Executive performance mgmt. systems link individual performance to organizational goals. In Oct. 2000, the OPM amended regulations to require agencies to link senior exec. performance (SEP) with organizational goals; to appraise SEP by balancing organizational results with customer satisfaction, employee perspective, and other areas; and to use performance results as a basis for pay, awards, and other personnel decisions. Agencies were to establish these performance mgmt. systems by their 2001 SEP appraisal cycles. This report studied the BLM's, FHA's, IRS's, and VA's use of balanced expectations to manage SEP in order to identify initial approaches that may be helpful to other agencies in holding SEP accountable for results.

Strategic human capital management is a high risk area that threatens the federal government's ability to effectively serve Americans. An essential element to developing and managing the human capital needed to achieve organizational results is the link between individual performance and organizational goals. Performance management systems provide one way to make this link. Governments and agencies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom have used their performance management systems to connect employee performance with organizational success to help foster a results-oriented organizational culture. Creating such a culture is one cornerstone identified in GAO's model of strategic human capital management. GAO initiated this study to identify how selected agencies are strategically using their performance management systems. GAO talked with key human capital decision makers from each country including national audit offices, central management and human capital agencies, and line agencies, as well as representatives of employee associations.

'The publication of this second edition of Culture's Consequences marks an important moment in the field of cross-cultural studies . Hofstede's framework for understanding national differences has been one of the most influential and widely used frameworks in cross-cultural business studies, in the past ten years' - Australian Journal of Management