Balanced scorecard versus French tableau de bord:beyond dispute, a cultural and ideological perspective

Currently much attention is given to strategic measurement systems with the balanced scorecard as the far most high profiled. This US-born approach has not been very warmly welcome in France where tableau de bord, a French strategic measurement system, has been used for at least 50 years. The differences between both approaches have been variously discussed. This paper investigates the cultural and ideological hypotheses founding both methods, which may explain their differences as well as the climate surrounding the debate. This broadens up the usual perspective regarding performance measurement systems, which are usually implemented with respect to their strategic and organizational relevance - their cultural and ideological backgrounds being generally disregarded. In addition, this analysis provides some insight into the more general question of the transferability of management methods.balanced score card; tableau de bord; cultural perspective

Some thoughts on cost accounting developments in the United States

Includes bibliographical references

Understanding practice generalisation - Opening the research/practice gap

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to enhance the relationship between research and practice. It addresses the question: How can practitioners’ use of generalisations be understood, with a view towards producing research-based generalisations that facilitate use in practice? Design/methodology/approach Language games are used to explore generalisation in practice, and the framework of pragmatic constructivism is adopted to characterise the generation of practice generalisation. Findings Practice is conceptualised as a complex set of clusters of organised actions run by a set of applied generalisations and driven by human intentions. Practice also encompasses reflective activities that aim to create the generalisations and reflect them into the specific circumstances to create functioning practice. Generalisations depend on underlying concepts. The formation and structure of concepts is explored and used to create the construction and use of different types of generalisation. Generalisations function as cognitive building blocks in constructing strings of interconnected functioning activities. Managers make their own functioning generalisations that, however, do not satisfy the research criteria for acceptable generalisations. The research/practice gap is shaped by the very different language games played. Research limitations/implications If research is to be useful to practice, the generalisations produced must methodologically articulate the types of generalisation that pervade the methods with which practitioners construct functioning activities. Further research has to give more insight into such processes. Originality/value The paper contributes insight into both the generalisation debate and the research/practice gap debate. </jats:sec

Les Systemes De Calcul Des Couts Dans Les Entreprises Chinoises : Une Etude Exploratoire

La communication présente les résultats d'une recherche empirique destinée à décrire les méthodes de calcul des coûts de revient de cinq entreprises industrielles chinoises. Elle révèle des systèmes de calculs très simples, basés sur les coûts directs, présentant des faiblesses visibles et peu pertinents en regard des besoins du management de ces entreprises. Elle explore ensuite deux hypothèses permettant d'expliquer la faible maturité des systèmes de calcul des coûts dans ces entreprises : la première s'appuie sur des travaux historiques et sur l'environnement concurrentiel chinois, la seconde sur les caractéristiques culturelles des managers chinois