{
  "title": "Finance for non-financial managers in the canton of Bern: does a lower cost per service prove an efficiency gain?",
  "url": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/finance-pour-non-financiers-berne-baisse-cout-unitaire-efficience-en",
  "language": "en",
  "datePublished": "2026-07-13",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "SHR — Swiss Human Resources",
    "url": "https://www.shr.swiss",
    "address": "Esplanade de Pont-Rouge 9A, 1212 Lancy, Suisse"
  },
  "summary": "A lower unit cost appears to signal better use of resources. Yet that interpretation assumes that the service, its quality and the scope of costs remain comparable.",
  "section": "Research",
  "topic": "Finance for Non-Financial Managers",
  "place": {
    "name": "Bern",
    "region": "Berne",
    "country": "CH"
  },
  "keyPoints": [
    {
      "heading": "What the literature establishes: measurement can redirect effort",
      "point": "Bengt Holmström and Paul Milgrom (1991, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization) model situations in which a single job comprises several tasks that differ in how readily they can be measured."
    },
    {
      "heading": "A second mechanism: rewarding something other than the stated objective",
      "point": "Steven Kerr (1975, Academy of Management Journal) analyses the gap between the behaviours organisations say they want and those they actually reward."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The hasty conclusion: abandon unit costs",
      "point": "These studies do not make unit cost useless; they call for clarity about what it measures."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The limitations: neither local evidence nor a self-sufficient indicator",
      "point": "Holmström and Milgrom’s work is theoretical, while Kerr’s rests on an illustrative analysis: neither measures the effect of financial training in the canton of Bern."
    },
    {
      "heading": "A practical check in Berne",
      "point": "An exercise in SHR’s Finance for non-financial managers programme could involve preparing a comparison sheet for two periods for a service based in Berne, recording the service definition, included costs, volume handled and a quality indicator."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "authors": "Milgrom",
      "year": "1991",
      "source": "Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization"
    },
    {
      "authors": "Kerr",
      "year": "1975",
      "source": "Academy of Management Journal"
    }
  ],
  "wordCount": 446,
  "image": "https://www.shr.swiss/img/blog-Training-Finance-For-Non-Financial-Managers-Bern-finance-pour-non-financiers-berne-baisse-cout-unitaire-efficience-en.jpg?v=4",
  "translations": {
    "fr": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/finance-pour-non-financiers-berne-baisse-cout-unitaire-efficience",
    "en": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/finance-pour-non-financiers-berne-baisse-cout-unitaire-efficience-en",
    "de": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/finance-pour-non-financiers-berne-baisse-cout-unitaire-efficience-de",
    "it": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/finance-pour-non-financiers-berne-baisse-cout-unitaire-efficience-it"
  },
  "relatedPages": {
    "programme": "https://www.shr.swiss/formation-finance-pour-non-financiers-berne",
    "city": "https://www.shr.swiss/formations-ville/berne",
    "blog": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog"
  },
  "citationPolicy": "Citation autorisée avec mention « SHR — Swiss Human Resources » et lien vers l'article."
}