Special issue on the Balanced Scorecard

Citation

(2012), "Special issue on the Balanced Scorecard", Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Vol. 8 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/jaoc.2012.31508daa.004

Special issue on the Balanced Scorecard

Article Type: Call for papers From: Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Volume 8, Issue 4

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) has been a high profile performance measurement concept over the last two decades. Worldwide consultancy companies are selling the BSC concept and many companies have adopted a performance measurement framework labelled the balanced scorecard. Also, many research articles have been published on issues related to the BSC concept. However, the success of the BSC has been mixed. In particular, some of the good examples of BSC have faced serious problems. In addition, although it has been advocated as a feed forward mechanism, it was not able to forewarn of the financial crisis. Furthermore, during the years the conceptual framework of the BSC has changed and moved into different businesses and organizations. This raises issues such as, what are the key features of a good BSC? How do we know that the changes are an improvement? What drives the changes? Finally, the BSC has been advocated for various purposes. However, how well a BSC framework addresses its intended purposes remains unknown. There has been little insight into the unintended economic and social implications of a BSC, i.e. does it have dysfunctional implications? Does it solve new types of purposes? and does it favourites some types of social groups? This special issue of Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change calls for papers providing penetrating insights into the features of the BSC technique and its organizational and social implications.

Addressing the aim of the issue, all types of research methods can be feasible. However, we consider conceptual analytical approaches and case studies as particular important to get a more penetrating insight into the matter. We invite papers from scholars across disciplines on the following issues:

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  the balanced scorecard and profitability;

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  what happens to the good examples of the balanced scorecard;

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  the balanced score card and the financial crisis;

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  balanced scorecards in banks;

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  what drives the changes in the technical features of the BSC?;

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  the quality of the design qualities of the BSC;

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  relationships between non-financial and financial measures in the BSC;

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  the balanced scorecard vs other performance measurement packages;

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  the social impact of the balanced scorecard;

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  adoption and diffusion of balanced scorecard;

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  why did companies abandon BSC?; and

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  what makes a BSC a success?

These themes are only indicative. Papers on other themes with relevance to understanding the design qualities, the functioning, and the organizational and social role of the balanced scorecard are welcomed. The deadline for submissions is 30 November 2012. Authors will be notified by 31 March 2013 on the acceptance or rejection of their manuscripts. Deadline for final revisions (where needed) will be 31 October 2013. Accepted papers will be published in 2014 (Issue 3). Enquiries re this special issue should be sent to Dr Hanne Nørreklit. Manuscripts must be submitted via online using the submission site at: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jaoc

Guest editors

Dr Hanne Nørreklit, Professor of Management Control, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen, Norge, Office: +47 5595 9000, e-mail: Hanne.Norreklit@nhh.no

Falconer Mitchell, Professor of Accounting, Edinburgh University, Business School, Edinburgh, UK, Office: +44 (0)131 650 8340, e-mail: Falconer.Mitchell@ed.ac.uk