Reassessing measures of sustainable firm performance: A consultant's guide to identifying hidden costs in corporate disclosures
批评了依赖宏观财务指标衡量企业绩效的常见做法，并应用社会经济管理方法帮助外部分析师像内部顾问一样从企业披露中识别隐藏成本，以家得宝前CEO案例展示如何通过公开财务披露追踪功能失调的因果网络。
Abstract Strategy, management, corporate social responsibility, critical accounting, and other business researchers frequently utilize financial metrics such as return on assets, return on equity, and return on sales as proxy measures for the financial performance of firms. Large data sets offer convenience but exclude the textual data of corporate disclosures that offers critical insight into specific executive actions and social and environmental outcomes. This study looks at the detrimental consequences of the prevalent practice of relying on macrofinancial metrics as measures of firm performance. Insight from the socioeconomic approach to management (SEAM) is then applied to help an external analyst develop the perspective of an internal consultant to identify hidden costs in corporate disclosures. An extensive case on former CEO Robert Nardelli's tenure at Home Depot is presented as an example of applied SEAM theory to explore how a causal network of dysfunctions can be traced through publicly available financial disclosures. The management discussion and analysis as well as the executive incentive compensation formulas serve as a roadmap to discover hidden costs. The study offers a critical perspective of financial disclosures to allow researchers to externally diagnose dysfunctions sooner rather than years later, an insight formerly only available to internal consultants.