LINKING BALANCED SCORECARD MEASURES TO SMES’ BUSINESS STRATEGY: ADDRESSING THE MODERATING ROLE OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES

Abstract

Using financial and non-financial measures, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) approach evaluates different aspects of firms’ performance: financial, customer, learning and growth, and internal business processes. Resource flexibility and availability of financial resources are basically highlighted as separate antecedents of company’s performance. Grounded on resource based view, the role of financial resources on business strategy has been addressed numerously in previous studies.  However, there is limited study to evaluate the role of financial resources on relationship between business strategy and BSC performance measures. Especially there is no study addressing this issue according to the moderating role of financial resources among small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It is worth mentioning that such relationships and models can be more highlighted in a developing countries since financial resources has been debated to be weak in theses context. Grounded in contingency theory, an evaluation of the moderating role that financial resources plays in the relationship between SMEs’ business strategy and balanced scorecard performance measures in SMEs points to the value of providing enough resources for SMEs. External fund providers such as banks and loan providers can help SMEs in this regard since firms could pass the way from business strategy to superior BSC performance measures more successfully.