Abstract:
The balanced scorecard (BSC) has received considerable attention, by companies and
researchers, for its potentiality in mitigating the limitations of traditional management accounting
tools and supporting strategic management. Despite this interest, there is still little empirical
evidence on the levels of BSC implementation and the contingency factors influencing it. This study
explores whether company size and type of industry affect the BSC use and focuses on motivations
of the BSC use (or non-use). A survey was conducted in a highly productive region, Northeast Italy,
and quantitative analysis was carried out to assess the statistical significance of the association
between the contingency factors and the BSC use. The results confirm prior studies showing that BSC
use is biased towards larger companies. However, this holds in every industry except in
manufacturing, where also small firms are prone to adopt it. A qualitative analysis integrates these
results highlighting that the BSC is mainly used to align objectives and improve business processes
and communication within organizations
