The chapter described the role of the business scorecard in facilitating effective strategic leadership practices. For this exercise, you will be asked to compare and contrast the balanced scorecard against the Baldridge Quality Award Criteria.

The Baldridge Award was created in 1988 to recognize firms that were leaders in global competitiveness through product and process quality initiatives. The Award is named in honor of Malcolm Baldridge, who was Secretary of Commerce in the United States during the 1980s. The Web site of the Baldridge Award can be found at:

http://www.quality.nist.gov/

Working in small groups, prepare a brief write-up (2–3 pages maximum) that answers the following questions:

What similarities and differences exist in the goals of the balanced scorecard and Baldridge Award frameworks?

What are the similarities and differences in the evaluation metrics used in these frameworks?

From your analysis, are these competing or complementary frameworks? Or does one have no relevance to the other?

What recommendation would you make to a firm that was considering implementing both frameworks concurrently?