The practices and challenges of balanced scorecard design and implementation at gambella university

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.