Performance management in a milieu of customer participatory measurement: Beyond the ratings and rankings of Strictly Come Dancing

This research concerns the performance management practices that unfolded in Strictly Come Dancing, a television show whose viewers were promised that they could be its co-creators through Web 2.0-based customer participatory measurement systems that directed the development of the series mechanically. Analysing the performance man-agement practice of the 2013 Danish version of the show, we find that an emotive, antagonistic competitive language game and an authoritative, calculative language game were operating in interaction. They facilitated an expectation of consumer democracy and made viewers engage fiercely with the show, while simultaneously controlling the drama so that it would unfold in a way that matched the voice of the television company. The study provides novel insights into our understanding of how companies might produce and use customer participatory measurement systems as an integrated part of their customer participatory logic of value co-creation. It also adds to the methodological apparatus for analysing, conceptualising, and understanding organisational practices of performance management. (c) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.