Performance measurement and adoption of balanced scorecards: A survey of municipal governments in the USA and Canada

Abstract

To deal with financial constraints and increasing demand on accountability, government administrators have begun implementing modern management tools in their organizations. The balanced scorecard, a performance and strategic management system, has been adopted in for-profit organizations with success and its application in the government sector is explored in this study. Results of a survey of municipal governments in the USA and Canada show that there is limited use of the balanced scorecard. Most municipal governments, however, have developed measures to assess their organizations' financial, customer satisfaction, operating efficiency, innovation and change, and employee performance. Respondent administrators, in general, have confidence in the quality of the performance measures and about half reported that these measures were used to support various management functions. The respondent administrators also have a good understanding of the balanced scorecard and the implementers are positive about their experience. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.