The Balanced Scorecard: A Comparative Study of Accounting Education and Experience on Common Measure Bias

The Balanced Scorecard is a management tool that utilizes common and unique measures of an organization and/or division. Lipe and Salterio14 found that individuals disregarded unique measures of the Balanced Scorecard. Instead, individuals concentrated on common measures with which they were familiar. This defeats the purpose of the Balanced Scorecard intended by Kaplan and Norton.9 Since common measures are traditionally financial measures, managers are predominately using financial informa-tion to make strategic organizational decisions. The following study supports information that managers with accounting education and/or experience do not place more emphasis on the common measures of the Balanced Scorecard than managers without the same education and/or experience. Accounting education and/or experience do not impact an individual’s bias for the common measures of a Balanced Scorecard. Reasons for common measure bias should continue to be researched so that the benefits of the Balanced Scorecard can be fully utilized.