Literature Review of Balanced Scorecard in Higher Education

Of Balanced Scorecard in Higher Education - Literature review Example Also instrumental in improving the internal and external communications in the organization and monitoring performance of organizations against strategic goals and objectives, the balanced score card has extensive usage and gained acceptance in almost all sectors of the market. Originated by Doctor Kaplan and Doctor David Norton as a framework for performance measurement adding to the strategic non-financial performance measures to the conventional financial metrics, they have provided this framework for executives and managers for assessing the overall and balanced view of the performance of organizations (Schmeisser, 2011, p.194). The balanced score card presents an integrated result oriented collection of key performance measures including financial and non financial measures which comprises both the present performance of the firm and also its future performance drivers. The main premise of the score card is based on the fact that financial evaluations alone are not enough for ca pturing the value-adding activities. Kaplan and Norton (1992), suggests that apart from using financial measures firms must also develop a comprehensive framework of other measures as indicators or predictors of financial performance too (Beard, 2009, p.1). ... The following diagram would highlight on the different performance measures and their linkages in the balanced score card. Figure 1: The Balanced Scorecard links Performance Measures (Source: Kaplan & Norton, 1992, p.72) 2. Characteristics of Balanced Scorecard Characteristics of the scorecard is the presentation of the combination of financial and non financial measures each of which is compared with a target value within a concise and single report. The most unique characteristic of this scorecard is that it determines the most relevant and crucial information by capturing information which is most relevant for the business. Based on the vision of an enterprise, strategies are formulated and derived from its goals. For measuring the achievement of the objectives, relevant characteristic numbers can be assigned to these goals. This translates the enterprise strategy into figures which can then be communicated towards all divisions in the company and therefore can communicate the str ategy to all workers in the company (Welz, 2007, p.7). In this way every worker adept to which goals need to be attained first in order to attain the desired objectives of the business. Link between the strategic level and the operational level can be reached by the derivative by further sub goals and relevant figures from the strategy for each department. Because of the fact that the balanced scorecard considers goals which are directly linked with the success of the organization it remains succinct and concise (Niven, 2006, p.xxi). The concept of the balanced score card is to include information and data from all divisions of the organization under the controlling of entrepreneurial success. This is the reason why it is perceived