Analysis and Decision-Making Case

Student organizations serve a variety of purposes throughout a university. Consider this purpose statement as a general example:

The Accounting Club shall provide its members with a current perspective of the accounting profession and further educational endeavors by securing speakers; arranging tours; facilitating social interaction between students, faculty, and members of the accounting profession through arranged activities; providing a means for the distribution of scholarships; and improving student life.

Common officer positions in a universitys accounting club include the following: president, vice president, secretary, membership/dues, publicity/social media, scholarship event(s) coordinator, professional activities coordinator(s). (Please check with your local accounting club to see which positions it typically staffs.) In addition to student officers, student organizations must have a faculty advisor on record to oversee all key activities of the club, provide guidance, and mentor the officers/members.

Required

1. Sketch the key objectives and key activities of the Accounting Club (or similarly purposed organization) at your university. In doing so, try to group the objectives into common themes/categories. From these themes/categories, determine three to five appropriate perspectives from which a strategy map and balanced scorecard can be generated. Keep in mind this student organization has a very different purpose than a for-profit business; your perspectives do not need to be (and probably should not be) the four traditional perspectives identified in this chapter.
2. Create a strategy map using the perspectives identified in part (a). Be sure to layer the perspectives according to cause-and-effect relationships so that the most foundational layer will impact the next layer, and so on. Populate the strategy map with the key objectives identified in part (a), being sure to identify two to four objectives for each perspective. Show causal paths (with arrows) between objectives.
3. Create a balanced scorecard for the student organization. First, populate the objectives with those identified in the strategy map. Second, identify an appropriate measure (or two) for each objective, so you would be able to track the student organizations progress toward achieving a given objective. Third, specify a target that reflects a difficult-to-achieve but achievable goal for each measure.
4. Explain how this strategic management tool could help your universitys accounting club (or similar student organization) to be more effective, efficient, diverse, welcoming, and accessible to all students and all types of employers, professional organizations, and graduate schools.