Abstract

How to define firm performance? The question is of importance since no extensional definition in the field of management is identified. The concept of performance thus appears all at the same time complex and multiform, whose measurement is always imperfect. Moreover, far from being comprehended only in a rational way by completely informed actors acting on a market, the performance appreciation by the public is a social one, resulting mainly from mimetic behaviours (Messonnet, 1999). In the field of services, the difficulties related to performance measurement are even more significant. Taking roots on a cognitive approach to strategy and competitive analysis, the objective of our study is thus to describe how top managers working in the tour-operating field perceive performance. Our results show that perceived performance is greatly heterogeneous, top managers using many different criteria to describe tour operators performance.

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