Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Balanced Scorecard System Implemented in a Functional Organization

Recognizing that the strategic performance of a business can not be evaluated using traditional financial measures alone, the balanced score card (BSC) complements financial measures with non-financial measures in the expectation that the non-financial performance will drive the financial success of the business. However, when the BSC is deployed at the departmental level, the commonly used hierarchical and top-down approach tends to ignore the need for cross-departmental cooperation and teamwork and thus leads to an inappropriate assignment of the strategic objectives to individual departments. Accordingly, this study proposes a diagnostic process for calibrating both the firm level and the departmental level performance measures of a BSC implemented within a functional organization. In the proposed approach, a questionnaire-based survey is conducted to ascertain employees’ opinions regarding the relevance of the departmental performance measures as regards their contribution to the achievement of the firm level measures. Causal strength matrixes are then employed to summarize the survey results and to analyze the usefulness of the individual department’s performance measures. The proposed approach is demonstrated using an example of a machine tool manufacturer in Taiwan for illustration purposes.