Creating an Innovative Social Assistential Performance Management System : Beyond the Economic-Financial Perspective: Empirical Research Findings

In recent years the theme of performance measurement throughout Balanced Scorecard (BSC) has increased its importance finding application in different sectors. Despite this, there is a certain delay of the social/assistential sector in the knowledge of BSC. In order to bridge this gap, the purpose of this paper is to build a descriptive and prescriptive model of performance measures of the Piedmont system aiming at: monitoring offered services and needs, defining a qualitative-quantitative evaluation system of performances and proposing paths of action. The paper contributes to the literature on “performance measure” offering a basis for interpreting different stakeholder measures able to draw a guideline for investors. The research findings show how Piedmont social/assistential system is characterised by numerous small structures capillary distributed on the territory but also by users' economic problems, lack of beds, specialized labours and structures, and policies favouring home-care service offer. This is an exploratory study due to the application of our methodology only to Piedmont experience but also a starting point to identify possible areas of investment for investors