Roland Almqvist

Balancing dilemmas of the balanced scorecard

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to debate various critical issues in the implementation and use of the balanced scorecard (BSC) as a management control tool. Because there is no self-evident solution to these critical issues, they are termed dilemmas. Design/methodology/approach - The paper contributes to the BSC debate by collecting insights from empirical findings, as well as exploring various theoretical aspects. Findings - After presenting four perceived dilemmas and how they affect the implementation and use of the BSC in various settings, the paper concludes that there is a need for further debate and research on these dilemmas. Research limitations/implications - The paper is primarily a contribution to the debate concerning the balanced scorecard and its range of application as a management control model. Practical implications - The paper is motivated by an overall high rate of implementation failure in various practical settings. Originality/value - Some of the problems described have been debated before, whereas others are new. However, there has been hardly any discussion of the dilemmas in conjunction with one another. The paper is an attempt to generate important new questions about the future implementation and use of the BSC.

‘Management by Contract’: A Study of Programmatic and Technological Aspects

Public organizations have undergone major changes over the past few decades. The umbrella term used to characterize these changes in the style of public administration is ‘New Public Management’ (NPM). NPM is a cluster of ideas borrowed from the conceptual framework of private-sector administrative practice –– a multifarious concept, covering diverse ideas and theories about what the nature of public management and administration should be. Arguably, then, NPM is primarily not a practitioners’ product but, rather, a construct of the research community, which assembled the programmatic aspects of NPM. The impact of these programmatic aspects on public administrative routines, operations and everyday work is a matter of analysis at the technological level.This thesis studies both the programmatic and the technological aspects of NPM. It focuses on how the programmatic aspects of NPM transform into technological aspects and how we can understand the outcome of these transformations, i.e. NPM’s impact on public administrative practice. The four discrete papers of the thesis cover three aspects (‘Icons’) of NPM – ‘Competition’, ‘Contracts’ and ‘Control’ – in depth:1. Paper I presents a method for isolating effects of the competition threat, with three possible approaches. All three include cost-cutting with respect to full-time annual staff appointments, but combine it with a number of changing variables. The results indicate one plausible conclusion: that one effect of the threat of competition has been to boost savings. In the units concerned, this effect – in terms of a mean cost reduction – may be estimated between 4 and 6 per cent.2. Paper II seeks to study how quality issues have been managed by contract. First, it presents some of the conceptual (programmatic) arguments of ‘Management by Contract’, discussing the structural arguments generally used (the purchaser/ provider split) and a common method (competitive tendering). Second, it presents some technological effects based on empirical findings. The paper’s concluding statement is that there is a gap between the programmatic and technological dimensions. Five interpretations intended to explain this gap are put forward.3. Paper III investigates the existence and function of various mechanisms of internal change in relation to broader aspects of change and characteristics of management control systems. The findings indicate that organizations can continuously transform their management control systems by creating, and promoting the use of, specific transformation mechanisms. In the two organizations studied, these mechanisms include internal benchmarking and internal contracting.4. Paper IV evaluates the City of Stockholm’s decentralization reform, which resulted in 24 local suborganizations (district councils). The empirical findings do not appear to fit into a single, allembracing theory, and the kaleidoscopic nature of the reform demands a broad, multidisciplinary approach. This paper therefore contributes to knowledge of the organizational changes that took place by addressing them both in rational terms and as symbolic acts. Although reforms tend to be perceived as ways of shaking up an organization, it is suggested here that they may in fact have a cohesive function – serving to hold the organization together.One general conclusion of this thesis is that NPM cannot readily be described in terms of success or failure. Instead, the four papers provide widely varying perspectives on, and interpretations of, NPM’s practical impact and the technologies that are taking shape in the field. Based on the notion of NPM as a management doctrine, seven contradictory general observations are presented. Sometimes all goes according to plan. Alternatively, the outcome may deviate from the plan; the result may be ‘business as usual’, i.e. little may change; things may only get worse; programmes may have contradictory effects; change may be excessive; and, finally, there may be unexpected but positive effects. Here, the conclusion is that in some cases the solution is to develop the theories and concepts, i.e. the programmatic level, while in others the solution may, instead, involve developing the application and implementation of existing theories and concepts – i.e. the technological level.

“Breaking taboos”: Implementing intellectual assets‐based management guidelines

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight how, and why, some small and medium-sized high-tech Japanese firms apply and assess the “intellectual asset-based management” (IAbM) guidelines i ...

Measuring the threat of competition : Services for the elderly in the City of Stockholm

This paper sets out a method for the purpose of isolating effects of the competition threat. The case investigated is care of the elderly in the city of Stockholm, which introduced competitive tendering for the 1993 budget year. Three approaches ‐ based on three simple quantitative models — have been presented for the purpose. Cost cutting with respect to full‐time annual staff appointments has been a consistent variable in all three models. However, this has been juxtaposed with a number of changing variables. Initially, each units savings were compared with the saving requirements of the unit concerned. In a second model, the unit managers were divided into two groups: those who perceived a threat of competition during the period that the competition programme was applied, and those who did not. A third model was also applied in which the unit managers themselves had to estimate how large a proportion of the units savings they were willing to attribute to the fact that it faced competition. The result...

Towards the next generation of public management: A study of management control and communication in the Swedish Armed Forces

Purpose – This paper aims to present an empirical case where fundamental changes in the environment have forced an organization to re‐evaluate its management control systems and possibly search for destabilizing supporting routines in order to unlearn the established ways of measuring and controlling within the organization. The problem, however, is that organizational technologies often work in the other direction, i.e. they promote stability in organizational routines. The paper seeks to increase understanding regarding the importance of destabilizing, or, as the authors like to call them, sensebreaking activities within organizations that are present in rapidly changing environments.Design/methodology/approach – The authors used multiple sources and multiple techniques to collect data; interviews with managers, participation in meetings, and document analysis such as annual reports, pamphlets, speeches and Swedish Armed Forcess (SAFs) web site.Findings – The study is clearly presented in a design‐ori...

When capital market actors reduce the complexity of corporate personnel and work environment information

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how capital market actors deal with information on personnel and work environment.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a qualitative research approach involving interviews with 14 fund managers and two bankers in Stockholm. The empirical analysis is influenced by a combination of system and network theories where social networks are imposed on capital market actors, when they observe corporate information vis‐a‐vis personnel and work environment.Findings – Capital market actors are influenced by social forces when they reduce the complexity of information on corporate personnel and work environment. Four themes emerged in this study concerning emergent paradoxes which results from such a reduction. First, capital market actors seem to regard personnel in a variety of ways: sometimes as a resource, and sometimes as a risk or a non‐flexible cost problem. Second, they tend to reduce the complexity of information by depending on having the right manage...

Management control transformations : a study in change mechanisms and their continuous effect on management control systems

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to clarify ongoing transformations in an organisations management control systems (MCSs) by investigating the nature and emergence of internal change mechanisms.Design/methodology/approach – This study uses an inductive methodological approach. Data were obtained from focused interviews with managers at different levels in one public and one private Swedish organisation. Various internal and external documents were also analysed.Findings – The findings indicate that one starting point for achieving continuous MCS transformation in organisations is to select specific transformation mechanisms. These mechanisms appear capable of linking various aspects of organisational time and place, and turning general expectations of continuous change into coordinated action through accountability and organisational learning.Research limitations/implications – The study focuses on enablers rather than barriers in MCS transformation processes. Selection of the specific organisations...

Management control transformations

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to clarify ongoing transformations in an organisations management control systems (MCSs) by investigating the nature and emergence of internal change mechanisms.Design/methodology/approach – This study uses an inductive methodological approach. Data were obtained from focused interviews with managers at different levels in one public and one private Swedish organisation. Various internal and external documents were also analysed.Findings – The findings indicate that one starting point for achieving continuous MCS transformation in organisations is to select specific transformation mechanisms. These mechanisms appear capable of linking various aspects of organisational time and place, and turning general expectations of continuous change into coordinated action through accountability and organisational learning.Research limitations/implications – The study focuses on enablers rather than barriers in MCS transformation processes. Selection of the specific organisations...

Fund manager trust and information complexity

Purpose - – This study aims to explore fund manager use of trust to reduce information complexity concerning corporate intangible resources and sustainability and what consequences this have for corporates as providers of information. Analytically, fund managers are considered part of a system with social meaning. Design/methodology/approach - – A qualitative research approach is used. Data are obtained from two focus group discussions that occurred on two separate occasions. The first discussion was between four communications executives at leading Swedish companies. The second discussion was between four experienced fund managers in the Swedish financial market. Findings - – The results suggest that fund managers oscillate between exhibiting trust and distrust when reducing the complexity of information on intangible resources and sustainability. Fund managers tend to trust the stable context of company information and strive to trust top management. Communicative dilemmas emerge when fund managers oscillate between trust and distrust. The fund manager disinterest in details emerges because of a reliance on a stable information context and company management. The representation dilemma emerges when narratives are used in corporate reporting. Research limitations/implications - – This study contributes empirically to the knowledge concerning the social complexity of fund management. Practical implications - – The paper increases the understanding of communicative difficulties for corporates to communicate with actors on the financial markets through narratives on intangible resources and sustainability. Originality/value - – By focusing on the social meaning in the communication between companies and financial markets, we have contrasted the dominant view of financial economics of financial market actors as rational agents and the individualistic mode of theorizing in accordance with rational choice theory.

Translating sustainable and smart city strategies into performance measurement systems

This paper shows how sustainable and smart strategies can be implemented in cities and how these strategies influence, and are influenced by, performance measurement systems. Drawing upon the Foucauldian notion of governmentality, the authors present the case of Gothenburg in Sweden, where they interviewed the key actors involved in a new sustainability strategy. Translating strategy into performance measurement systems requires collaboration across organizational boundaries and considerations of financial goals and social and human aspects.