Issues of Balanced Scorecard and Its Implication for Chinese Companies
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The BSC has been introduced by Robert Kaplan and David Norton for more than twenty years. Many researchers have widely investigated the advantages and challenges of implementing BSC. This paper aims to investigate issues of BSC implementation in Chinese companies through literature review, and provide implications for Chinese companies on BSC implementation taking into account the national cultural characteristics. In total, 48 BSC articles were reviewed out of which 41 articles identified worldwide issues on BSC implementation and 14 articles specifically dealt with issues of BSC implementation in China. The findings show performance measures, reward system, top management involvement, communication and feedback, and employee involvement are the five most widely discussed issues in literature that relates to BSC implementation. Specifically, within the Chinese context, issues on senior management and employee involvement, communication, strategy, reward system, performance measures, information system and the level of management are important considerations influencing BSC implementation. In addition, the influence of Chinese culture on BSC application was discussed. Suggestions were provided for Chinese companies to better implement the BSC: (1) take the strategy as the orientation; (2) pay attention to top management; (3) balance performance indicators; (4) link BSC to incentive system; (5) improve enterprise information system; and (6) strengthen corporate culture construction. Two limitations were considered in this study: (1) the articles on BSC implementation in China are limited; (2) it is possible that not all the useful data in the reviewed articles has been picked out and collected. The study contributes to practice by identifying the challenges of BSC implementation from previous studies and provides an insight into BSC implementation in China. Future research may pay more attention on exploring the actual application of the BSC in Chinese companies.