Benchmarking – A tool for judgment or
improvement?
Grane Mikael Gregaard Rasmussen,
DTU Management, Technical University of Denmark
gmgr@man.dtu.dk
Abstract
Change in construction is high on the agenda for the Danish government and a comprehensive
effort is done in improving quality and efficiency. This has led to an initiated governmental
effort in bringing benchmarking into the Danish construction sector.
This paper is an appraisal of benchmarking as it is presently carried out in the Danish
construction sector. Many different perceptions of benchmarking and the nature of the
construction sector, lead to an uncertainty in how to perceive and use benchmarking, hence,
generating an uncertainty in understanding the effects of benchmarking. This paper addresses
these issues, and describes how effects are closely connected to the perception of benchmarking,
the intended users of the system and the application of the benchmarking results. The
fundamental basis of this paper is taken from the development of benchmarking in the Danish
construction sector. Two distinct perceptions of benchmarking will be presented; public
benchmarking and best practice benchmarking. These two types of benchmarking are used to
characterize and discuss the Danish benchmarking system and to enhance which effects,
possibilities and challenges that follow in the wake of using this kind of benchmarking.
In conclusion it is argued that clients and the Danish government are the intended users of the
benchmarking system. The benchmarking results are primarily used by the government for
monitoring and regulation of the construction sector and by clients for contractor selection. The
dominating use of the benchmarking results is judgment oriented and this is argued to generate
competition among the contractors, thus, undermining the distribution of best practice and
voluntary knowledge sharing among contractors. It is argued that benchmarking in the Danish
construction sector to a certain extend constructs an overall comprehension of what constitutes
project success.
Keywords: benchmarking, construction, evaluation theory, effects
1. Introduction
Benchmarking is a powerful concept and is widely considered to be essential to serious
organizational improvement process (Chen, 2005; Dawkins et al, 2007). But through a quick
glance at the literature on ‘benchmarking’ per se and ‘benchmarking in construction’ it becomes
clear that ‘benchmarking’ is perceived and operates in many different ways in various countries
and contexts (e.g. Cox et al., 1997; Beatham et al., 2004; Haugbølle and Hansen, 2006;
Triantafillou, 2007; El-Mashaleh et al., 2007). The literature on benchmarking is also
theoretically underexposed focusing on pragmatism and practice rather than epistemology (e.g.
Cox et al., 1997; Bowerman et al. 2002; Moriarty and Smallmann, 2009). The literature on
benchmarking in construction shows the same tendencies: The predominant part of the literature
is pragmatic focusing on e.g. development of new benchmarking models and presentation of
benchmarking cases and application of benchmarking results.
Fernie et al. (2006) point out that ‘[...] it is also necessary to recognize that different industry
sectors and organizations are characterized by recipes, logics and organizational routines that
reflect a historical understanding of both context and practices. [...] [T]he philosophical study of
causation, has been given very little attention in the construction literature and much more
emphasis has been put on describing the ‘symptoms’ than unraveling their origins’
The different perceptions of benchmarking and the lacking attention on the underlying nature of
construction, lead to an uncertainty in how to perceive and use benchmarking in the
construction sector. This paper is an attempt to address this issue doing an appraisal of the
present use of benchmarking in the Danish construction sector. Utilization focused evaluation
theory and public benchmarking are brought into the discussion in order to transcend the
existing benchmarking literature within construction research.
The basis of this paper is taken from the governmental effort in bringing benchmarking into the
Danish construction sector. These efforts include benchmarking of contractors, architects and
consulting engineers that are involved in state construction projects and social housing projects.
This paper will primarily focus on how benchmarking benefits the contractors, the clients and
the Danish government, relative to whose interest that is taken into consideration. It will be
emphasized that the development of benchmarking has increasingly undermined the intentions
of distributing best practice and voluntary knowledge sharing among the contractors;
substituting these with compulsive performance comparison that creates competition when
clients uses the benchmarking results for contractor selection. This utilization of the
benchmarking system will be discussed and be held together with the issue raised in the abovementioned quotation by Fernie et al. (2006).
It is neither the aim of the paper to be prescriptive nor to favor one use of benchmarking rather
than another. The paper should be regarded as a reflective contribution to the debate about the
different effects of benchmarking, and as an attempt to widen the theoretical perception of
benchmarking in the construction sector.
2. Two different types of benchmarking
Two very distinct perceptions of benchmarking are used to address the issues and considerations
associated with the effects, benefits and risks for benchmarking as it is carried out in the Danish
construction sector. The two types are; public benchmarking comparable with benchmarking
dominating the public sectors and best practice benchmarking as the perception of best practice
benchmarking commonly used in the private sectors.
2.1 Best practice benchmarking
This perception of benchmarking derives from the private industry and is built on trust,
collaboration and a mutual benefit over a period of time. It is synonymously with the most
prevailing interpretation of best practice benchmarking used in the private industry. It aims at
gaining competitive advantage by means of continuous improvement of processes learned from
the successful practices of others (Watson, 1993; Camp, 1995). Best practice benchmarking is
not simply competitor analysis, espionage or theft from rival companies. It aims not simply to
measuring the organization against the best in class and adopting their methods but on
understandings of how to achieve superior performance by improving methods, practices and
processes learnt from others (Watson, 1993; Zairi, 1997; Beatham, 2004; Moriarty and
Smallman, 2009). The critical characteristic is the examination of processes. Benchmarking
results are inapplicable, if there is provided no comprehension of the processes leading to the
results. ‘Benchmarking is used to improve performance by understanding the methods and
practices required to achieve world-class performance levels. Benchmarking’s primary objective
is to understand those practices that will provide a competitive advantage; target setting is
secondary’ (Camp, 1995, p. 15).
Best practice benchmarking only uses results (indicators) from the benchmarking system to
identify performance gaps and locate superior performance. Subsequently methods, practices
and processes fit to the specific need of the organization are adapted from excelling companies
(Camp, 1989). The evaluation theory has interesting similarities to benchmarking theory, e.g.
Peter Dahler-Larsen (2008) addresses the consequences indicators give rise to when used in
evaluation objectives. He points out that the learning element in the utilization of indicators is
crucial in order to generate best practices, learning and continuous improvement. Indicators and
the criteria set up for them must be under constant development, interpretation and adaption.
The results must make sense and must be useful to those responsible for the processes that need
improvement. He also (as Camp, 1995) points out that in the leaning objectives it is not
sufficient to identify the performance gap. It is necessary to affiliate organizational processes to
the results of the indicators in order to provide continuous learning and improvement.
Ownership, involvement, reflection and relevance are keywords in using indicators with
learning objectives (Dahler-Larsen, 2008).
Another interesting perspective from the evaluation theory that addresses the utilization of
indicators comes from Michael Quinn Patton (1997). He operates with program evaluation
when using the concept utilization-focused evaluation. In comparison to best practice
benchmarking, he introduces improvement-orientated evaluation; ‘Improvement-orientated
evaluation [...] includes using information systems to monitor programs efforts and outcomes
regularly over time to provide feed-back for fine-tuning a well established program. That’s how
data are meant to be used in as part of a Total Quality Management (TQM) approach’ (Patton,
1997, p. 69). Similar to best practice benchmarking, this improvement-oriented evaluation
focuses on improvement rather than rendering summative judgment of the evaluation results. It
is orientated towards a gathering of data on strengths and weaknesses that are used to produce
continuous reflections and innovation on where efficiencies can be made. Purpose, method and
criteria for judging success must be decided by the intended users of the evaluation. The
questions that the evaluation seeks to answer must be at a minimum. This begins by narrowing
the list of ‘stakeholders’ of the evaluation down as much as possible and let their request be the
basis for the focus of the evaluation. By doing this it is avoided that stakeholders have different
perception of the evaluation because they are interested in different things (Patton, 1997).
2.2 Public benchmarking
Public benchmarking is the predominant in public sectors. It is a compulsive systematic
measurement and comparison of performance driven by an external agency (e.g. the
government). Indicators from the benchmarking system are utilized to support the external
agency in decision making and judging the success of those being measured on performance
(Triantafillou, 2007). Public benchmarking is useful in clarifying whether a provider of a
product or a service compares well against competitors. Only little focus is given to the
processes leading to the results (Bowerman et al. 2001).The external agency is the intended user
of the benchmarking system and the results are used to regulate, control and monitoring those
being measured on performance. Benchmarking in the public sector can ‘[…] be seen as a form
of power that depends on the capacities of organizations to govern themselves in a proper
manner’ (Triantafillou, 2007, p. 831). It becomes a powerful tool for the external agency to
create incentives in market areas where the competition is inexpedient, rationalization is not
naturally provided or more transparency is requested (KonkurrenceStyrelsen, 1998).
Benchmarking indicators become synonymous with the ambitions of success set up by the
external agency, thus, activating individuals and organizations to seek equivalent ambitions
(Triantafillou, 2007).
From the evaluation theory Dahler-Larsen (2008) characterizes it as control when indicators are
exposed to judgment and used by an external agency for decision making. The primarily focus
is on the process of measuring and the results from the evaluation. The evaluation becomes a
tool for the external agency to control, monitor and regulate another public agency. Often
external agency is not concerned with the effects the regulation has had on other parts of the
system (Dahler-Larsen, 2008; Andersen, 2004). It should be emphasized that, the control use
does not necessarily counteract learning and improvement (Dahler-Larsen, 2008). If formulated
sufficient, the same set of indicators can be use for several purposes.
Patton (1997) calls it judgment-oriented evaluation when evaluation results are used to
determining worth or value of something. The intended user of the evaluation is the external
agency who uses the results to decide whether the program is satisfactory or not. Evaluation
results are used to judge efficiency and quality and to create comparative rating or rankings of
programs (Patton, 1997). Measures in judgment-oriented evaluation are highly maintained, to
make comparability of performance possible over a longer period of time, hence, the most
critical and central part of judgment-oriented evaluation is specifying the criteria for judgment.
2.3 Public benchmarking vs. best practice benchmarking
An analogy by Scriven (in Patton, 1997, p. 69) gives us a suitable distinction between
improvement- and judgment-oriented evaluation, comparable with the distinction between
public benchmarking and best practice benchmarking: ‘When the cook tastes the soup, that’s
formative; when the guests taste the soup, that’s summative.’
Patton (1997, p. 69) explicate this quote as follows: ‘More generally, anything done to the soup
during preparation in the kitchen is improvement-oriented; when the soup is served, judgment is
rendered, including judgment rendered by the cook that the soup was ready for serving (or at
least that preparation time had run out.)’.
In the context of this paper, the guests obliviously represent the external agency and the cook
represents the organizations or individuals being benchmarked. This separation in who is
rendering judgment (the guest or the cook) could help clarifying how improvement is expected
to follow in the wake of benchmarking when using the two types of benchmarking. When the
soup is served to the guests, the cook (might) get feedback from the guests on his/her
performance. In the long term, a plausible effect could be that the cook gets better in knowing
the criteria the guests use to judge the soup, hence, making suitable modifications using the time
and ingredients available. Following this line of metaphors; if the cook tastes the soup and
renders judgment, he/she makes use of own expertise, expectations and success criteria, hence
continuously modifying the soup during the process of preparation. This may or may not result
in an acknowledgement of needing higher professional competences in the kitchen, new
ingredients to change the content or more efficiency during the preparation of the soup.
When used formative, performance of the provider is judged. When the judgment has
consequences for the provider it becomes an element in regulating the provider to meet the
expectations of the judge. When judgment is used summative, improvement is possible during
the process and becomes an element for the provider to achieve better processes.
Table 1: A summary of the distinctions between the two benchmarking types
Public benchmarking
Best practice benchmarking
Sphere
Public sector
Private sector
Evaluation term
Summative, judgment-oriented
Formative, improvement-oriented
Intended users
External agency
The market/companies
View
Outside view on performance
Inside view on processes
Benchmarking affiliation
Compulsive
Voluntary
Measuring process
Retrospective (after completion)
Ongoing
Expected benefits
Provides basis for decision,
identifies best in class, regulates,
controls, monitoring, explicate
success criteria and target
setting
Provides learning of best
practices, mutual benefits to
participants, continuous
improvement of processes
Risk
Limited learning for others than
the intended users, limited
process improvement
Many interests, fragile due to
participation requirements (e.g.
collaboration, dedication,
involvement and trust), difficulties
in benefit every participant
equally
3. Benchmarking in the Danish construction sector
Change in construction is high on the agenda for the Danish government and a comprehensive
effort is being made to achieve high quality and efficiency (The Danish Government, 2003).
This discourse of changes in the Danish construction sector is a phenomenon that doesn’t differ
much from the reform movement in the UK. The motives to initiate the changes are almost
equivalent to the areas of weakness described by Latham (1994) and Egan (1998). Inspiration
has been drawn from the UK and during the recent years the concept of benchmarking has been
gaining ground in the Danish construction sector.
Since January 2004 the Danish government has made benchmarking of Danish state
construction projects and social housing projects (since marts 2007) compulsory when the
contract sum exceeds 5 million DKK (~ 1 million USD). Project information is reported in the
beginning of the construction project and performance information shortly after hand-over. The
performance information is transformed into indicators in the following categories; customer
satisfaction, defects, compliance with time schedule and accident frequency at the workplace
(http://www.byggeevaluering.dk). There are no demands for ongoing reporting of information
during execution of the project. An additional requirement is that, contractors bidding for
Danish state construction projects and social housing projects must substantiate their
capabilities in form of indicators/results from previous construction projects. These are used by
state clients to prequalify contractors.
The legal requirements evoked new demands in measuring the performance in the construction
sector. As a result of this, the Benchmark Centre for the Danish Construction Sector (BEC) was
established in 2002. BEC was formed by several organizations in the construction sector
including the National Agency for Enterprise and Construction. BEC was established with the
purpose of providing the necessary service to meet the governmental requirements for
benchmarking the construction sector (The Danish Government, 2003), and to create a national
benchmarking system that could benefit the private sector as well. The origin objectives of the
benchmarking system was to enhance transparency in the market concerning the relationship
between price and quality (The Danish Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs, 2008) and
improvement of quality and efficiency within the construction sector through competition and
learning.
Today the target groups are primarily construction clients. Since its establishment in 2002 BEC
has extracted information from more than 1600 building contracts divided among more than 500
building projects. BEC primarily focuses on customizing and promoting their product to Danish
construction clients in order to make them use the benchmarking results in prequalification of
contractors.
Since the implementation of the benchmarking system 60 % of the construction projects have
been benchmarked on a voluntarily basis (projects not subjected to the governmental demands).
There has been only little use of the data collected by BEC in the creation of best practices.
BEC has recorded an increasing interest from contractors for indication of their companies
marked position.
4. Challenges in benchmarking the construction sector
Before considering the benchmarking characteristics and objectives of the Danish benchmarking
efforts, it is relevant to be reflective about the reality that surrounds the benchmarking system. It
should be taken into consideration, that implementing and framing a complete benchmarking
system for the construction sector is a challenging task. This is often argued to be caused by the
characteristics that distinguish the construction sector from other industrial sectors. Some of the
barriers most commonly pointed out is that the construction sector is project based and the
projects are temporary, short-term, complex and with many changing participants each having
different criteria of project success (e.g. The Danish Government, 2003; Costa et al., 2004;
Chan and Chan, 2004; Lee et al., 2005; Lin and Shen, 2007). This leaves a comprehensive task
in providing a benchmarking system that fulfills the demands of best practice benchmarking;
meeting the interests of each participant and measuring on methods, processes and practices
during the project period (Lin and Shen, 2007). This in mind, it should also be taken into
consideration that the Danish contractor companies are known to be very conservative to
changes (Dræbye, 2003).
Focusing on the barriers and interest of implementing benchmarking in construction companies,
it is interesting to note, that a research of four different benchmarking initiatives for
construction from Brazil, Chile, the UK and the USA, concludes that many construction
companies have difficulties getting involved on a permanent basis (Costa et al., 2004). The
same research identifies that the main interest of construction companies to get involved in
benchmarking initiatives is to compare their performance against other companies.
5. Appraisal of the effort in benchmarking the Danish
construction sector
‘What gets measured gets attention, particularly when rewards are tied to the measures’ (Eccles,
1991).
Comparing the Danish benchmarking system to best practice benchmarking (the inside view on
processes), the system falls short; the contractors are not provided any learning about methods,
practices and processes used by others. Best practice benchmarking is encouraged by trust,
collaboration and mutual benefit leading to continuous improvement of processes leant for
others (Watson, 1993; Camp, 1995). The critical characteristics of the Danish benchmarking
system are limited to competitive comparison of contractors for contractor selection. There is no
measuring or initiated research towards an understanding of the processes leading to the results
of superior performance of contractors, indicating a high degree of public benchmarking. This
competitive and controlling use of results is undermining the intensions of sharing knowledge of
processes leading to superior performance (Camp, 1995; Dahler-Larsen, 2008). This
development could be an outcome of what Dahler-Larsen (2008) and Patton (1997) emphasize
as; the erroneous in evaluating on interest of others than the intended users. Addressing
benchmarking from this perspective, the intensions of an overall improvement of quality in the
sector using best practice benchmarking (with contractors being the intended users) is in
contradiction to utilization of indicators for contractor selection (with clients being the intended
users). An important factor in this conflict of interest could be caused by the government’s role;
the government determined the objectives of the benchmarking system when initiating
benchmarking in the construction sector, hence benchmarking has become a way to visualize
the target of government ambitions, causing the private market to act with ‘a responsibility for
the governing of a particular field or set of activities’ (Triantafillou, 2007, p. 836). Dahlberg and
Isaksson (1996, p. 36) point out that; ‘[t]his “outsider” effect can represent a challenge for the
development of a benchmarking culture within the agencies concerned. This “ownership” aspect
of the benchmarking process can substantially influence attitudes towards the concept of
“learning from others”’.
As a result of the government’s role (as external agency), and the clients being intended users of
indicators for competitive comparison, the benchmarking system is insufficient in content of
information that are useful for contractors to learn from each other in order to improve their
performance. Ownership, involvement, reflection and relevance are lacking in the objectives of
providing best practice benchmarking for contractors. The governmental long term desire for
achieving quality and efficiency in the construction sector trough learning from the practices of
others are overlooked in favor of the intensions of the clients and the government.
As emphasized by Dahler-Larsen (2008), results of an evaluation must make sense and be
useful to those responsible for the improvement process. The clients and the government have
increasingly become the intended users of the benchmarking system, using it as a regulation tool
driving contractors towards achievement of good results in order to compete in the
prequalification in future projects. The benchmarking results provide transparency of the sector
within the areas defined by the government. It could be interpret as a positive and successful
development of the interest in benchmarking that 60 % of the construction projects are
conducted on a voluntarily basis.
It is evident that the stakeholders of the benchmarking system have been narrowed down, which
is a positive tendency for a benchmarking system, since it is crucial not to have too many
intensions with the same system (Patton, 1997; Dahler-Larsen, 2008). But it is also evident that
the adjustments have not favored the contractors in the objectives of best practice
benchmarking; the benchmarking system primarily profits the clients (for contractor selection)
and the government (for regulation and monitoring) leaving no more than competitive
performance comparison to the contractors. (Luckily) Costa et al. (2004) identified comparison
of performance as the main interest of contractors to get involved in benchmarking.
The underlying reason to the decreasing number of stakeholders could be found in the
problematic in framing a complete benchmarking system beneficial to every participant
involved a construction project (Costa et al., 2004; Chan and Chan, 2004; Lee et al., 2005). It
may be this challenging element in benchmarking the construction sector that creates a tension
field between compulsive comparison and voluntarily process improvement of contractors,
leading to a necessity in narrowing down the stakeholders and the intensions for benchmarking.
These tendencies have occurred in Denmark, making the clients and the government the
intended users and the governmental intensions dominate the use and scope of benchmarking.
The outcome of the development is limited to a gathering of information that can be translated
into something measurable (indicators) which clients can use for contractor selections and the
government for monitor and regulate the construction sector.
6. Discussion
The compulsory element in benchmarking the Danish construction sector has led to a substantial
amount of comparable indicators, but there are important considerations to be made, when using
the indicators in the perception of public benchmarking.
Setting up the indicators for a benchmarking system, the diversity in perception of project
success is evened out across the project participants. This arises a problem, since project success
varies significantly according to whom is defining success (Dahler-Larsen, 2008) and particular
in the construction sector (Chan and Chan, 2004; Lee et al, 2005). Unintended effects are in the
risk of emerging when focusing and rendering judgment based exclusively on the governmental
fixed indicators. Indicators often become (intentional or unintentional) a determination and
reflection of the problem areas, identifying where success is rendered or where improvement is
needed. They help capturing and translating something complex to numbers which allow
decisions to be made at a distance. The indicators become a view of the performance of
contractors through the eyes of the government and the clients. The governmental identification
and visualization of problem areas through indicators, constructs a prevalent comprehension of
the problems dominating the sector. This could make the ability of judging and visualizing the
problem areas more important than improving of the processes construction the problem areas.
Dahler-Larsen (2008) uses the term indicator fixation as a concept for having too much focus on
a set of indicators. He uses the concept to emphasize an effect often followed in the wake of the
establishment of indicators; the construction of a simplification of excellence. The indicators
risk become the definition of quality and project success, hence becoming targets themselves
and could influence the self-understanding and attitudes of those exposed to judgment based on
their performance indicators.
‘The emergency rooms in England had problems with patients being on waiting lists for a long
time. Accordingly a quality system was implemented in order to measure the time it took from a
patient entered the emergency room until he or she was contacted by healthcare personnel. As a
result, the hospitals hired so called ‘hello-nurses’, with the job function simply to approach
incoming patients and say ‘hello’’ (translated from Dahler-Larsen, 2008, p. 19).
This story reveals that unintended effects are in risk of emerging, if measures are becoming the
definition of quality and meanwhile deficient described. If the indicators in a benchmarking
system are a poor reflection of what they try to capture, it generates a risk in other elements
being unintended affected in the quest of fulfilling the criteria best possible. Inadequate
indicators could end up influencing the action of those being measured, leaving a dichotomy of
the comprehensions of success; is success achieved through well executed processes or through
a fulfilling of the criteria set up in the indicators? This stresses the point that when consequences
are attached to indicators, the determination of them is the most crucial element in
benchmarking. The indicators must be able to answer the right questions as well as answering
the questions right.
The actual effects of the benchmarking in the Danish construction sector will remain
unanswered in this paper. The only certainty is that benchmarking always has effects.
7. Conclusions
The governmental efforts in bringing benchmarking into the Danish construction sector have
been discussed. It has been attempted to widen the theoretical spectrum of benchmarking in
construction by supplementing the discussion with elements of public benchmarking and
utilization focused evaluation theory.
The benchmarking efforts in the Danish construction sector have been discussed using two
distinct perceptions of benchmarking; public benchmarking and best practice benchmarking. In
conclusions it has been argued that construction clients and the government are the intended
users of the benchmarking system. The benchmarking results are primarily used by clients for
contractor selection and the government for monitoring and regulation of the construction
sector. This is argued to undermine the intentions of distributing best practice and voluntary
knowledge sharing among contractors. In closing, reflection of possible effects and risks of the
present use of benchmarking in the Danish construction sector has been laid out. It has been
emphasized that unintended effects may follow in the wake of using benchmarking to define
success and judge the performance of contractors, hence constructing an overall comprehension
of what constitutes project success in the construction sector.
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