The next section presents a balanced scorecard case study. The assignment is to prepare an analysis of the case, which includes a research component. Use the following headings within the body of your paper as a basis for presenting your material:
- Balanced Scorecard Theory (BST). Identify and explain what BST entails and discuss its advantages and disadvantages. This discussion should include references to a minimum of five published sources. One of these should be Kaplan and Norton, who first advanced this concept as a management tool in 1992. Only one reference can be from a web site. All others must be from published practitioner magazines or academic journals. You may reference the text book, but it does not count as one of the five reference sources. Remember: a research effort is only as good as the quality of the reference sources. Poor quality references are indicative of an uninspired research effort.
- Balanced Scorecard Case Study. Analyze the following case study (taken from the Horngren et al. text) for a Law Firm. Support your answer by references to material in the case and to the material you presented in the Balanced Scorecard Theory section of this paper. Include a discussion of balanced scorecard management techniques that are being used and how effective the law firm is employing this concept.
Young, Martinez, and Cheung (YMC) is a law firm in Chicago. The firm has had a very loose and relaxed management style that has served it well in the past. However, more aggressive law firms have been winning new clients faster than YMC has. Thus, the managing partner, Jerry Martinez, recently attended and ABA seminar on the performance measurement in law firms, where he learned about the balanced scorecard. He thought it might be a good tool for YMC, one that would allow the firm to keep its culture yet still more aggressively seek new clients.
Martinez identified the following strategic objectives that fit with the firm’s core values and provide a framework for assessing progress toward the firm’s goals.
Financial: To steadily increase the firm’s revenues and profits.
Customer: (1) To understand the firm’s customers and (2) to value customer service over self-interest.
Internal Business Process: (1) Encourage knowledge sharing among the legal staff, (2) Communicate with each other openly, honestly, and often, and (3) Empower staff to make decisions that benefit their clients.
Organizational Learning: (1) To maintain an open and collaborative environment that attracts and retains the best legal staff, and (2) to seek staff diversity.
For this case study, identify at least one measure (it should be very specific) for each of the objectives set forth above. Then, explain how YMC can use these measures to evaluate staff performance. Finally, present the pros and cons of using the balanced scorecard measures as an aspect of the determination of compensation.
3. Application. If your firm uses the balanced scorecard as a management tool,
discuss in detail how it is doing this. If not, as an alternative, discuss how you might employ the balanced scorecard idea to improve performance in your organization.
- References. Set forth all sources used to develop this case study. All references must be from published sources. If you use an Internet source, make sure it is of academic quality. For example, the Academy of Management or the American Accounting Association websites are examples of an acceptable www citation. Conversely, websites like www.billhahn.com are not of academic quality and, therefore, are unacceptable reference sources. Only one citation can come from an Internet website source.
