Books and journals Case studies Expert Briefings Open Access
Advanced search

The balanced scorecard and intangible assets: similar ideas, unaligned concepts

Bernard Marr (Research Fellow in the Centre for Business Performance at Cranfield School of Management and a Visiting Professor at the University of Basilicata, Italy. Prior to joining Cranfield he held a research position at the Judge Institute of Management Studies at Cambridge University. Tel: (44) 01234 751122, E‐mail: bernard.marr@cranfield.ac.uk)
Chris Adams (Visiting Fellow at Cranfield’s Centre for Business Performance and Principal of Business Performance Insights. Until 2001 he worked at Accenture and led the firm’s “Managing with Measures” thought leadership development initiative. He is co‐author of The Performance Prism (Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2002).)

Measuring Business Excellence

ISSN: 1368-3047

Publication date: 1 September 2004

Abstract

With their most recent publications on the balanced scorecard, Kaplan and Norton have focused on the learning and growth perspective in an attempt to clarify its constituent parts, as they acknowledge that many organizations struggle with what to include in this perspective. For that reason Kaplan and Norton introduce the concept of intangible assets as the content of the learning and growth perspective. They classify intangible assets into human capital, information capital, and organization capital. However, it is believed that this latest attempt to evolve the balanced scorecard might have an adverse effect. This article outlines how Kaplan and Norton failed to acknowledge the large body of literature on intangible assets and, therefore, produced an inconsistent, incomplete, and potentially very confusing classification of intangible assets.

Keywords

  • Balanced scorecard
  • Intangible assets
  • Performance measures
  • Corporate strategy

Citation

Marr, B. and Adams, C. (2004), "The balanced scorecard and intangible assets: similar ideas, unaligned concepts", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 18-27. https://doi.org/10.1108/13683040410555582

Download as .RIS

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes

You may be able to access teaching notes by logging in via Shibboleth, Open Athens or with your Emerald account.
Login
If you think you should have access to this content, click the button to contact our support team.
Contact us

To read the full version of this content please select one of the options below

You may be able to access this content by logging in via Shibboleth, Open Athens or with your Emerald account.
Login
To rent this content from Deepdyve, please click the button.
Rent from Deepdyve
If you think you should have access to this content, click the button to contact our support team.
Contact us
Emerald Publishing
  • Opens in new window
  • Opens in new window
  • Opens in new window
  • Opens in new window
© 2021 Emerald Publishing Limited

Services

  • Authors Opens in new window
  • Editors Opens in new window
  • Librarians Opens in new window
  • Researchers Opens in new window
  • Reviewers Opens in new window

About

  • About Emerald Opens in new window
  • Working for Emerald Opens in new window
  • Contact us Opens in new window
  • Publication sitemap

Policies and information

  • Privacy notice
  • Site policies
  • Modern Slavery Act Opens in new window
  • Chair of Trustees governance statement Opens in new window
  • COVID-19 policy Opens in new window
Manage cookies

We’re listening — tell us what you think

  • Something didn’t work…

    Report bugs here

  • All feedback is valuable

    Please share your general feedback

  • Member of Emerald Engage?

    You can join in the discussion by joining the community or logging in here.
    You can also find out more about Emerald Engage.

Join us on our journey

  • Platform update page

    Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

  • Questions & More Information

    Answers to the most commonly asked questions here