Factors Influencing the Use of the Balanced Scorecard : Evidence from a Regional Context

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 the strategic management. Despite this interest, there is still little empirical evidence on the levels of BSC implementation and on the contextual factors influencing it. This study explores whether company size and type of industry affect the BSC use. A survey was conducted in a highly productive region, the Northeast Italy, and a quantitative analysis was carried out to assess the statistically significance of the association between size or industry and the BSC use. The results confirm prior studies showing that the BSC use is biased towards larger companies. However, this holds in every industry except in the manufacturing, where also small firms are prone to adopt it. A qualitative analysis integrates these results, highlighting possible motivations of the BSC use (or non-use)