Description:
Aims – This paper aims to examine: the status and the use of financial and non-financial measures, and the balanced scorecard (BSC) in Bangladeshi companies; the reasons for BSC adoption; and associated problems. Design/methodology/approach – Data via a questionnaire were obtained from the chief accounting and finance officers of a cross section of 60 Bangladeshi companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange. A combination of descriptive statistics, bi-variate, and multi-variate techniques of statistics were used to test three research questions. Findings – The results indicate that financial measures are more widely used, but that 78.4 per cent of companies use some non-financial indicators. Further, the exercise of a full BSC is limited to only 10 per cent of the sample. The results also show that companies adopt these frameworks to aid decision making, and the problems associated with the adoption of BSC include a cost-benefit perspective and a lack of management support. Practical implications – The findings suggest many companies are using a dashboard of financial and non-financial performance measures that could possibly be a precursor to adopting more holistic performance measurement frameworks like the BSC. Originality/value – There have been recent calls for more in-depth analysis of the management accounting systems of emerging countries and these findings contribute further knowledge to an under researched area. In particular, the paper demonstrates how a performance measurement framework may evolve in an emerging country context.
Description:
The performance of South African Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETA's) has been increasingly questioned. On this premise, the paper investigated the efficiency of the SETAs with respect to their utilization of funds in order to promote a range of education and training outputs was investigated. More specifically, the study investigated the quantity and quality of five training and education outputs, set by the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS), in relation to the funding received. Furthermore, the study examined the amount of money spend on administrative expenditure by the various SETAs, as well as the SETAs management of financial reserves. In order to guide the study, as well as analyze the data, a conceptual framework to measure efficiency was based on an input-output model developed by Gupta and Verhoeven (2001). Data were obtained from the published accounting and annual reports for the period 2006 - 2009. The results indicated only two of the SETA's were efficient with respect to their utilization of funds and that only five SETA's consistently met their own targets. The study also shows that if the SETA' s funds had been applied to education and training outputs, rather than for investment purposes, training outputs could have been considerably increased. The paper has implications for the use of public funds with respect to the critical skills shortage confronting the economy [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]