a credit union using data collection, interviews, and access to documents analyzed using an interpretive approach. This research presents evidence on the phenomenon of interdependence between management control practices, adding to the literature by addressing different forms of complementarity between a group incentive system in the form of gainsharing and performance evaluation. It became evident that gainsharing reinforces the objective performance evaluation process by mitigating motivation and direction problems, while the subjective performance evaluation compensates the objective performance evaluation by shifting the focus of the evaluation to the individual’s skills.