Case

In this module's case assignment you will be introduced to the balanced scorecard concept and will begin to consider how organizations link strategy with the balanced scorecard approach. We will look at the interrelationship of strategy and the balanced scorecard approach in more depth later on in this course. For now, however, it is good to understand the fundamentals of the BSC and to consider examples of how organizations have integrated the BSC approach into their daily operations in a fashion that reflects the strategy of the respective organizations.

To prepare for this case assignment you are to start by reading the required readings identified on the background page. You'll note that one of those articles includes:

Martello, M., Watson, J., & Fischer, M. (2008). Implementing a balanced scorecard in a not-for-profit organization. Journal of Business & Economics Research. 6(9), 67-80.

This is the case study you will be evaluating for this assignment. Note that there is an option to download the PDF file rather than using the PDF viewer on this page. This may save you some aggravation.

After reading this article, formulate an argumentative essay around the following thesis statement:

Cattaraugus County Rehabilitation Center did an effective job of implementing a balanced scorecard approach in a fashion that reflects their organizational mission and vision.

If you do not think this thesis is accurate, you can argue that the Center did not do an effective job.

Assignment Expectations

Your analysis should be structured in terms of the following four perspectives (you will be using essentially this same comparative evaluation framework for the first four modules of this course):

Introduction: In this part of your essay you will need to set up your argument by introducing your topic and presenting your position or thesis statement somewhere in this introductory paragraph.

Analysis: In this section you will present several arguments arguing in favor of your thesis statement. Make sure you discuss how the Center used the score card quadrants to align with organizational strategy (or how it failed to do so).

Conclusion: Wrap up your argument with a clear and cogent synopsis of your findings. Do your best to convince your reader (aka, your professor) as to your position.

Additional Instructions: Your argumentative essay should be 3 to 4 pages in length (not counting your title page or references). You must include a list of references. APA formatting is preferred. Do not paste in sections of text into your essay. All of your work must be written in your own words. It's OK to use a short quote now and again, but quotations must be in quotation marks and properly cited. In-text citations should be used anytime you are borrowing somebody else's ideas, or information. That is to say, if you are borrowing a thought from a publication from G. Jetson's article written in 2010, that section of text must be followed with (Jetson, 2010). Quotations, data, and general ideas (put into your own words) should all be cited.

SLP

The purpose of the Session Long Project is to give you the opportunity to explore the applicability of the Module to your own life, work, and place in space and time, and to experiment with the Module to see how the otherwise academically rigorous presentation of a topic may, with more or less work and/or trauma, become "up close and personal". This is done in a number of different ways -- sometimes cumulative papers, sometimes practical hands-on experimentation with a tool of some sort, sometimes reflections on a place of work or life. The common thread is personal application, aimed at demonstrating a cumulative knowledge and understanding of the course's material.

For this course, the Session Long Project will take the form of putting together background from each of the four perspectives for a balanced scorecard approach to an organization or organizational unit with which you are familiar. In the final module, you will have a go at strategy mapping. You're not building a complete balanced scorecard -- that would be far beyond our current scope - but you'll have a chance to see what goes into it and how it gets put together into a coordinated whole. As in the cases, you'll be drawing on your previous course work to help.

The Module 1 assignment has two parts. First, you need to identify an organization to which you have access to at least some information concerning financial data; staffing and human resource systems; marketing and customer relations; information systems; and operations. While most material on the Balanced Scorecard is written from the private, for-profit point of view, it's perfectly possible to use this approach with public or non-profit organizations as well.

For the second part of this assignment, consider the organization's mission and strategy from the perspective of its financial operations (from your work on the case, your previous course work, and your background reading, you should be reasonably clear what such operations are). In this section of the assignment you'll begin to identify objectives and measures relevant to that perspective. If you're unclear on just what objectives and measures are, here is a presentation that describes what they are and how to write them.

SLP Assignment Expectations

When you have thought about it and made your selection, please specify (2-3 pages):

- The name of your organization

- What this organization does - its mission, vision and overall strategy

- The access you have to information about this organization -- remember, you'll need information about its financial performance, marketing, internal operations, strategy, and management systems.

Once you're reasonably clear on what's involved, think about your organization and its finances, and then:

- Identify at least three objectives for improving the organization's financial position, and show how they relate to the mission, vision and strategy of the organization.

- For each objective, develop at least one meaningful performance measure (metric).

- For each objective, identify at least one expected level of performance (target).

- For each objective, identify at least one new action or program that needs to be developed to ensure successful implementation of the organization's strategy (initiative).