平衡计分卡的有用性:一项实验研究

一直以来,人们对平衡计分卡能否有效地将企业战略与业绩评价相结合争论不休。作为平衡计分卡的新发展阶段,战略地图的出现为本文的研究提供了契机。本文基于实验研究方法,以战略地图描述业务单元战略,分析实验参与者在评价业务单元业绩时的指标选择。本文发现,实验参与者均较为依赖共性指标;相对而言,有战略信息的实验参与者更加依赖个性指标,而无战略信息的实验参与者更加依赖共性指标。     

Performance evaluation bias: A comparative study on the role of financial fixation,similarity-to-self and likeability

Performance evaluations are critical to organizational control. Dissatisfaction with systems emphasizing financial targets only has driven many companies to adopt systems using multiple performance measures. These multiple measurement systems (MMS) however may exacerbate certain cognitive biases. Using multiple performance measures can be a cognitively complex task that invites coping reactions anchored in simplifying heuristic biases, such as the likability of the target evaluatee and similarity-to-self. There are reasons to believe that these biases may manifest differently across “individualistic” or “collectivist” cultures. Our study examines three biases (financial fixation, similarity-to-self and likeability) across two distant cultures (United States and Spain) along the individualistic–collectivist dimensions. Participants are MBA students from Spain and the US. Consistent with theory-based predictions, we find that likability and similarity-to-self impact Spanish participants while financial fixation presents greater influence among US participants. These findings underscore the importance of considering national culture in designing performance measurement systems and advise about the role of specific biases, which are not culturally neutral.     

The effects of adopting the Balanced Scorecard on shareholder returns

Many firms have adopted the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as a way to implement strategy and measure firm performance. This paper uses a long-horizon event study methodology to examine the relationship between BSC adoption and shareholder returns. Using a matched pair design, we show that firms who adopt the BSC significantly outperform firms that do not adopt the BSC over a three year period beginning with the year of adoption. Our results are robust for different matching criteria. There is also evidence that firms earn greater excess returns after adoption of the BSC than before. These results provide strong evidence that the BSC is an effective strategic management tool that leads to improved shareholder returns.     

Capital budgeting with multiple criteria and multiple decision makers

In this article, we propose a model that incorporates the preferences of multiple decision makers into a decison-making process using (1) The analytical hierarchy process (AHP); and (2) multiple criteria and multiple constraint levels (MC²) linear programming in a capital budgeting context. Our model can foster strategic and nonfinancial factors that are important in the capital budgeting problems of the current business environment. The two-phased solution framework proposed in this article is sufficiently flexible to reach a compromise among decision makers. Our method also facilitates collection of decision makers' preferences to minimize suboptimization of overall company's goals. In addition, application of AHP to derive weights to decision makers' preferences for resource availability decreases the solution complexity. All these characteristics represent a significant improvement compared with previous linear or goal programming approaches to capital budgeting problems.     

The influence of strategy map communications and individual differences on multidimensional performance evaluations

Multidimensional performance evaluation systems such as the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) were developed to overcome the documented tendency of managers to focus almost exclusively on short-term financial performance measures while disregarding or de-emphasising other short-term and/or long-term non-financial performance measures. Evidence suggests, however, that implementation of many of these systems has not achieved desired outcomes. Cogent communication of a corporation's goals and management's strategy to achieve those goals can be expected to influence employee ‘buy-in’ and the subsequent use or resistance to multidimensional performance measures. In this study we examine the role of strategy maps in communicating goals and strategy. We also examine individual differences (tolerance of ambiguity and functional background) that we believe also influence individuals to be more (or less) receptive to the guidance of strategy maps. An experiment was conducted with 165 experienced professionals enrolled in MBA programmes in Spain and the US. Our experimental results indicate that a strategy map reflecting integrated dependencies can de-bias evaluations of certain groups of individuals, who have high tolerance for ambiguity and have a financial work background. Implications and suggestions for future research are also provided.     

The office of strategy management

There is a disconnect in most companies between strategy formulation and strategy execution. On average, 95% of a company's employees are unaware of, or do not understand, its strategy. If employees are unaware of the strategy, they surely cannot help the organization implement it effectively. It doesn't have to be like this. For the past 15 years, the authors have studied companies that achieved performance breakthroughs by adopting the Balanced Scorecard and its associated tools to help them better communicate strategy to their employees and to guide and monitor the execution of that strategy. Some companies, of course, have achieved better, longer-lasting improvements than others. The organizations that have managed to sustain their strategic focus have typically established a new corporate-level unit to oversee all activities related to strategy: an office of strategy management (OS M). The OSM, in effect, acts as the CEO's chief of staff. It coordinates an array of tasks: communicating corporate strategy; ensuring that enterprise-level plans are translated into the plans of the various units and departments; executing strategic initiatives to deliver on the grand design; aligning employees' plans for competency development with strategic objectives; and testing and adapting the strategy to stay abreast of the competition. The OSM does not do all the work, but it facilitates the processes so that strategy is executed in an integrated fashion across the enterprise. Although the companies that Kaplan and Norton studied use the Balanced Scorecard as the framework for their strategy management systems, the authors say the lessons of the OSM are applicable even to companies that do not use it.     

Value Maximisation, Stakeholder Theory, and the Corporate Objective Function

This paper examines the role of the corporate objective function in corporate productivity and efficiency, social welfare, and the accountability of managers and directors. I argue that since it is logically impossible to maximise in more than one dimension, purposeful behaviour requires a single valued objective function. Two hundred years of work in economics and finance implies that in the absence of externalities and monopoly (and when all goods are priced), social welfare is maximised when each firm in an economy maximises its total market value. Total value is not just the value of the equity but also includes the market values of all other financial claims including debt, preferred stock, and warrants. In sharp contrast stakeholder theory, argues that managers should make decisions so as to take account of the interests of all stakeholders in a firm (including not only financial claimants, but also employees, customers, communities, governmental officials and under some interpretations the environment, terrorists and blackmailers). Because the advocates of stakeholder theory refuse to specify how to make the necessary tradeoffs among these competing interests they leave managers with a theory that makes it impossible for them to make purposeful decisions. With no way to keep score, stakeholder theory makes managers unaccountable for their actions. It seems clear that such a theory can be attractive to the self interest of managers and directors. Creating value takes more than acceptance of value maximisation as the organisational objective. As a statement of corporate purpose or vision, value maximisation is not likely to tap into the energy and enthusiasm of employees and managers to create value. Seen in this light, change in long‐term market value becomes the scorecard that managers, directors, and others use to assess success or failure of the organisation. The choice of value maximisation as the corporate scorecard must be complemented by a corporate vision, strategy and tactics that unite participants in the organisation in its struggle for dominance in its competitive arena. A firm cannot maximise value if it ignores the interest of its stakeholders. I offer a proposal to clarify what I believe is the proper relation between value maximisation and stakeholder theory. I call it enlightened value maximisation, and it is identical to what I call enlightened stakeholder theory. Enlightened value maximisation utilises much of the structure of stakeholder theory but accepts maximisation of the long run value of the firm as the criterion for making the requisite tradeoffs among its stakeholders. Managers, directors, strategists, and management scientists can benefit from enlightened stakeholder theory. Enlightened stakeholder theory specifies long‐term value maximisation or value seeking as the firm’s objective and therefore solves the problems that arise from the multiple objectives that accompany traditional stakeholder theory. I also discuss the Balanced Scorecard, the managerial equivalent of stakeholder theory. The same conclusions hold. Balanced Scorecard theory is flawed because it presents managers with a scorecard which gives no score—that is, no single‐valued measure of how they have performed. Thus managers evaluated with such a system (which can easily have two dozen measures and provides no information on the tradeoffs between them) have no way to make principled or purposeful decisions. The solution is to define a true (single dimensional) score for measuring performance for the organisation or division (and it must be consistent with the organisation’s strategy). Given this we then encourage managers to use measures of the drivers of performance to understand better how to maximise their score. And as long as their score is defined properly, (and for lower levels in the organisation it will generally not be value) this will enhance their contribution to the firm.     

VALUE MAXIMIZATION, STAKEHOLDER THEORY, AND THE CORPORATE OBJECTIVE FUNCTION

This paper examines the role of the corporate objective function in corporate productivity and efficiency, social welfare, and the accountability of managers and directors. The author argues that because it is logically impossible to maximize in more than one dimension, purposeful behavior requires a single‐valued objective function. Two hundred years of work in economics and finance implies that, in the absence of externalities and monopoly, social welfare is maximized when each firm in an economy maximizes its total market value. The main contender to value maximization as the corporate objective is stakeholder theory, which argues that managers should make decisions so as to take account of the interests of all stakeholders in a firm, including not only financial claimants, but also employees, customers, communities, and governmental officials. Because the advocates of stakeholder theory refuse to specify how to make the necessary tradeoffs among these competing interests, they leave managers with a theory that makes it impossible for them to make purposeful decisions. With no clear way to keep score, stakeholder theory effectively makes managers unaccountable for their actions (which helps explain the theory's popularity among many managers). But if value creation is the overarching corporate goal, the process of creating value involves much more than simply holding up value maximization as the organizational objective. As a statement of corporate purpose or vision, value maximization is not likely to tap into the energy and enthusiasm of employees and managers. Thus, in addition to setting up value maximization as the corporate scorecard, top management must provide a corporate vision, strategy, and tactics that will unite all the firm's constituencies in its efforts to compete and add value for investors. In clarifying the proper relation between value maximization and stakeholder theory, the author introduces a somewhat new corporate objective called “enlightened value maximization.” Enlightened value maximization uses much of the structure of stakeholder theory—notably the need to consider the interests of all corporate stakeholders—while continuing to posit maximization of long‐run firm value as the criterion for making the necessary tradeoffs among stakeholders. The paper comes to similar conclusions about the Balanced Scorecard, which is described as the managerial equivalent of stakeholder theory. Although the Balanced Scorecard can add value by helping managers better understand the drivers of shareholder value, it should not be used as a performance measurement and incentive compensation system because it fails to provide a single valued score, a clear way of distinguishing superior from substandard performance.     

A descriptive analysis on the implementation of Balanced Scorecards in German-speaking countries

This paper provides systematic research-based evidence on the usage of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) concept in German-speaking countries. We develop three primary types of BSC usage reflecting the successive phases in the evolution of the BSC concept and of its implementation in practice. This typology ranges from the BSC’s origin as a multidimensional framework for strategic performance measurement that combines financial and non-financial measures to its advanced usage as an integrated strategic management system that describes strategy by a cause-and-effect logic and that is linked to the reward system. We use this theoretical framework to analyze the spread, implementation and benefits of the different types of Balanced Scorecards. Moreover, the impact of size and industry on BSC usage is analyzed. Our sample consists of a clearly defined segment of the most important publicly traded firms in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and we achieved an overall response rate of 87%.     

A generalized coherent risk measure: The firm's perspective

This note extends the concept of a coherent risk measure to make it more consistent with a firm's capital budgeting perspective. A coherent risk measure defines the risk of a portfolio to be that amount of cash that must be added to the portfolio such that it becomes acceptable to a regulator. As such, a coherent risk measure implicitly assumes that the firm has already made its capital budgeting decision. Except for a cash infusion, the portfolio composition remains unchanged. We propose a generalized version of a coherent risk measure that also allows the portfolio composition to change as well. Once the investment decisions are fixed, our measure collapses to a coherent risk measure.     

The Balanced Scorecard: what is the score? A rhetorical analysis of the Balanced Scorecard

The Balanced Scorecard currently receives much attention. This article analyses the means by which the authors of The Balanced Scorecard have created that attention. Is it the result of a new and convincing theory, or is it merely the result of persuasive rhetoric, where convincing theory differs from solely persuasive rhetoric in that concepts and claims are based on sound argumentation? The article concludes that the text is not so convincing as persuasive—a feature characteristic of the genre of management guru texts; and, at the end, the article discusses the reasons for and appropriateness of such a genre and the consequences that should follow from the results of the analysis.     

Investment appraisal practices: A comparative study of conventional and Islamic financial institutions

This paper compares the use of capital budgeting techniques of conventional and Islamic financial institutions, using data obtained from a survey of 105 conventional and Islamic financial institutions. Our main aim is to analyze the use of capital budgeting and risk techniques by the two types of financial institutions from a comparative perspective to see whether prohibition of riba makes a difference. Standard difference-of-means tests of the mean scores methods were used to test the hypotheses of the study. The results reveal a number of important conclusions. First, discounted cash flow techniques are found to be more widely used by financial institutions, and among those techniques internal rate of return is the most common. Second, Islamic financial institutions are found to adopt traditional methods that do not comply with the principles of Islamic Sharia'a. Third, a huge gap is found between the theory base of Islamic institutions and some of the practices of those institutions. Fourth, firms' characteristics, such as size, listing status, sources of revenue and government ownership, have some impact on their decisions to adopt capital budgeting criteria, methods of estimating costs of capital and risk. Finally, the decisions to select particular capital budgeting techniques, cost of capital estimation methods, and risk assessments are partly related to the characteristics of the chief financial officers.     

Do organizations adopt sophisticated capital budgeting practices to deal with uncertainty in the investment decision?: A research note

This study examines the impact of uncertainty on the sophistication of capital budgeting practices. While the theoretical applications of sophisticated capital budgeting practices (defined as the use of real option reasoning and/or game theory decision rules) have been well documented, empirical evidence on the factors that affect the importance and use of these sophisticated capital budgeting practices is scarce. I investigate the relation between specific uncertainties and sophisticated capital budgeting practices in 189 Dutch organizations. The empirical results show that sophisticated capital budgeting involves the use of multiple tools and procedures (such as Monte Carlo simulations, certainty equivalents, Game Theory decision rules and Real Option Reasoning). An increase in financial uncertainty is associated with the use and importance of sophisticated capital budgeting practices. Finally, size and industry are also related to the use and importance of sophisticated capital budgeting practices.     

The judgmental effects of strategy maps in balanced scorecard performance evaluations

We examine whether supplemental information displays affect decisions made using a common strategic performance measurement system, the balanced scorecard. A distinguishing feature of the balanced scorecard (BSC) is the number and diversity of its metrics. To effectively formulate a decision from such a complex information set, managers must view these measures within their strategic context ( [Kaplan and Norton, 1993] and [Kaplan and Norton, 1996] ). However, academic studies indicate that problems in communication and comprehension of the strategic logic underlying the scorecard hinder its implementation and use ( [Lipe and Salterio, 2000] , [Malina and Selto, 2001] , [Ittner et al., 2003a] and [Ittner et al., 2003b] ). We investigate whether a supplemental information display, in the form of a strategy map, results in performance evaluation judgments consistent with the recognition of relations between performance metrics and strategy. Strategy maps are causal diagrams depicting temporally-separate and non-linear relations between scorecard performance measures and overriding strategic objectives. As predicted, we find that performance evaluation decisions are more consistent with the achievement of strategic objectives when participants are provided with strategy maps.     

Investment in concealable information by biased experts

We study a persuasion game in which biased—possibly opposed—experts strategically acquire costly information that they can then conceal or reveal. We show that information acquisition decisions are strategic substitutes when experts have linear preferences over a decision maker's beliefs. The logic turns on how each expert expects the decision maker's posterior to be affected by the presence of other experts should he not acquire information that would turn out to be favorable. The decision maker may prefer to solicit advice from just one biased expert even when others—including those biased in the opposite direction (singular)—are available.     

Measuring the strategic readiness of intangible assets

Measuring the value of intangible assets such as company culture, knowledge management systems, and employees' skills is the holy grail of accounting. Executives know that these intangibles, being hard to imitate, are powerful sources of sustainable competitive advantage. If managers could measure them, they could manage the company's competitive position more easily and accurately. In one sense, the challenge is impossible. Intangible assets are unlike financial and physical resources in that their value depends on how well they serve the organizations that own them. But while this prevents an independent valuation of intangible assets, it also points to an altogether different approach for assessing their worth. In this article, the creators of the Balanced Scorecard draw on its tools and framework--in particular, a tool called the strategy map--to present a step-by-step way to determine "strategic readiness," which refers to the alignment of an organization's human, information, and organization capital with its strategy. In the method the authors describe, the firm identifies the processes most critical to creating and delivering its value proposition and determines the human, information, and organization capital the processes require. Some managers shy away from measuring intangible assets because they seem so subjective. But by using the systematic approaches set out in this article, companies can now measure what they want, rather than wanting only what they can currently measure.     

An effect of hindsight on predicting bankruptcy with accounting information

A decision maker (DM) must make decisions with a given amount of information (called pre-outcome knowledge). Later, if a person (judge) is asked to evaluate the accuracy of those decisions, the judge frequently has an additional piece of information available to him/her that wasn't available to the DM: knowledge of the outcome (hindsight). Hence, the judge's (post-outcome) knowledge includes both pre-outcome knowledge and hindsight. Research in other areas has shown that judges, when attempting to evaluate decisions that were made with only pre-outcome knowledge, are unable to separate their knowledge of the outcome from pre-outcome knowledge. In effect, they infer that knowledge of the outcome should have been apparent from the pre-outcome information. This current research shows that the same phenomenon can exist in the public accounting environment; several implications for accounting are discussed.     

Umsetzungserfahrungen gesetzlicher Krankenkassen mit der Balanced Scorecard: Ein Ergebnisbericht der Gründe,Vorgehensweise und Probleme

The method of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is very popular in the management of companies and was recently also adopted by several German statutory sickness funds. For the latter, empirical studies concerning the process of implementation are still missing. The present paper analyses the reasons, approaches and problems of the BSC introduction in statutory sickness funds based on 13 guideline-based expert interviews. In addition, a common model of the BSC implementation is tested. The results show sickness funds specific variations and particularities of the reasons, approaches and problems concerning the implementation of the BSC, but also overlaps with other models and studies are found. The present study can provide a guideline for health insurances and other organisations that are planning to introduce the BSC.     

政府生态预算绩效评价调查研究——基于问卷调查的实证分析

政府预算绩效评价侧重于社会经济方面的评价,难以全面反映政府环境管理效果。文章从理论上论证了创新政府生态资源环境管理绩效评价载体、建立政府生态预算绩效评价指标体系的优势,认为指标体系应由决策绩效和执行管理绩效两大模块组成,并以平衡计分卡为分析框架构建指标体系遴选模型。以问卷形式向968名公众展开调查,最终得到由2个一级指标、4个二级指标和22个三级指标构成的政府生态预算绩效评价指标体系。以政府生态预算绩效评价指标体系为基础,设计调查问卷并进行实证分析,寻找政府环境管理的规律,为建立以生态预算绩效评价指标为基础的政府环境管理决策机制和约束机制,及以信息和网络技术为基础的公众监督约束机制提供支持。     

Corporate capital budgeting and CEO turnover

When a firm has minimal agency and informational asymmetry problems it should make efficient capital budgeting decisions. Many firms over-invest prior to CEO turnover, halt investments in the period surrounding the turnover, and then greatly increase their level of expenditures. Empirical analysis of the cross-sectional and inter-temporal variation in the quality of firms' corporate capital budgeting decision reveals that the impact of CEO turnover is asymmetric between under- and over-investing firms, and this complements the larger literature using average firm-wide performance measures. Firms are more likely to have forced turnovers when there is more over-investment prior to the turnover, and these firms make more efficient investment decisions subsequently. Board influence is largely insignificant prior to a CEO turnover but is consistently associated with higher levels of investment subsequently.