Performance measurement in palestinian companies. The use of the balanced scorecard (BSC) method by private firms operating in Ramallah

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, , language: English, abstract: This study aims to investigate the usage of performance measures, conceptualized as the BSC measures, within an organizational context. This research considers itself as a descriptive research. The questionnaire was distributed to 46 private Palestinian firms operating in Ramallah from different sectors. The results revealed that the usage of financial measures is still high and ranked first among the four perspectives of the BSC measures. However, the usage of non-financial measures is growing. Only reliance on financial based performance measures is inadequate in the new manufacturing environment. Increase awareness of the importance of non financial performance measures in providing long-term value creation and long-term strategic focus as well as their effects on firm performance leads to several innovations in the area of performance measurement system. One of the widely known innovations in this area is called balanced scorecard (BSC) which has been originated by Kaplan and Norton in 1992. The BSC combines traditional financial measures with non-financial measures through focusing on four perspectives - financial, customers, internal business processes, and learning and growth.