Simulation Based Experiments for Testing the BalancedScorecard’s Built-in Performance Improvement Theory

摘要

Kaplan and Norton’s balanced scorecard (BSC) is, without a doubt, one of the lastdecade’s major improvements in management and controlling tools. In their variousarticles and books, the authors maintain that use of a balanced scorecard willultimately improve an organisation’s performance. Their theory about the scorecard’sperformance impact, however, is not explicitly described. Based on Kaplan andNorton's publications, this article reconstructs a system of hypotheses about the impactof a balanced scorecard on performance and describes a research design, which uses aSystem Dynamics-based micro-world, to test the theory. The implementation of theresearch design is portrayed and statistically tested. Finally, some preliminary resultsare presented, indicating that the balanced scorecard’s effect on organisationalperformance might be overestimated.