Controlling Strategy Implementation : A Balanced Scorecard for Multinational Organizations

Given the nature of economic globalization and expansion of international trade, many corporations have become multinational corporations. In order to succeed in the multinational environment, firms must develop and implement strategies focusing on their core competencies. However, strategy implementation often proves problematic because of inappropriate, inadequate management control systems. Traditional management control systems fail in their attempt to communicate and assist in the implementation of global strategies primarily because of their narrow information perspective and focus. Utilizing an augmented balanced scorecard, particularly one with an international perspective, can assist multinational firms in better communicating and implementing strategies. This comes, first, as a result of the balanced scorecard's ability to link both financial and nonfinancial information to strategy thus enabling companies to better invest in and deploy intangible resources in addition to traditional tangible resources; and, secondly, as a result of highlighting unique critical success factors and performance measures important to multinational corporations' global strategic initiatives