Validity and utility of a hyperknowledge-based financial benchmarking system

Computer technology is transforming strategic management and strategic decision making. One important area of strategic management work, from a competitive viewpoint, is benchmarking. Competitive benchmarking is a company-internal process in which the activities of a given company are measured against the best practices of the best-in-class companies using financial and/or non-financial yardsticks. We believe that hyperknowledge-based support systems provide new, effective and efficient ways of performing benchmarking. This paper assesses the validity and utility of a new hyperknowledge working and learning environment applied to a financial benchmarking application that utilizes a large annual reports database. The results provide supporting evidence that the hyperknowledge-based application can meet the users´ needs in the domain of financial benchmarking and that the application could be advantageous in practice