Balanced scorecard versus French tableau de bord:beyond dispute, a cultural and ideological perspective

Currently much attention is given to strategic measurement systems with the balanced scorecard as the far most high profiled. This US-born approach has not been very warmly welcome in France where tableau de bord, a French strategic measurement system, has been used for at least 50 years. The differences between both approaches have been variously discussed. This paper investigates the cultural and ideological hypotheses founding both methods, which may explain their differences as well as the climate surrounding the debate. This broadens up the usual perspective regarding performance measurement systems, which are usually implemented with respect to their strategic and organizational relevance - their cultural and ideological backgrounds being generally disregarded. In addition, this analysis provides some insight into the more general question of the transferability of management methods.