Dr. Nicole Nikiforow was awarded the Péter Horváth Foundation’s Controlling Dissertation Prize for her outstanding doctoral thesis in the field of controlling. With a prize of about 10,000 EUR, this is the most highly endowed controlling award in the German-speaking countries.
Dr. Nikiforow wrote her cumulative dissertation entitled “Essays on Performance Management and Information Systems in Management Accounting” at the Chair of Management Accounting under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Thorsten Knauer. The award was presented to her virtually at the 34thStuttgarter Controlling and Management-Forum. In the laudation, the founder of the Péter Horváth Foundation, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Péter Horváth, and Prof. Dr. Thorsten Knauer particularly emphasized the strong application-oriented and highly scientific content. With her dissertation, Dr. Nikiforow thus makes an important contribution to the further development of performance management systems and promotes scientific and practical discourse in controlling.
In detail, Dr. Nikiforow`s dissertation deals with the central aspects of performance management: goal setting and planning, feedback and the role of information systems in controlling. The focus is on the process of identifying, measuring and developing employee and company performance. Her contributions to the disfunctional consequences of target agreements show that this process does not always run smoothly as it depends on critical factors. The use of feedback also has an impact on the performance of individuals. The dissertation shows which factors significantly influence the effectiveness of feedback. In addition, Dr. Nikiforow analyzes the influence of digitization on performance management by examining the use of modern information technologies and the suitability of possible future technologies such as robot-supported process automation (RPA) and block chain technology in controlling.
The contributions of the thesis are published in relevant journals, such as the Journal of Business Economics, the Journal of Management Control and the Controlling – Zeitschrift für erfolgsorientierte Unternehmenssteuerung.
