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The Balanced Scorecard as a Metaphor of the Integrated Spectacle

Abstract

This paper seeks to contribute to the critical accounting literature on the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Considering the BSC a specific tool, given its ultimate integrative ambition, we are questioning whether and how its integrated dimension makes it a spectacular framework. To this end, we analyse mainstream approaches to the BSC, adopting Debord’s typology of the spectacle. While most critiques of the BSC highlight its conceptual weaknesses or ideological assumptions, we contend that the BSC incarnates a metaphor of the integrated spectacle in nowadays organisations. We explicate that the BSC succeeds in reconciling what Debord (1967, 1988) calls the concentrated and diffused forms of the spectacle through a holistic system linking field routines to strategic issues. We also demonstrate how the BSC might be subject to détournement, when illegitimate actors appropriate strategy. Our analysis contributes to the accounting literature in three ways. Firstly, we contribute to the literature on the BSC by showing that in its essence, the BSC offers the organisation a unitary status of an entity dispossessed from all its previous contradictions on property rights, value sharing or resource. Secondly, we contribute to the critical literature referring to Debord’s writings. We show the relevance, not only of the forms of spectacle as depicted one by one, but also of the transformation and dialectics from one form to another, with the potential role of the situation. Thirdly, dealing with the spectacle enables us to contribute to the literature on the visuals. While this stream deals with fixed imagery, we show visuals in motion, as narratives.

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Since Kaplan’s and Norton’s (1996) seminal book the Balanced Scorecard (hereafter BSC)

has much been debated. Its promoters have argued that its ability to align controls with

strategy and then behaviours with controls makes it an integrated strategic control device

(Kaplan & Norton, 2006, 2008). As a framework, the BSC has largely spread into firm

practices, consulting and management education1

Considering the BSC a specific tool, given its ultimate integrative ambition, we are

questioning whether and how its integrated dimension makes it a spectacular framework. To

this end, we analyse mainstream approaches to the BSC, adopting Debord’s typology of the

spectacle (Debord, 1967, 1998), as prior accounting research based on his writings have done

so to date (Boje, Rosile, Durant, & Luhman, 2004; Gumb, 2006, 2007; Uddin, Gumb, &

Kasumba, 2011). Our approach offers a reflection on a popular performance management

device embedded both in the business environment and universities. Accordingly, this paper

relies on experiences we have had of the BSC qua consultants, researchers and lecturers. The

research being still in its initial step, it is not yet based on systematic data exploitation.

Exploratory, this paper seeks to have a triple contribution to knowledge. Firstly, we offer a

reflexive approach to critiques addressed to the BSC. Secondly, we aim at contributing to the

stream of research dealing with visuals as a threshold to the spectacle (Davison, 2004, 2010,

2011; Quattrone, 2009; Quattrone & Hopper, 2005). Thirdly, we seek to contribute to

. Some pieces of research present its

potential in value creation (Ittner, Larcker, & Randall, 2003; Crabtree & DeBusk, 2008). On

the other hand, the BSC has much been critiqued: its originality, its conceptual bases as well

as its transferability and operationality have been challenged (Bessire & Baker, 2005;

Bourguignon, Malleret, & Nørreklit, 2004).

1 For instance, a recent international CIMA survey on management accounting tools presents the BSC as “the tool most likely to be adopted soon, and already very popular” (CIMA 2009).

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understanding and conceptualising management accounting as a form of integrated spectacle

(Boje et al., 2004; Gumb, 2007; Uddin et al., 2011). All told, we show how the BSC

incarnates a metaphor of the integrated spectacle in contemporary organisations. We explicate

that the BSC succeeds in reconciling what Debord (1967, 1988) calls the concentrated and

diffused forms of the spectacle through a holistic system linking field routines to strategic

issues. We also demonstrate how the BSC might be subject to détournement, when

illegitimate actors appropriate strategy.

The argument is advanced as follows. We first recall the definition of integration in the BSC,

such as taken for granted by mainstream accounting research. Secondly, we position this

paper vis-à-vis the critical accounting literature on the BSC and visuals as a threshold to the

integrated form of spectacle. Thirdly, we explicate the integrated form of spectacle. Fourthly,

we discuss and reposition our argument vis-à-vis the extant critical accounting literature and

conclude.

1. The concept of integration in the BSC

The BSC largely spread into practices, becoming one of the most (if not the most) popular

performance management systems nowadays. Several authors analysed and commented on

the practicalities of this large diffusion (Ax & Bjørnenak, 2005), which is not the purpose of

our article. The BSC emanated from two Harvard professors, Robert N. Kaplan and David P.

Norton. Both still keep control over the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, a think tank under

their patronage. Of course, it is not a coincidence that Kaplan is the same one who, with

Johnson, engaged in the relevance lost debate in the late eighties (Kaplan & Johson, 1987).

Based on the critique on extant irrelevant approaches, the BSC takes an innovative and rather

sympathetic posture facilitated by its open challenge of finance-focused frameworks. Its

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foundations relate to other fashionable discourses, as for instance on intangible assets or

intellectual capital, the beyond budgeting idea and the employee perspective (Ax &

Bjørnenak, 2005). Nevertheless, the BSC is initially a power instrument, inasmuch as it

clearly claims to provide a way for better strategy execution (Bourguignon et al., 2004). In an

interview with Jürgen Daum (Daum, 2002), Norton insists on the fact that “what we have

learned from working with organizations, is, if you want to execute your strategy, then you

have to put the strategy at the centre of your management system. You should educate people

about the strategy.” This statement underlies the forthcoming leitmotiv concept of strategic

alignment and execution advanced and developed by Kaplan and Norton (2006, 2008). But

two major issues are rarely addressed:

• Strategic execution is considered difficult because of technical or cultural obstacles –

which can be solved by a BSC implementation – rather than for political reasons that

could be linked to resistance from some actors to the dominant strategy.

• When it comes to identify who makes strategy, Norton just suggests it is “you”,

without giving more insights into who this “you” is. Questions about the legitimate

actors are mainly absent from literature, including the critical one.

Despite its innovative posture, the BSC framework intends to provide strategic decision

makers with authority without necessarily making clear on who is legitimate to define

strategy. In such a project integrative ambition is a major stake. As the BSC’s creators

consider that the mere financial dimension fails at aligning, integrating non-financial

dimensions proves to be necessary. The Kaplan & Norton framework not only promotes a

multidimensional and stakeholder compatible view of the firm. It also relates a story linking

those dimensions each other. The causalities on which they rely are subject to numerous

comments and can be schematised as the transformation of intangible assets (those founding

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the fourth dimension) in financial value (first dimension) through internal processes (third

dimension) and customer satisfaction (second dimension). It is not only strategy; it is the

reification of entrepreneurial capitalism (Bourguignon, 2005; Bourguignon & Chiapello,

2005). Integration lies in the links between those diverse topics, the linking argument being

central to the Kaplan & Norton project, i.e. linking BSC with strategy (Kaplan & Norton,

1996), strategy to operations (Kaplan & Norton, 2008) and translating strategy into operations

(Kaplan & Norton, 1996, 2006). Evidence of cases were such conceptual constructions make

sense can be given in that the BSC helps managers to “rationalize (…) decisions to themselves

and to their superiors” (Wiersma, 2009). It is used for educating employees about “the

benefits that emanate from a positive and enduring corporate reputation” (Cravens & Oliver,

2006); it favours social cohesion (Fabri & Fressoz, 2011) at the same time as its properties

“enable strategy to emerge from within the organization” (Jazayeri & Scapens, 2008).

Seemingly, the BSC has an integrative potential. Not only does it help link separate items

with one another, it also fosters new links between people. In this capacity, the BSC can

appear a structuring framework, at least in some circumstances. Moreover it seems that

implementing a BSC results in higher profits (Ittner, Larcker, & Randall, 2003), as “firms

earn greater excess returns after adoption of the BSC than before” (Crabtree & Debusk 2008,

p.8).

More surprisingly, a BSC might help an individual achieve his or her personal targets. For

instance, Jeff Pursglove, who was expecting to become one of the UK’s top senior

bodybuilders, formalised this project through a strategy map and a BSC. The latter played a

significant role (Pursglove, 2006), as he explains: “My Balanced Scorecard told me that I

needed to invest 17.5 of my waking hours each week in the operations and learning and

growth perspectives (plus the time spent travelling to and from the gym). In order to do this, I

was forced to decide which other discretionary activities to curtail (e.g. playing golf, angling,

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gardening etc.)” Here the tool was the media enabling the individual to transform what might

have remained a phantasm into a tangible strategic objective. Pursglove so forced himself as

to integrate a cause and effect teleology, resembling to an “Economic Approach to Human

Behavior” (G. Becker, 1976).

Yet, the linking ability sometimes happens to be difficult. The issues confronting alignment

are also central in the critiques addressed to the BSC. Causalities, as described by Kaplan &

Norton, are strongly challenged. In the mean time, alternative models like the one known

as RAVE are being promoted (Strack & Villus, 2002). The founders of this competing

approach “believe that one of the significant advantages of the RAVE concept is the

systematic quantitative link to the main metric, which is consistently realized in the various

perspectives. The correlation of cause and effect is indeed analysed in the balanced scorecard

approach, but the connections made are mostly qualitative” (Strack & Villis, 2002, p. 156). In

other words, the BSC concept, when translated into practices, fails to keep its promises.

Firstly, links are often weak (Banker, Chang, & Pizzini, 2004). Secondly, the so-called

“learning and growth” dimension is not really about learning and growth (McPhail,

Herrington, & Guilding, 2008). Thirdly, integration is unachieved or incomplete (Vila, Costa,

& Rovira, 2010). Fourthly, nonfinancial metrics have no specific influence on behaviours

other than financial measures (Lau & Sholihin, 2005). Almost any assumption underlying this

model, as well as the promises its founders took, are called into question. Such limitations

tend to justify the emergence of alternative frameworks, supposed to provide better alignment

(Thompson & Marthys, 2008), “adopt a much broader perspective on stakeholders” (Neely,

Marr, Roos, & Gupta, 2003), or use an “integrated methodology for putting the balanced

scorecard into action” (Papalexandris, Ioannou, & Soderquist, 2005). To date, though, the

diffusion of such alternative models is not well documented, and we know little about their

influence on practices.

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Despite those limitations, it would now be a commonplace to mention the success of the BSC

amongst practitioners as well as in academia. This performance management framework is

now well known by consulting firms, IT providers and business schools where it gained the

status of a generic solution addressing all kinds of contexts. Even nonprofits and local

governments (Fabri & Fressoz, 2011; Niven, 2008) have appropriated the BSC. The

integration of nonfinancial perspectives could be an explanation, as this might appeal to a

broader audience than classical accounting / financial devices requiring more technical

expertise. Historically, the concomitant emergence in the mid nineties of ERPs, and especially

SAP R3, may be more than a coincidence (Quattrone & Hopper, 2001, 2005). Allowing a

much higher level of integration, IT systems, when coupled with databases and larger

memories, offer new avenues for the implementation of multidimensional frameworks. Data

storage, extraction and loading are now automated, which enables individuals to gather

indicators, not only from within the firm, but also from the environment. Seen in this way, the

BSC is just a fashion in which the integrative potential offered by ERPs can be designed, i.e. a

framework making sense of disparate data. As this project has to date been subject to

numerous critiques, these must now be exposed.

2. Feeding critiques addressed to the Balanced Scorecard in the accounting literature

This paper seeks to contribute to the critical accounting literature in three ways. Firstly, we

offer a reflexive positioning vis-à-vis critiques addressed to the BSC. Secondly, we feed the

accounting literature building on the spectacular dimension of accounting. Thirdly, extending

this contribution enables us to contribute to understanding the visualising dimension of

accounting.

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2.1. The BSC: an ambiguous ontology

The underlying assumptions of the BSC are challenged, highlighting the weaknesses of the

BSC’s conceptual, logical and epistemological bases (Nørreklit, 2000): “the cause-and-effect

relationship is problematic since claiming that some factors are necessarily profitable is

problematic unless this follows logically from the concepts involved” (p.76). Cause-effect

relationships imply that two items are independent and not logically connected, whilst in the

case of the BSC, the four perspectives can be logically explained and linked together. In the

second place, reasons Nørreklit (2000), the BSC is limited by an ambiguous relationship to

time due to a necessary lag between the definition of objectives, measurement and the effects

of corrective actions. It transpires that the BSC conflates measures occurring at different

points in time and presents them as cause and effects. However, the delayed effect of a

corrective action can be known by definition only later on. Managers thereby have no

guarantee that these corrective actions will have the expected effect on the four dimensions of

their BSC. This leads to question the consistency of metrics used within one perspective as

well as across the four perspectives. More generally, Nørreklit (2000) questions whether the

BSC can operate as a credible strategic control device. For strategy control to be worked out,

the four perspectives should bring insights into the organisation situation vis-à-vis the

economic, social and political environment in which it operates. Objectives, metrics and

comparisons relating at least to suppliers and public authorities would be more than

appropriate and eventually are absent. Thereby the BSC conceptually neglects major features

of strategy and cannot succeed in controlling strategic management.

Arguably, these conceptual weaknesses stress that the BSC, far from being an efficient

management and strategy control device, is the offspring of a certain ideology (Bessire &

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Baker, 2005; Bourguignon et al., 2004). When compared to the French Tableau de bord, the

BSC appears as a way of thinking assuming that any action undertaken responds to

microeconomic concerns. Financial measures relate to profit maximisation, while non-

financial measures stress utility function maximisation (Bourguignon, 2005). Accordingly,

such a management control device can only be generic and claim to apply to most situations

without being discussed and agreed upon. At best, performance indicators can be negotiated.

In no way are the four perspectives as they are part of the story; some can be considered as

missing (Bourguignon et al., 2004). For this microeconomic ideology to be applied the BSC

can only be imposed by managers on the entire organisation, implying that hierarchic

structures be adopted. It transpires from this critique that the implications of its

microeconomic ideology preclude the BSC from integrating pertinent strategic issues and

measures and be a systematic appropriate management control device. It can apply to some

contexts but remains hardly transferable to other situations (e.g. nonprofits or public sector

organisations).

As the BSC has no strong theoretical foundations and is underpinned by an ideology

preventing it from being easily transferable, its four dimensions appear as a rhetorical device

aiming at convincing managers (Nørreklit, 2003). The visual representation of how the four

dimensions are intertwined and the labels every student and manager knows very well make

the BSC, not necessarily a pertinent management control device, but an argument to pass on a

management idea. In negative, the loose diffusion of Beyond Budgeting can be partly

explained by its lack of visualisation and apparently working concepts (S. Becker, Messner, &

Schäffer, 2009).

Starting from the contention that the BSC has largely spread, we are drifting from these

critiques. We feed the critical accounting literature on the BSC by questioning whether and

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how its integrated dimension makes the BSC a spectacular framework. We expect the notion

of integrated spectacle to bring fresher insights into the notion of integration which prior

literature presents as ambiguous.

2.2. The visualising power of the BSC over accounting and society

As the BSC has spread through strong rhetorical devices amongst which visualisation,

questioning whether and how its integrated dimension makes the BSC a spectacular

framework should contribute beyond the mere BSC literature. We seek to contribute more

generally to an emerging stream dealing with visuals.

A management accounting device, the BSC intrinsically plays a role similar to other

generalised accounting systems and technologies, e.g. double entry bookkeeping (DEB) and

ERPs. Double entry bookkeeping rests upon the balancing of records expressing in visual and

memorisable quantitative (monetary) terms the organisation story (Quattrone, 2009). Like

DEB, the BSC enables to categorise the world, not in two but in four, using labels easy to

remember: “accounting inscriptions (in budgets, activity based costing systems, balanced

scorecards, and the like) mean little if not enacted through specific orthopraxis which, in the

context of this paper and early modern treatises, was related to the art of memory and

rhetoric” (Quattrone, 2009, p.112). The BSC, like any other accounting technique, especially

ERPs, rests upon an imagery that enables managers to make events integrative of memory of

the past and the future (Quattrone & Hopper, 2005). Seemingly, the power of accounting –

and de facto the BSC – lies in its capacity of transforming ideas, words and events into

images (tables, diagrams, graphs, etc.) put together by a manager directing the scenery.

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The notion of spectacular imagery in management accounting and financial reporting is

reinforced by the fact that accounting operates as the liturgy of business (Davison, 2004,

2011; McKernan & Kosmala, 2007). Accounting figures, through diagrams, tables and

graphs, can be compared to ceiling glass in churches, sacralising the place in which they

operate (Davison, 2004; Dean, 2007). Knowing that religious liturgy is a form of spectacle in

which divinity is revealed and explained to people (Latour, 2002, 2010), we can consider that

the BSC, like other accounting devices and practices, offers a similar form of spectacle.

Arguably, accounting so pervades the sub-conscious of organisational actors as to inculcate

them notions of profitability, return or accountability (Rahaman, Everett, & Neu, 2007).

Accordingly, understanding the conceptual bases, forms and practices of the BSC as a

spectacle could enrich the knowledge we have of the visualising power of accounting.

3. Theoretical framework: the BSC as integrated form of the spectacle

The concept of the spectacle2

2 For a summary of former conceptions of the spectacle, see

(Debord, 1967), as built by the situationists (the Situs), is very

well known in artistic and political arenas and streams. It also inspired academics in diverse

areas, including economics and management. Gumb (2004, 2007) and Uddin & ali (2011)

recently reminded us a of few accounting pieces of research drawing on the concept of the

spectacle. Only Uddin & ali (2011) clearly use the typology made by Debord (1967, 1988),

defining the integrated spectacle as a continuation of the concentrated and the diffuse forms of

spectacle. The concentrated form, present in bureaucratic and totalitarian regimes, is

“attended by a permanent violence” (Debord 1967, t. 42) based on propaganda and struggle

for resistance: likewise, the diffuse form is softer and is generally “associated with the

http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/spectacle2.htm

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abundance of commodities, with the undisturbed development of modern capitalism” (Debord

1967, t. 42). The concentrated form of the spectacle can be instanced by the German and

Russian dictatorial regimes; while the diffused form can me incarnated by the American way

of life and its mass consumption. These two forms of spectacle stand in opposition to each

other. Yet, they can be reconciled through the integrated form that Debord (1988, V) views as

“integrated itself into reality to the same extent as it was describing it, and that it was

reconstructing it as it was describing it.” It is much more efficient and pervasive, as it

“spread itself to the point where it now permeates all reality” (Debord 1988, V).

Out of these extreme situations, the concentrated and diffused forms of the spectacle can be

considered ideal-types that are rarely observed. Debord instances this point by showing that

the integrated type appeared in France and Italy in the seventies, when state capitalism

became the dominant scheme. This integrated form resembles a modern conception of the

spectacle operating as “the autocratic reign of an economy of commodities which acquired an

unaccountable sovereignty, and all the new techniques of governance which accompanies this

reign” (Debord, 1988, II). Panama’s former leader Manuel Noriega is presented by Debord as

a typical representative of that form of spectacle3

The spectacular domination was to be treated with a working antidote that could be found in

situations. For recollection, the situation was a post-Dadaist way to promote some form of

resistance – through carnival, theatrics or détournement – to the spectacular domination.

These resistance practices now tend to be hijacked in the integrated scene where listed firms

: he simultaneously showed high abilities in

business relations with capitalistic authorities and some popularity as an anti-imperialist hero.

The general confusion emanating from integrated spectacle makes it complex to understand

and to keep under control, as compared to the concentrated and diffuse forms.

3 Uddin & al. (2011) consider Berlusconi a more recent symbol of the integrative form of the spectacle.

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fund anti-establishment or government-controlled agencies encourage protesting movements.

Henceforth has the situation become more and more difficult to scrutinise.

There lays the most significant specificity of Debord vis-à-vis his main follower Baudrillard,

who extended situationist theories with his concepts of simulacra and hyperreality. Whereas

the early Situs held the ambitious project of transforming our lives via the creation of

situations, Baudrillard’s political economy of the sign (Baudrillard, 1972) depicts a world in

which the spectacle became the reality, and the map the territory. Any revolutionary project

therefore proves to be very difficult, if not impossible. The spectacle achieves its aim: it

reconciles bureaucratic centralism and participation, separation and team spirit, alienation and

empowerment. Belief in a potential for creating situations is what distinguishes the early Situs

from later comments by Debord. While the early situationists were mostly avant-garde artists,

Debord was considered a realist social theorist. Baudrillard and Debord stand in opposition,

also because the former had some influence on the academic accounting debate (Macintosh &

ali, 2000; Mattessich, 2003): the simulacrum and hyperreality concepts are applied to a

critical interpretation of the income and capital as accounting figures.

When the realm of the spectacle achieves its integrated form, it expands by integrating more

and more dimensions, e.g. society, environment or sustainability. In these situations, numbers

always play a role, as “the technological innovation movement is an old one and is part of

capitalist society (…). But since he took its most recent acceleration (following the second

World War), it strengthens further the spectacular authority as it reveals everyone bounded

by numerous experts, by their calculations and their self-satisfied judgments on those

calculations” (Debord 1988, V). Paradoxically post-modern technologies offer space for new

resistance opportunities leading to the dérive and détournement of the contested object

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individuals’ actions so inevitably transform the original intent as to make it impossible to

arrive at destination (Derrida, 2002a, 2002b, 2002c).

With the shift to the new Millennium, Dérive and détournement have been presented as

significant trends in the “digital situationist” Internet environment, incarnated by hackers

(O'Neill, 2008). Uncontrollable IT-driven networks nowadays allow integrative frameworks

on which political legitimacy might be challenged in favour of more or less naïve geeks4

.

Some critical academic literature (Compton & Comor 2007, Welsh & al. 2010) uses Debord’s

works so as to point out a dialectics between social control and resistance. Such dialectics can

be found in respectively the news as spectacle through the 8 Live concerts and the Higher

Education debate in the US. In the latter case, market forces suggested that curricula would be

ranked in accordance with the marginal dollar that a degree would enable a graduate student

to earn. Universities would be regulated by standards such as accreditation enabling to

compare them with each other. In the competition for attracting students, faculty and funds,

universities would closely scrutinise what the others do, developing a form of social control.

These controls as well as the logic of market forces were subject to opposition from faculty

and students enrolled (Kamuf, 2007).

4. Discussion and implications

In several respects, the BSC can be seen as any management accounting device having largely

spread into practices. Most of the critiques reason that the BSC, through the visuals offered by

the quasi-panoptical representation of the four perspectives surrounding vision and strategy

4 The recent Wiki Leaks affairs and the massive diplomatic messages disclosures, or the role of social networks like Facebook in popular movements (e.g. Tunisia and Egypt) might be presented as exemplar of such trends.

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placed in its centre, is mainly a rhetorical device for the diffusion of management accounting

images. For critics, the BSC has then acquired the status of a ritual, a hyperreality, a liturgy

(Davison, 2010). The visual representation offered by the interplay between its four

dimensions and strategy could is comparable to T accounts in double entry bookkeeping

(Quattrone, 2009). More than any other accounting technology, the BSC appears as a vector

of conviction. Conviction is not achieved by a charismatic personality, as it could be found in

concentrated forms of spectacle in which a Higher Stakeholder shows the way. Neither is it

merely a collection of images representative of a diffuse form in which nobody would know

who initiates BSC approaches. At least – in its normative form – it is an advanced

concentrated form, like it is depicted by Debord (1998, IV): “concerning the concentrated

side, its directive centre now became occult: nevermore one places here a known leader, a

clear ideology”.

The spectacular dimension of the BSC in itself is nothing new: as any other managerial

technique, it generates enthusiasm, raises critiques and contributes to the renewal of our

representations of organisations. However, the originality of our argument lies in our

contention that the BSC is not an ordinary management accounting device, and this for three

reasons. Firstly, its technical and normative aspects are rather poor. Most of the aggregates

and indicators in a BSC, to be analysed, require no specific skills. When it is coupled with

user-friendly software, the output is much easier to analyse than financial reporting sheets.

Secondly, the operational content of a BSC is liable to concern every manager, every division

in the organisation. Thirdly, the BSC tells a story, not only on historical figures explaining the

raison d’être of the organisation. The BSC mainly relates to the organisation’s future and

imagery can operate as a map conveying the journey thither.

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This peculiarly ambitious status of the BSC relies on its integrative dimension, while

traditional management devices are either concentrated – e.g. accounting figures, financial

metrics, value creation ratios – or more diffuse – e.g. reputation, intangible values, social

responsibility (Uddin et al., 2011). The BSC reconciles both forms in providing a story

linking them in a holistic framework. As the two forms of the spectacle no longer stand in

opposition to each other, any historical conflict, such as opposition of capital and labour, has

been eradicated. The integrated form of spectacle enabled by the BSC leads all organisational

actors to be connected to each other through a strategic cascade (Gioia & Thomas, 1996)

whose ownership is diffuse, while controls remain more or less considered concentrated

management accounting (Cravens & Oliver, 2006).

In its essence, the BSC seems to offer the organisation a unitary status of an entity

dispossessed from all its previous contradictions on property rights, value sharing or resource

allocation. As the questions addressed by finance-focused performance appraisals are

potentially sources of conflicts, the BSC precludes disputes and tensions. This ontology of the

BSC – an integrated spectacle – enables us to understand Kaplan’s and Norton’s journey. As

they first designed a management control device aiming at better strategic alignment, they

extended with strategic mapping (Kaplan & Norton, 2000, 2004) and execution premium

(Kaplan & Norton, 2006, 2008).

Are we critical or not is no more the debate, as the ability to critique is also an indicator. In

opposition to more or less standardised accounting principles, the BSC allows a lot of

freedom in the choice of indicators. Once an indicator shows alarming results can it be deleted

and replaced with more politically correct substitutes. Such a depersonalisation of strategic

discourse paradoxically leaves room for manoeuvre. BSC implementation often involves

several managers from different divisions and it seems difficult to engage higher strategic

authorities (e.g. the board) in the process (Drew & Kaye, 2007). Accordingly, middle staff

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and line managers, who are now likely to promote their own indicators and introduce these

into the BSC system, can acquire strategic legitimacy. Such derivative potential is pinpointed

(Ittner & Larcker, 2003), when “subjectivity in the balanced scorecard plan allowed area

directors to incorporate factors other than the scorecard measures in performance

evaluations, to change evaluation criteria from quarter to quarter, to ignore measures that

were predictive of future financial performance, and to weight measures that were not

predictive of desired results” (p. 753). But resistance and subjectivity might also be seen as

key success factors of a BSC implementation: “The typical structure of the project team

involves a steering committee, a team of experts (Financial, HR and IT experts), a Quality

Assurance team and the main project team. We have established that the project team should

encompass no more than eight employees of various hierarchical levels (…). We should also

note that constructive arguments have been recognized when both employees supporting the

BSC initiative and others more skeptical of this endeavour are included in the project team.”

(Papalexandris & ali, p. 218). These points are critical as they highlight the twofold specificity

of the integrated spectacle as an interpretive framework for the BSC.

- Firstly, the BSC places the critique far beyond extant approaches focusing on the

selection of KPIs (financial versus non financial), the balance amongst the four

dimensions or their rhetorical aspects (Nørreklit, 2000, 2003). The caveats we address

are not about instrumental limitations of the BSC, but on the influence it has through

its integrative dimension. Arguably, its main strength lies in the integrated form of the

spectacle so characterising it as to reconcile authority, strategy and control.

- Secondly, we integrate the two aspects of interpretive critique of the BSC: alignment

(Ittner et al., 2003) and ideological dimension underpinned by the ideology it carries

on (Bessire & Baker, 2005; Bourguignon, 2005; Bourguignon & Chiapello, 2005;

Bourguignon et al., 2004). The former concerns a concentrated conception of the

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spectacle, where the BSC is a controlling device aiming – successfully or not – at

influencing behaviours. On the other hand, the latter refers to a communicative BSC

(re)telling – with user-friendly images – the story of the American win-win company.

Moreover, if the BSC in practice actually proves to be less integrated than it claims to be, it

nevertheless remains integrative in its intention, in the story it tells. By chance, integration

and alignment are far from perfect, and critique is reversed: field managers might drift the

BSC for their own sake and thereby create situations against bureaucratic spectacle. We

contend here that the BSC is a much more open device. Whereas the notions of income and

capital mainly concern financial experts, such as analysts, standard setters, accountants,

auditors or tax regulators, the BSC integrates diverse indicators supposed to appeal to a

broader audience. Even though escape from income and capital is made possible through a

not-for-profit posture, escape from an integrated framework including all kind of metrics is

more difficult. Yet, some of these metrics are generally regarded as opposed to profit. It might

also be easier for a field manager to redesign the content of his or her BSC than its profit and

loss figures. Debord often evokes the ability of the integrated spectacle to foster participation

rather than opposition. As everyone partakes in the construction, diffusion and use of a BSC,

there is no more need for struggle and conflict. We thereby follow Uddin’s et al.’s (2011)

analysis of Participatory Budgeting as it was promoted, namely through Aid Agencies, as a

way to introduce integrated spectacle in Uganda, formerly more concerned by the

concentrated form. We also adopt the relativistic position of researchers questioning the

achievement of the integrative dimension of the BSC in which data indicate that there is wide

variation in the effectiveness of BSC in providing integrative information (Chenhall, 2005;

Meyer, 2002). This suggests that the adoption of BSC is not a sufficiently strong indicator

that performance measurement systems will provide integrative information (Chenhall, 2005;

p. 415).

19

Figure 1 summarises our approach to the integrated form of the spectacle through the merger

of the concentrated and the diffuse into the BSC.

Figure 1. The triangle of the spectacle

Concentrated form Diffused form

Alignment Image

Control Communication

Integrated form

Integrative

Story-telling framework

In a bureaucratic organisation, corresponding to a concentrated form of the spectacle,

managers are hold accountable for metrics linked to their status as responsibility centres. Are

they considered profit centres, they account for their margins; are they investment centres

they are supposed to provide satisfactory ROIs... Or as cost centres they are judged on their

ability to meet more or less flexible standards.

In a more diffused form of spectacle, in companies driven by customers, networks and

markets, managers hold local leadership positions where their communicative abilities and

their influence on behaviours are central. Attention is focused on “intangible” stakes,

serendipity, entrepreneurship, reputation.

In the integrated form of the spectacle, both perspectives are bundled. A manager is

accountable for financial and operational metrics. In the BSC, he or she is concomitantly

supposed to reduce costs – including for instance hidden costs like absenteeism – AND to

meet socially responsible targets obliging him or her to strive with diversity by hiring more

20

women, disabled people or ethnic minorities. Such a conduct might precisely provoke higher

absenteeism. The story could resemble a schizophrenic P.K. Dick like novel. Even though the

BSC does not integrate any contradictions in the story it tells about win-win causalities: social

responsibility policy generates good reputation as an intangible asset, with better employee

empowerment, which helps the company for maximising internal process efficiency, to satisfy

customers and finally increase financial performance.

In both ideal typical forms of the spectacle, dilemmas like the one related above could lead to

conflicts opposing an expense-limitative obsession held by profit centre managers and the

financial function to a good thinking but costly human resource strategy. Situations could be

the occasion to solve those conflicts through punctual moments of negotiation, dispute and

arbitrage. The introduction – or integration – of diverse metrics in the BSC tends to automate

the process and the critical moment becomes the introduction of an indicator in the

framework. Our contention that the BSC integrates and solves tensions resonates with the

idea developed in The New Spirit of Capitalism that one strength of Capitalism lies in its

ability to expand through the constant absorption of its critiques (Boltanski & Chiapello,

1999).

Conclusion

In this paper we are questioning whether and how the integrated dimension of the Balanced

Scorecard makes it a spectacular framework for performance management. We answer our

research question by analysing the mainstream and critical literatures on the BSC. In this

paper, we depart from both streams, trying to understand how the BSC in its essence can

solve tensions inherent to organisational life and performance management. We thereby

neither critique nor promote the BSC; we merely try to approach ontology of this

management accounting device. Our analysis contributes to the accounting literature in three

21

ways. Firstly, we contribute to the literature on the BSC by showing that in its essence, the

BSC offers the organisation a unitary status of an entity dispossessed from all its previous

contradictions on property rights, value sharing or resource allocation. It acts like a metaphor

(Cornelissen, relating the message of an organisation without leader, and influences

behaviours as “massage” (McLuhan, 1964). Secondly, we contribute to the critical literature

referring to Debord’s writings. We show the relevance, not only of the forms of spectacle as

depicted one by one, but also of the transformation and dialectics from one form to another,

with the potential role of the situation. Thirdly, dealing with the spectacle enables us to

contribute to the literature on the visuals. While this stream deals with fixed imagery, we

show visuals in motion, as narratives.

The main limitation of this paper lies first in our non-systematic approach of the field. More

generally, the BSC – in promotional as well as in critical postures – is often studied through

its conceptual and instrumental aspects: the four perspectives, the financial versus non-

financial metrics, the top down alignment etc. There is much less evidence on cases where the

BSC is used in drifted ways, as a self-control device (remember the bodybuilder) or a medium

for creating situations. However, we suggest further research in the following areas. Firstly, as

our paper deals with the BSC as an idea, we consider it would be necessary to address its

spectacular dimension through an empirical study of practices or discourses. Secondly, our

developments on the integrated form of the spectacle could be more broadly used in

management accounting research, following and enriching Uddin’s et al.’s (2001) work. We

claim for a research agenda on the BSC going beyond Kaplan & Norton’s top down

methodology, including works on situations met in practice with concurrent individual BSCs

conveying different mindsets.

22

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