برداشت مدیران منابع انسانی از برنامه های کاربردی و شایستگی کارت امتیازی متوازن در هتل ها

The extent to which performance measures that align with the “learning and growth” dimension of the balanced scorecard (BSC) are applied in the hotel industry has been examined by conducting interviews with 14 hotel human resource (HR) managers. Minimal appreciation of the BSC concept was in evidence. When an explanation of the BSC framework was provided, the interviewees unanimously held the view that the term “learning and growth” did not adequately encompass the HR oriented performance measures that they seek to apply. Further, it was found that most hotels were using a single measure of employee satisfaction to represent “learning and growth”, which does not enable examination of the five separate dimensions of “learning and growth” represented in the BSC model. These findings suggest a significant schism between BSC theory and the application of HR oriented measures in the hotel industry.

Measuring organisational success and implementing effective strategies for success represent continuous challenges for managers, researchers and consultants. The wide variety of industries rethinking their performance management and performance measurement systems (Eccles, 1991), and the many performance measurement frameworks, theories and models that have emerged serve as testimony to the importance attached to developing comprehensive and effective measurement systems. Literally, performance measurement is the process of quantifying past action (Neely, 1998), to facilitate the pursuit of organisational control. Control can be viewed as the process of ensuring that an organisation pursues strategies that lead to the achievement of overall goals and objectives (Hoffecker and Goldenberg, 1994). This study explores the extent to which the balanced scorecard (BSC) (Kaplan, 1994; Kaplan and Norton, 1992, Kaplan and Norton, 1993 and Kaplan and Norton, 1996a) is understood and utilised by human resource (HR) managers within the hotel industry and, more specifically, the extent to which the scorecard's “learning and growth” performance measures that are described in the literature are applied in hotels. The BSC is a comprehensive performance measurement framework. Its comprehensive nature derives from the four interlinking perspectives that it encompasses: (1) financial perspective, (2) customer perspective, (3) internal perspective, and (4) innovation and learning perspective (termed “learning and growth” in this study). The relative merits of the BSC have been examined extensively in the literature; however, there appears to be relatively limited attention directed to the manner in which the “learning and growth” dimension of the scorecard is being operationalised. Prior to outlining the research design and reporting the study's findings, the next section provides an overview of the most pertinent literature.

This study has provided evidence of an apparent schism between academic knowledge and practice with regards to the BSC concept in general and the “learning and growth” dimension of the BSC in particular. The findings suggest limited awareness of the BSC concept amongst hotel managers, although data collected precludes any judgment to be made as to whether this limited awareness is peculiar to the HR function. The findings also suggest that despite claims concerning the BSC's potential to serve a quest for competitive advantage, it is not being widely adopted in hotels. While it appears that the attention directed to the BSC may have impacted positively on hotels’ use of a breadth of measures, there appears to be limited specific reference to the BSC term. This issue is noteworthy as it appeared that one of the hotel sites was in the throes of introducing a broadly based performance measurement system, akin to a BSC; however, they did not appear to be using the term “BSC”. Evans (2005) notes that the use of locally adapted terminology, when adopting broadly based performance measurement systems, has had little impact upon the actual performance measures adopted. Despite the fact that two managers made strong claims that their hotels were using the BSC, knowledge of the “learning and growth” construct and the five elements that it comprises was conspicuously absent. The Kaplan and Norton doctrine with respect to what an HR oriented performance system should comprise had not filtered through to any of the participants interviewed. As a result, HR measures pertaining to “learning and growth” appeared to have been implemented in a manner that can be characterised as more ad hoc than systematic. It was notable that the HR managers provided a relatively unanimous front with respect to a view that the “learning and growth” terminology used by Kaplan and Norton is deficient. The participants tended to view “learning and growth” as a dimension of employee satisfaction, and not the other way around. Without exception, the interviewees saw a “learning and growth” focus as concerned with a subset of HR activities and not sufficiently broad to encompass the range of HR functions. These findings have a number of implications. Firstly, it appears the BSC may need further “selling” to the hotel industry if claims with respect to its capacity to represent a source of competitive advantage are to gain broader acceptance. Such acceptance could be stimulated by case study research concerned with exploring the relative merits deriving to hotels that have applied the BSC. It is noteworthy that the “learning and growth” dimension of the BSC is widely regarded as being the softest of the BSC's four pillars in terms of focus and the capacity to identify a core set of objectively verifiable measures. This factor may partially account for the lack of BSC awareness amongst hotel HR managers. Despite this extenuating factor, findings in this study suggest that the pertinence of the BSC framework to hotel HR managers is undermined by use of the term “learning and growth” when referring to HR oriented BSC measures. This signifies that agents of organisational change who seek to introduce the BSC to hotels might usefully consider an alternative label when referring to HR oriented measures. The study's findings also signify that HR managers may be failing to capitalise on the opportunity to more fully integrate HR oriented performance measures with the performance measurement framework of the entire organisation. There appears to be a danger that hotels that purport to be using the BSC framework are not gaining the full benefits of the systems as their BSC implementation is partial. An analogy arises here with respect to the manner of TQM theory application (Samson and Draft, 2003). A more complete appreciation of Kaplan and Norton's proposed “learning and growth” dimension of the BSC would likely equip HR managers with a greater capacity to contribute to overall hotel performance as a result of an improved capability to gauge the manner in which HR contributes to overall performance. It has long been recognised that it is difficult to render HR accountable by making its outputs measurable. It may well be that Kaplan and Norton's model provides a promising starting point in alleviating this measurement challenge. The study was based within the hotel industry and the participants interviewed were all working in hotels along the same coastal resort strip. Although this limits the generalisability of the results, it should be noted that most of the properties visited were managed as part of a large chain with an overseas head office (frequently based in the US). This signifies that the findings do provide a representation of practices being undertaken by hotels that operate as part of large international chain. It was notable that in the cases where the BSC was claimed to have been adopted, the implementation had been initiated by head office. It should be noted that this study suffers from all the limitations generally associated with qualitative research. These limitations include the degree of subjectivity that is bound to be invoked by researchers when conducting interviews and analysing data collected, and also the fact that the size of the sample examined precludes any confident generalisation of the findings to a broad population. For this reason, the study's findings should be viewed in an exploratory light. Further, the quantitative analysis reported in Table 2 should be viewed as supplementary to the qualitative orientation characterising the bulk of the empirical data reported. Due to the limited number of participants involved in the study, the quantitative analysis should be viewed in a highly exploratory light. A potentially useful way of building on this study's initiative would be to extend the investigation by way of a survey. Such a survey could seek to confirm the study's observations with respect to the degree that hotel HR managers are familiar with the “learning and growth” dimension of the BSC and also the degree to which hotels are employing a suite of measures such as that proposed within the “learning and growth” dimension of the BSC. This would provide a stronger basis for generating more generalisable findings. Despite this highlighted caveat, it appears the study reported herein represented an appropriate first step in gauging the pertinence of the “learning and growth” dimension of the BSC to hotel HR managers. Further research concerned with determining how measures of the elements comprising the learning and growth dimension of the BSC are being operationalised in hotels that have adopted the BSC is also to be encouraged. The findings of such a research initiative could provide useful pointers to other hotels considering a revision to their performance measurement system. Also, further research could usefully build on the achievements made in the mainstream accounting literature with respect to the relationship between strategy and accounting system design (Abernethy and Guthrie, 1994; Guilding, 1999; Simons, 1987). Our understanding of the context of BSC design would be improved by gaining a clearer picture of the degree and manner of BSC adaptations that result from different hotel strategies applied. Finally, an extension of this research initiative to other sectors outside the hotel industry could yield useful insight with respect to the relative standing of the hotel sector with respect to the issues under examination. It may be that hotels can learn from the way that other industries are operationalising “learning and growth” measures of performance. It would be particularly helpful to secure management's perspectives with respect to the degree that a balanced “learning and growth” framework of measures operating in the context of a BSC can add to an organisation's competitive advantage.