The relationship between perceived environmental uncertainty, organizational structure, leadership style and the balanced scorecard

Abstract

The primary intent of this dissertation is to provide some suggestions on what type of organizations suit better with the concept of balanced scorecards (BSC hereafter) than others in the New Zealand firm environment. To accomplish this attempt, a contingency approach, which takes into account the perceived environmental uncertainty, organizational structure, and leadership styles, is advocated. In this dissertation, several hypotheses are offered concerning the relationship between perceived environmental uncertainty, organizational structure and the BSC usage. Further, the relationship between leadership style and the BSC is also assessed. A questionnaire is distributed to a group of CFOs of selected New Zealand-owned companies in order to examine these proposed hypotheses.

The results of this study suggest no significant relationship between perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) and organizational structure. The statistics indicate that the BSC usages are not dependent on the internal corporate structure. Even though the last hypothesis is not supported due to the lack of clear presence of transformational and transactional leadership styles, the results of post hoc testing have captured a significant relationship between leadership and the BSC usages, suggesting that organizations with strong leaders tend to implement more advanced BSC.

Despite several limitations, this study suggests practicing managers to consider their leadership before the BSC implementation. Further, future research is suggested to better understand the usage of the BSC in New Zealand companies.