Boston Lyric Opera Case for Management Control

Beard, D. F. (2009.). Successful applications of the balanced scorecard in higher education. Journal of Education for Business, 84(5), 275-282. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/ps/i.

According to the study Zelman et al (2003) showed that the Balanced Scorecard was introduced in all areas of a particular industry, particularly with regard to health care such as hospitals, health care systems, health insurers and long-term care. In addition, the balanced scorecard is not only introduced in certain areas even been in use for strategic management at the enterprise level but in use for the evaluation of health programs, the quality of care projects and improvements as well as performance measurement across the organization.

easu e e t tool: a o e ie of its usage a d sustai a ility

“The balanced scorecard should translate a business unit’s mission and strategy into tangible objectives and measures. The measures represent a balance between external measures for shareholders and customers and internal measures of critical business processes, innovation and learning and growth. The measures are balance between outcome measures, the results of past efforts, and the measures that drive future performance. And the scorecard is balanced between objective, easily quantified outcome measures and subjective, somewhat judgmental, performance…”

The four quadrants of the balanced scorecard which will be discussed within this paper are as follows:

To bridge the gap between strategy and action, organizations use the Balanced Scorecard, BSC. This tool aligns business activities to the organization’s strategy and vision thereby boosting the internal and external communications as well as monitoring its performance against strategic objectives by incorporating financial and non-financial elements from various perspectives into a single framework. Therefore, the BSC is essential in steering an organization to focus on its most relevant areas that push the organization to success by clarifying performance in relation to the business strategy. An organization can thus use BSC to achieve customer satisfaction through innovation thereby strengthening its financial position, achieve a competitive advantage and retain clients.

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a performance measurement tool that originated in the business worlds. Performance measurement is a way to track performance over time to assess if goals are being met. Organizations measure their performance to monitor how they’re doing in achieving their overall mission and goals.

“The Balanced Scorecard translates a company's vision and strategy into a coherent set of performance measures” which was defined by Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton (1996).

The goal of this essay is to focus on theory and implementation of the Balanced Scorecard system. Because of the structured generic approach of the methodology, the Balanced Scorecard has gained its popularity as means of evaluating performance and reporting quantitative performance results. The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals (The Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2014). The Balanced Scorecard is the most prevalent and adopted of the several strategic performance tools since the early 1990s. In addition, the derivatives of the Balanced Scorecard such as Performance Prism and Results Based Management have also gained prominence in the field of strategic performance management and improvement. The Balanced Scorecard commenced as a performance management tool that incorporated strategic non-financial performance measures to the conventional financial indicators in order to provide managers and company executives with a somewhat “balanced” view of the aspect of organizational performance.

“The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is used extensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals.”

Definition of what comprised a Balanced Scorecard was sparse and focused on the high level structure of the device. Simple ‘causality’ between the four perspectives was illustrated but not used for specific purpose. Kaplan and Norton’s original paper’s focus was on the selection and reporting of a limited number of measures in each of the four perspectives (Kaplan and Norton, 1992). The paper suggested use of attitudinal questions relating to the vision and goals of the organisation to help in the selection of measures to be used, and also encouraged the consideration of ‘typical’ areas of interest in this process. Kaplan and Norton’s original work makes no specific observations concerning how the Balanced Scorecard might improve the performance of organisations; the implication is that the provision of

The balance scorecard refers to a component within a comprehensive management system that integrates strategy and operations (Kaplan, 2009, pp. 1265). The balanced scorecard has been a multi-dimensional performance measurement system (Kaplan and Norton, 1992), which over the years has upgraded versions with much interest not only in academic fields (Hoque, 2014); but also as a management tool (Rigby & Bilodeau, 2013). The upgraded versions contain outcome measures and also the performance drivers of each outcome which have been linked together in cause-and-effect relationships thus making the performance measurement system to be a feed-forward control system.

The balanced scorecard is a strategic measurement strategy used in business and government as a measurement tool. The balanced scorecard should reflect businesses plans and strategic goals. The balance scorecard “was originated by Drs. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton (n.n October 8th, 2015). Balanced scorecard is used by managers not only to measure performance but to align their goals and execute the visions and missions of any agency. The balanced scorecard include metrics in different perspective views, these include “The learning and growth perspective, the business process perspective, the customer perspective and the financial perspective”.

This report outlines the what the balanced scorecard is and how it is used as a tool used in the business industry. It outlines its historical development and analyses its usefulness and how it can be applied to key decisions.

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that was developed by Dr. Robert S. Kaplan and Dr. David P. Norton in the early 1990's. Their goal was to provide organizations with a clear understanding of what to measure in order to improve performance and results (Balanced Scorecard Institute 2014). The balanced scorecard is a framework that allows an organization to measure performance and compare it to the organization’s strategic objectives and goals (Kinney and Raiborn 2013, 10).