The relationship between organisational decentralisation, balanced scorecard and its perceived benefits in Moroccan SMEs

Abstract

Since the paper published by Kaplan and Norton (1992), the balanced scorecard (BSC) has been the subject of several research studies especially in large companies in the developed countries. However, the use and the benefits of this tool for strategic performance management in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) remains a field that has not yet been sufficiently explored, especially in the Middle East and North Africa region. In this context, this paper aims to examine the BSC use and its perceived benefits according to the organisational decentralisation in Moroccan SMEs. The main results obtained, by using linear logistic regression and Student's t-test for a difference in means, show that 30% of the surveyed SMEs use the BSC. In addition, the study finds that in centralised SMEs, the impact of the BSC use on the three dimensions of the global firm's performance (competitiveness, profitability and productivity) is significant. However, in decentralised SMEs, this impact is not significant.