Abstract:
Balance scorecard is an instrument for strategy implementation which help an organization to
achieve its vision by aligning the organization's strategic goals to every employee's activity. As
one of government owned higher educational institution, Gambella University implemented BSC
in 2015. The general objective of this research was to assess the practice and challenges of
balanced scorecard building (design) and implementation in Gambella University. To attain
these objective, the study employed case study method is used. To collect data questionnaires,
interviews and document analysis have been used. The questionnaires are prepared for 30
academic staff and 30 admin staff. Out of the administered questionnaires only 58 managed to
return. Interview and document analysis were also made to complement the information
obtained. All closed ended questions of the questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively using
frequency and percentage and where as data obtained from interviews and document analysis
were transcribed to supplement the quantitative data.
The result of finding the university has problems in building (design) BSC such as lack of
participation in strategic plan development process, the performance measures are not keeping
balance between leading (performance drivers) and lagging (outcome measures), adequate
budget is not allocated to some critical initiatives.
In addition critical challenges in BSC implementation the University unable to use automation
in BSC system, improper cascading and poor evaluation towards the progress of strategic goal.
It is recommended that the university has to sep up qualified BSC team which will be supported
by professional external consultant; Automate the BSC system; undertakes and revise the
cascaded objective and arrange regular program to review the implementation.
