When One Size Does Not Fit All: A Literature Review on the Modifications of the Balanced Scorecard

Rainer Lueg · Ana Luisa Carvalho e Silva

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Accounting and Organizational Management Accounting Theory and Financial Reporting Corporate Governance and Management

Abstract

Robert Kaplan and David Norton emphasize that the four perspectives of their standard balanced scorecard (BSC) need to be adapted to the organizational context. Yet, we lack a coherent body of knowledge on these adaptations. 20 years after the implementation of the BSC, a literature review is warranted to investigate if and how the original BSC has been modified in practice. The authors conduct a systematic literature review of leading academic journals from 1992 to 2012 to identify and analyze the extant empirical evidence on the BSC. The authors find 117 empirical studies on the BSC, of which 27 deal with BSC-modifications. First, the authors conclude that the BSC-perspectives have been modified to match different industries, organizational levels, or functions (e.g., the public sector, information systems, supply chain management, corporate social responsibility, or incentive systems). Second, the authors use an established BSC classification, and argue that the BSC has also been modified in terms of its sophistication. This paper can only identify few examples where the BSC has become an incentive-relevant management system as imagined by Kaplan and Norton; many organizations stop at the level of a measurement system. On the one hand, this article demonstrates the versatility of the BSC and its perspectives as claimed by Kaplan and Norton. On the other hand, the lack of sophisticated implementations shed a critical light on the relevance of the BSC in practice.

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References

1992The balanced scorecard : measures that drive performance 1997The balanced scorecard: Translating strategy into action 2003Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes 2003Subjectivity and the Weighting of Performance Measures: Evidence from a Balanced Scorecard 2001Communicating and Controlling Strategy: An Empirical Study of the Effectiveness of the Balanced Scorecard 2010The Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage 2003A descriptive analysis on the implementation of Balanced Scorecards in German-speaking countries 2006Alignment: Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies

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