管理会计

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Johnson, Reckers, and Bartle tt
achievement (Cadez and Guilding 2008). An example of a multidimensional performance evaluation system is the Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan and Norton 1996; 2000). The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) assists top management in communicating strategic goals to lower-level managers by exphcitly linking these goals to congruent and actionable performance targets, and in evaluating management performance in pursuit of those targets. Moreover, the BSC supports longer-term strategic performance by emphasizing the importance of meeting leading nonfinancial targets (e.g., process improvement, employee leaming, and customer satisfaction) as drivers of improved long-term (lagging) financial performance. However, a significant body of research suggests that evaluators tend to discount or ignore leading nonfinancial performance in BSC-based evaluations, focusing instead on lagging financial performance metrics. These findings may refiect evaluator preferences for traditional financial measures (Ittner, Larcker, and Randall 2003) and/or evaluators' inability to estimate the effects of current period performance on lagged (future) performance measures (Luft and Shields 2001; Farrell, Kadous, and Towry 2012). Consequently, it is important to evaluate whether decision aids that assist in highlighting the lagging nature of financial performance improvement might increase the effectiveness of performance evaluations by reducing evaluator fixation on financial measures. One such decision aid, the strategy map (Banker, Chang, and Pizzini 2004), has been shown to reduce evaluator reliance on non-strategically linked performance measures by providing a graphical representation of the causal relationships among strategic elements and the related BSC measures. This study extends research on improving BSC-based performance judgments by examining two additional factors that may infiuence evaluator judgments of subordinate performance under a new corporate strategy. The first factor is an explicit timeline that represents the expected time lag between the implementation of a new corporate strategy and the achievement of specific strategy-linked leading and lagging performance metrics. Although the time dimension of strategy implementation is identified as a critical factor in understanding leading versus lagging strategic performance under the BSC (N0n-eklit 2000; Franco-Santos and Boume 2005; Tayler 2010; Franco-Santos, Lucianetti, and Boume 2012), knowledge of time lag effects has not been explicitly addressed in prior BSC research. Second, we examine the influence of evaluators' perceptions of a strategy's effectiveness on evaluations of subordinate performance under the strategy. Higher levels of perceived strategy effectiveness have been linked to greater acceptance of, and commitment to, the strategy (Webb 2004; Papalexandris, Ioannou, Prastacos, and Soderquist 2005; Cokins 2010; Tayler 2010). In particular, greater commitment to a strategy is important when those responsible for implementing the strategy are not involved in its development (Hodgkinson, Whittington, Johnson, and Schwarz 2006; de Waal and Counet 2009), as is the case in this study. We test the influence of time lag information and evaluator assessments of strategy effectiveness on evaluator assessments of subordinate performance in an experimental setting. Participants were 111 M.B.A. students at a large U.S. university, with an average of over eight years of work experience. All participants received information regarding the target company (a high-end retailer) and its new corporate strategy, including a graphical strategy map of the links among the four strategic performance perspectives of the BSC (Leaming and Growth, Intemal Processes, Customer, and Financial). Timeline information was manipulated between subjects, where participants randomly assigned to the timeline (no-timeline) condition did (did not) receive information regarding the anticipated sequential time lags between strategy implementation and expected improved performance on strategically linked BSC performance indicators. Evaluator perceptions of strategy effectiveness were measured by having participants provide an exphcit assessment of the new strategy's effectiveness (i.e., the likelihood that the new strategy would lead to improved performance on two target lagging financial measures). Following the strategy V » A«"unt"n9 V *""'"'»" Jownal of Management Accounting Research Volume 26, Number 1, 2014