This chapter introduced the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and showed applications in organizations that were using the BSC for planning and for strategy implementation. Another important use for the BSC is to evaluate mid-level and higher-level managers who are responsible for implementing the organization’s strategy. The BSC is useful in this context because, by being a part of managers’ performance evaluation, it focuses the managers’ attention on the critical success factors that top management has determined to be strategic and have therefore entered into the BSC. This application of the BSC is covered in Chapter 18. Chapter 20 shows how the BSC can be used for evaluating the organization as a whole.

Another key way to use the BSC for mid-level managers is to use it in hiring and evaluating lowerlevel employees. For example, when interviewing applicants for a job, the mid-level manager could use a BSC to enumerate the desired skills for the position, and because the BSC requires measurable critical success factors, the task of selecting the best applicant will be simplified.

Required

1. Consider the use of the BSC by mid-level managers in hiring and evaluating employees who report to them. Which of the following would most likely be true for this application of the BSC?

a. Increase in employee loyalty among the employees hired and evaluated in this way.

b. Decrease in individual bias in selecting and evaluating employees.

c. Decrease in the time required to complete the selection and evaluation of employees.

d. Increase in the number of appropriate applicants for the position.

2. Explain briefly why you chose your response in part 1 above.