Strategy, environmental uncertainty and balanced scorecard. What impacts on business performance?
Taking a contingency perspective, this study aims at exploring the linkages between strategy types (ST) and perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) as contextual variables, the use of the balanced scorecard (BSC) and organisational performance. In particular, it has two main purposes: 1) to investigate whether the use of the BSC is influenced by ST and the level of PEU; 2) to examine the relationship between organisational performance and the interaction between the use of the BSC and the two contextual variables.
Findings are based on a questionnaire survey of a randomly selected sample including 65 large manufacturing companies in Italy. Data show that most of these companies make use of the BSC. Linear regression and two-way ANOVA were used for the statistical analyses to accomplish the purposes. Regression results reveal that greater use of the BSC is associated with higher PEU, while ST do not influence the use of the BSC. This suggests that the BSC can assist different strategic approaches. Then, the two-way ANOVA provides support for the main effect of the use of the BSC on organisational performance, while the interaction between the use of the BSC and the contextual variables does not seem to affect performance.
Keywords: contingency theory, strategy, perceived environmental uncertainty, balanced scorecard, organisational performance.
