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The purpose of this study is to investigate empirically the balanced scorecard (BSC)’s theoretical underpinnings.

This study undertakes a cross-sectional, self-administered e-mail survey to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the performance indicators of the BSC’s four perspectives using principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.

The results suggest that the performance indicators of each BSC’s perspective converge with the same perspective’s performance indicators and discriminate from other perspectives’ performance indicators.

Future researchers are invited to conduct conceptual-level tests of the BSC framework using the newly constructed subjective scales of the performance indicators of the BSC’s perspectives. Furthermore, scholars conducting empirical research on the field are encouraged to further investigate the BSC’s theoretical underpinnings using various research designs, multiple research methods and a combination of existing and new BSC’s performance indicators.

This study contributes to the academic stream of management accounting and strategic management field by: empirically validating the BSC’s theoretical underpinnings that is a prerequisite for the BSC to advance from a framework to a theory and providing subjective scales for measuring the generic performance indicators of the BSC’s four perspectives that can be used in future research of the BSC framework’s hypotheses. In addition, the literature is enhanced with a newly developed perceptual measure of firm performance with attributes of the BSC’s four perspectives.

This paper compares balanced scorecard and intellectual capital and finds important differences between their theoretical underpinnings, which suggest that the breath of indicators will work differently in organisations.

Analysing texts about balanced scorecard and intellectual capital, the paper discusses not the obvious similarities – that they are both integrated performance management systems – but four more aspects: strategy, organisation, management, and indicators. Comparing these four dimensions the paper discusses the differences arising from the very different theories of strategy that they presuppose: competitive advantage versus competency strategy.

The paper suggests that the very different notions of strategy that underpin the balanced scorecard and the intellectual capital approach make such comprehensive performance management systems behave in very different ways – the difference between a tightly coupled and a loosely coupled system accounts for this.

The main limitation is that the paper is primarily a literature study and therefore it is not certain that in practical situations companies will necessarily adopt the theoretical perspectives mobilised behind balance scorecard and intellectual capital.

The usefulness of that paper is that practitioners may understand the breath of implications of a shift in strategic focus and realise the various organisational conditions that can help mobilise the use of indicators in different ways.

The paper's analysis shows how the two models assume how indicators work in an organisational systems and concludes that the differences are significant and that therefore there are considerable differences in how a system of indicators may work in the context of balanced scorecard compared with the context of intellectual capital.

The balanced scorecard (BSC), first created by Kaplan and Norton in 1992, has been developed over the last 20 years, resulting in numerous iterations. There is currently no agreed taxonomy for these iterations, making comparison of research findings difficult. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for describing the different iterations.

In order to assist in understanding the numerous changes, the concept of revision control was introduced. A full review of the literature describing new iterations of the BSC was undertaken and these iterations were classified as minor developments or major generational evolution.

Eight subsets of the Balanced Score card are proposed, grouped into three generations; the first being the initial generation of score card, the second generation including strategy maps, and the final generation which includes destination statements.

It is planned that this simple classification will prove useful to practitioners, for describing which generation of the scorecard they propose to implement, and for academics to describe more precisely the scorecard that they are analysing.

This paper is the first to provide a taxonomy for the different versions of the BSC, through a process of identifying and labelling the major and minor changes that have occurred. This allows a more nuanced analysis of the BSC as a tool for managing performance and adding precision to any critique, in that it is clear which version has been used.

Kaplan and Norton’s concept of the balanced scorecard has received wide acceptance from both academics and practitioners. The design and construction of balanced scorecards has not, however, been well documented. Reports on a study undertaken for three companies to determine, develop and implement a balanced scorecard for senior managers’ use. Reviews the theoretical background of integrated performance measures, describes, analyses and cross‐compares the performance measures designed by the three companies. Concludes with a discussion on whether or not the generic model developed by Kaplan and Norton is the most appropriate model for all companies.

Two drawbacks to current management information practices are identified. First, the level of abstraction from which internal management disclosures are constructed using current frameworks is too generic; and second, the current process of identifying relevant management disclosures is outdated. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to discuss whether contemporary conceptions of value creation from the field of business models can improve the currently applied frameworks used for generating internal management disclosures on intellectual capital. Hence, this paper offers a timely critique of the balanced scorecard, and other performance measurement concepts developed over the last 25 years.

The paper reviews contemporary literature on the balanced scorecard, and related concepts, for generating internal management disclosures relating to intellectual capital. Furthermore, the problems that balanced scorecard type frameworks have as vehicles for constructing relevant internal management disclosures are explored.

This essay argues that internal management disclosures need more precise underpinnings of value creation than offered by current frameworks. An empirically validated structure that establishes alignment between value creation and internal management disclosures, through the mechanism of business model configurations, is applied to overcome the two identified drawbacks of current practices.

This is a conceptual/normative offering.

Following the critique, this essay prompts a new way forward for identifying internal management disclosures and performance measures, their validation, and subsequent benchmarking by expanding upon the concept of business model configurations. This concept offers a value driver platform with related clusters of KPIs connected to each of the 71 identified business model configurations as a starting point for management’s identification of relevant KPIs, and their analysis, benchmarking, and application for performance management.

The arguments offered in this essay illustrate how it is possible to enhance the relevance of internal management disclosures by challenging and changing the normative level of abstraction applied.

The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of relative balanced measurement as benchmarking tool for public training centers and public services.

Borrowing the concept of balanced scorecard we have modified the perspectives to reflect the special circumstances of Civil Service. Each perspective is assigned a number of key performance indicators, which are ranked in a Linker scale, in order to create rankings for each perspective. Then the rankings of each perspective are averaged in order to create a unique final ranking, which sets the performance frontier.

The real case example for Civil Servants Trainee's Work Unit (TWU) validates the relative balanced measurement conceptual framework.

One of the limitations of this paper is that the conclusion is drawn from a single Training Center at Greek Ministry of Economy and Finance and a limited number of TWUs. A linked research should follow, with field researches for trainees and supervisors of the trainees (Heads of Trainee Work Units) in order to enrich and validate further the concept.

In the proposed concept the establishment of performance frontier, consisting of the best performing TWUs, could be used as a guide of inefficient TWU compare to the other in order to undertake their own improvements.

This paper provides a new concept for relative balance measurement of TWU of Public Services Training Centers. No such concept or method has been proposed and implemented to date.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of the role of the balanced scorecard in strategy implementation.

This paper provides a review of strategy implementation literature to identify the main inhibitors of successful strategy implementation and then proceeds to critically review the balanced scorecard and evaluate the contribution it can make to strategy implementation, in particular how it may be able to mitigate the problems associated with strategy implementation.

It is argued in the paper that the balanced scorecard, subject to the adoption of suitable processes, can address the key problems associated with strategy implementation including communication, the role of middle managers and integration with existing control systems. The study raises a series of research questions and proposes avenues for further research.

More than half strategies devised by organisations are never actually implemented. At a time of increasing competition and globalisation; shorter lead times and increased customer sophistication, the effectiveness of strategy implementation is even more important. The findings of this study will provide the basis for research that will improve this vital management activity.

The effective implementation of corporate strategy is often overlooked in strategic management literature. There is still recognition that there is a need for further research. By combining two eclectic fields of research, i.e. strategy implementation and performance measurement, it is proposed that new insights can be gained to inform future practice.

By observations of what managers do with the balanced scorecard (BSC), the purpose of the paper is to discuss how further empirical research may be advanced, which differentiates more clearly what we study when exploring BSC work.

The paper is based on a discussion of observations of seasoned managers working with the BSC as part of their executive education program. It offers a discussion of how insights from interaction with these managers can develop our understanding of how management concepts are constituted and can be explored.

The ways in which managers (dis‐)connect the BSC objects and concept are everything but benign. Much more could be known about the BSC, by studying both how these relationships are crafted in practice, and how the relationships crafted are influenced by the texts by which the BSC is known.

The paper offers a new way of framing research of popular management conceptualizations, by separating them in terms of conceptual ideas and representational objects. It offers a starting point for researching, what managers do with the BSC, and for researching what it is that works for the balanced scorecard.

The paper frames a quadrant approach. It distinguishes the BSC in terms of its conceptual narrative, its artefact object representation, users’ conceptual expectations and object mobilization. These four dimensions can assist researchers in finding ways to assess the impact of popular management concepts.

The purpose of the paper is to examine how organisational experimenting with total quality management (TQM) and the balanced scorecard affects the bundling of design characteristics associated with these innovations in a Swedish central government agency.

The paper adopts an exploratory, longitudinal case study approach which builds on and extends the management fad and fashion literature.

While both innovations encountered considerable implementation problems, they continued to exercise a lingering influence on the “new” performance management system emerging in the focal organisation. The original adoption of the two innovations can be explained from a traditional management fashion perspective. However, the subsequent development of performance management features a more complex mix of explanatory factors and highlights how the bundling phenomenon is entangled with managerial learning processes. This resulted in a less linear trajectory of change than that predicted by prior research on the notion of bundling.

The paper contributes to the literature on management fads and fashions by refining its conception of the role of managers of adopting organisations and organisational adoption, implementation and rejection of innovations.

The paper constitutes a first attempt to examine in greater detail how organisational experimenting with contemporary management control innovations affects the process of bundling in an individual organisation.

This study aims to explore the serendipitous discovery of integrated reporting (IR) by Alpha, an Italian small and medium-sized enterprise (SME). Alpha piqued the curiosity when the authors discovered that it experimented with IR alongside other management accounting practices, such as the Balanced Scorecard. As the authors reflected on Alpha’s experiences, the authors had to opportunistically develop a new framework to understand the change that was taking place at Alpha fully. Thus, the authors developed the serendipitous drift framework. This study contributes to addressing the gap between management accounting research that sees change as a planned, ordered process versus research that sees it as an unmanageable drift.

The authors ground the research on a qualitative methodology based on a single case study. This methodology allows us to focus on understanding what has happened at Alpha to discover new themes and provide theoretical generalisations. The authors developed the framework using middle-range thinking and fleshed it out using empirical findings from the case study. Middle-range thinking implies going back and forth between the theory and the empirical material. Therefore, the authors develop the serendipitous drift framework from prior theories and use it to inform the empirical study. In turn, the empirical material collected in Alpha helps refine and flesh out the serendipitous drift framework. The framework explains how Alpha leveraged serendipity to steer change towards favourable outcomes for them.

The authors find that the search for change undertaken by Alpha’s managers was non-specific but purposeful. Their dispositions were sagacious enough to recognise the potential value found in management accounting practices, such as IR and the Balanced Scorecard. They chanced upon new and unforeseen practices through trial and error, iteration, internal engagement and networking.

Overall, the results indicate that Alpha’s managers shaped the disorder of management accounting changes, even though it followed unexpected, uncertain and messy paths. Indeed, appropriate informal controls can act as a frame of reference for choosing, adapting and implementing new management accounting practices to shape the disorder. Informal controls can both guide and bound the experimentation process towards desirable outcomes.

The authors contribute to management accounting change theory by developing a framework rooted in serendipity and drifting theories. The framework identifies how searching, sagacity and chance are essential for making positive, unexpected discoveries. Therefore, the authors provide novel insights on how and why IR and other management accounting practices are eventually translated and adopted in the case company. Moreover, the serendipitous drift framework has the potential to help managers frame cultural controls to actively seek opportunities for valuable serendipitous eureka moments through networking and experimentation.