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Today’s hectic and rapid lifestyle has promoted the expansion of fast foods or quick-service restaurants (QSRs) than ever (Mylonakis & Evripiotis, 2016). The industry has become more global and is dominated by a number of worldwide QSR chains, mainly franchised American brands, e.g. KFC, McDonald’s, and Hardee’s (Sobaih & Jones, 2015). The concept of QSRs is to provide quick eating experiences at a relatively low cost (Mason et al., 2013). QSRs have special characteristics such as they are everywhere and have limited menus, inexpensive prices, very high sales volume, existence of less qualified labor, and expert management (MarketLine, 2018). Hence, like other businesses, QSRs should have a proper performance measurement system (PMS) to measure the progress towards their strategic plan and accomplish their organizational goals.
PMS is regarded as a component of planning, controlling series that captures performance data, enables control, and feedback, influences work behavior, and tracks strategy development (Valmohammadi & Servati, 2011). Research has shown that a sustainable PMS (SPMS) should consider the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), i.e. broader perspective to foster the value of business considering financial, people, and environmental factors in measurement (Elkington, 2013). This means that SPMS should consider multi-dimensions or a mixture of financial and non-financial indicators to function properly in the environment and achieve business goals at long term (Docherty et al., 2008), e.g. the balanced scorecard (BSC) which considers customer, process and people measures in addition to financial measures (Valmohammadi & Servati, 2011). Nonetheless, there is often a challenge of putting balanced measurement into practices by businesses, especially in relation to measurement of sustainability (Elkington, 2018). Notwithstanding this, it is curical to integrate the dimension of sustainability in PMS to function properly in the environment and achieve economic as well as operational goals at long term level (Docherty et al., 2008). Moreover, sustainability needs to be incorporated in the dimensions of the system as well as during the implementation of the system at the organization (Elkington, 2018).
Several attempts have been made to study PMSs in different tourism and hospitality organizations, especially in hotels (see, for example, Phillips & Louvieris, 2005; Haktanir & Harris, 2005; Wadongo et al., 2010, Sainaghi et al., 2017; Ribeiro et al., 2019). However, to the best of researchers’ knowledge, there is no published research in English nor in Arabic languages undertaken to evaluate the practices of PMS in QSRs both nationally and internationally. However, QSRs encompass a major sector in the restaurant industry. This research addresses a gap in knowledge in relation to PMS practices in restaurants, especially QSR chains. Sainaghi et al. (2017) stressed the need for innovative research approaches for tourism firms to develop non-traditional PMS that significantly improve the performance of tourism and hospitality organizations. This research evaluates the practices of PMSs in both international and national QSR chains using Egypt as a case study. The research introduces comprehensive and SPMS for emerging QSR chains enabling them to enhance their management practices and accomplish their strategic goals. The research was set to answer the following research questions:
1- What is the current situation of PMS practices in QSR chains?
2- Are there any differences in PMS practices between international and national QSR chains?
3- What are the main key performance indicators for QSR chains?
4- What are the dimensions and their related indicators of SPMS for emerging QSR chains?