Conceptual Foundations of the Balanced Scorecard
The Balanced Scorecard was established by David Norton and Robert Kaplan. They believed that if organizations want to improve intangible assets’ management, they must integrate them into their management systems. The Balanced Scorecard was structured by Balanced Scorecard for performance measurement, strategic objectives and strategy maps, the strategy management system, and future opportunities.
The roots of the Balanced Scorecard are profitability, market share, productivity, product leadership, public responsibility, personnel development, employee attitudes, and balance between short-range and long-range objectives. The first GE metric represents the financial perspective; the second GE metric represents customer perspective; the metrics three to five represent the process perspective; the metrics six and seven represent the growth perspective, and the eight GE metric represents the essence of the Balanced Scorecard, which encourage managers to balance the short term and long term goals. However, the GE corporate project was not able to ingrain into the management. Many GE units were convicted of price-fixing schemes because organizations pressure short term goals led them to be succumbed long term goal and their public responsibilities.
Robert Anthony identified three different types of systems: strategic planning, management control, and operation control in the mid-1960s. Strategic planning is the process of deciding and changing acquiring, using and disposing of the above objectives. Strategic planning relies on an estimate of cause and effect relationship between a desired outcome and a course of action. However, the strategic planning is difficult to predict such relationship. Even though strategic planning is important, managers do not spend too much time in this activity. It has a financial emphasis.