The balanced scorecard: a necessary good or an unnecessary evil?

The Balanced Scorecard has emerged in recent years as what can perhaps best be described as a strategic control tool. Although surrounded by much publicity in both professional and academic circles, few organisations are yet in a position to quantify its benefits, therefore investing time and money for unquantifiable results. The question posed in this article is whether or not the Balanced Scorecard is a necessary good, an unnecessary evil …or perhaps, a necessary evil …for such organisations. Through a discussion of current literature on the topic and various examples, the article demonstrates that the Balanced Scorecard is a `necessary good' for today's organisations. It is a tool which adds value by providing both relevant and balanced information in a concise way for managers, creating an environment which is conducive to learning organisations and eliminating the need for managers to 'choose' which type of control system to use at any given time. However, the article also draws attention to the fact that the entire Balanced Scorecard implementation process relies on both formal and informal processes, and that there are written and unwritten rules which must be considered for the process to be implemented successfully

Does the Balanced Scorecard add value? Empirical evidence on its effect on performance

Since its emergence at the beginning of the 1990s, numerous companies have adopted the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). This paper tackles two research questions: (1) whether the BSC adds value to companies and (2) if so, how does it contribute to organisational performance. In contrast to previous literature that does not separate these two questions, we rely on an established methodology (Foster and Swenson, 1997) to separate and quantify both the BSC contribution to performance and the way that the contribution is achieved, by applying a unique cause-and-effect scheme to the BSC. Our empirical results are based on survey data collected from 76 business units. They indicate first that the Balanced Scorecard has a positive impact on organisational performance. More specifically, the BSC improves the integration of the management processes and empowers people. Using the Strategy-Focused-Organisation (SFO) model (Kaplan and Norton, 2001), we empirically find that the sources of performance derived from the BSC are primarily of three types: (1) a better translation of the strategy into operational terms, (2) the fact that strategising becomes a continuous process, and (3) the greater alignment of various processes, services, competencies and units of an organisation