Goal-setting technique in a logistics service system: Overcoming the limitations of the technocratic approach to key performance indicators

Aim. This work aimed to investigate the issue of defining the boundaries of key performance indicators (KPIs) for a logistics service evaluation system.

Objectives. The work seeks to analyze and systematize existing approaches to defining KPI boundary values for small entrepreneurship logistics service systems; to propose a conceptual model for defining KPI boundary values based on the dynamic interaction between the logistics system development and decision-maker transformation; to identify and characterize the driving forces of the goal-setting process through development of practical recommendations for managing them to ensure sustainable development.

Methods. The study employed a set of methodological approaches, namely comparative and critical analysis, interdisciplinary synthesis, conceptual modeling, and qualitative case study analysis.

Results. A concept of the existential-managerial nature of goal-setting has been developed, demonstrating that defining the KPI boundaries of a logistics service system is not a technicaleconomic, but a psychological-managerial task. The application of an interdisciplinary analogy with the multiworld interpretation of quantum physics is substantiated, allowing the management process to be modeled as a sequence of irreversible «branchings of reality». The cyclical nature of the mutual interaction between goal achievement and decision-maker transformation has been established. Three key driving forces of goal-setting were identified and systematized, which are ambition, greed, and mindfulness. The work discovered a critical point where healthy ambitions transition to greed, which determines the vector of a company’s development. It also demonstrated the impossibility of creating a universal mathematical formula for calculating ideal KPI boundaries for a logistics service system due to the predominance of psychological aspects over formal algorithms.

Conclusions. The KPI boundaries of a logistics service system represent not a technical and economic task, but an existential and managerial one, in which psychological aspects prevail over mathematical calculations. A cyclical interaction between the logistics system development and the transformation of decision makers has been established. It was substantiated that the KPI system effectiveness is determined by the balance of three opposing forces, which are ambition, greed, and mindfulness. The concept of «conscious stability» has been developed as an alternative development path focused on qualitative process improvement rather than quantitative growth. The work provides recommendations for practical application.

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