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This 2000 Harvard Business Review article, by Harvard Business School professor Robert Kaplan and David Norton, founder and president of the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative ... and ex-president of Nolan, Norton & Co., is an extension to their 1996-book 'The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action' and their 1992-, 1993-, and 1996-articles. The balanced scorecard made it possible for managers to express and measure operational performance.

In this article, the authors discuss the use of strategy maps to explain your strategy to all people in your organization. The authors use balanced scorecard strategy maps to show how an organization can convert its assets into desired outcomes: "... the template shows how employees, need certain knowledge, skills, and systems (learning and growth perspective) to innovate and build the right strategic capabilities and efficiencies (internal process perspective) so that they can deliver specific value to the market (customer perspective), which will lead to higher shareholder value (financial perspective)." According to the authors it is best to build these strategy maps from the top down, and then charting the routes that will lead to the desired outcomes. This should make the likelihood of a successful implementation of strategy possible. The authors use Mobil's (integrated U.S. refiner-marketer) strategy map as an example.

I was pleasantly surprised by this fourth article, since I did not enjoy their second and third articles. The difference between this article and the previous two is the introduction of the balanced scorecard strategy map. This map is a great visual template which is useful to all companies and explains the cause-and-effect relationships between the various perspectives. The advantage of this map is that it is understandable to people who were not involved in the strategic planning process - normally, the employees in the firing line. The article is written in simple US-English.

This book is of use to any person who wants to know more about epilepsy; specifically, about terms and medications they might here when talking to a person who has epilepsy. There may be some areas which would be difficult for lay readers to understand. Overall, a very good resource. Any person interested in teaching about epilepsy should have this book.

This textbook ties everything together very well and in a proper sequence which makes it easy for the reader to understand. Graphical approac made the linkage even more easier and understandable. The cases were quite good too and aid students in applying the concept. Certainly a suitable book for anyone who wants to see how management accounting takes place in an organization .

Robin Cooper is Professor of Management at the Graduate Management School at Claremont University, California; Robert S. Kaplan is Professor of Leadership Development at the Harvard Business School. This article was published in the July-August 1998 issue of the Harvard Business Review. They are also the authors of 'Cost & Effect: Using Integrated Cost Systems to Drive Profitability and Performance' (1998).

"Now enterprise resource planning systems promise to integrate operational-control and activity-based cost systems and, by delivering on-line, real-time information, release managers from their normal one-month accounting cycles." But first managers need to understand that both cost systems have fundamentally different purposes and are separate for good reasons. The operational-control system provides information about process and business-unit efficiencies, the activity-based cost systems provides strategic cost information about the underlying economics of the business. The authors use tables and graphs to explain the differences between the two systems. They also explain the possibilities for integration between the systems: (1) Linking ABC to operational control = activity-based budgeting; (2) linking operational control to ABC; and (3) linking ABC and operational control to financial reporting. The authors conclude that the main impact of these integrated enterprise systems is that it promises to increase the relevance and contribution of managerial accounting: "In this way, virtually all organizational expenses become variable and subject to management's control."

Great article by the inventors of activity-based costing ('One Cost System Isn't Enough', 1988; 'Measure Costs Right: Make the Right Decisions', 1988; 'Profit Priorities from Activity-Based Costing', 1991). This article follows the natural evolution of enterprise systems and discusses the impact the integration of operational-control and ABC-systems has on managerial decision-making. Useful article for MBA-students and for people using ERP-systems. I also recommend Thomas H. Davenport's article 'Putting the Enterprise into the Enterprise System' (HBR, July-August 1998). The authors use simple US-English.

This 1993 Harvard Business Review article, by Harvard Business School professor Robert Kaplan and David Norton, president of Nolan, Norton & Co., builds on their 1992 article 'The Balanced Scorecard: Measures that Drive Performance'. In that article, the authors made it possible for managers to express and measure operational performance.

Acccording to the authors, the balanced scorecard is not a template that can be applied to businesses in general or even industrywide. Therefore, the authors introduce the use of the balanced scorecard within three companies in three different industries - Rockwater (subsea engineering and contruction company), Apple Computers (computers), and Advanced Micro Devices (semiconductors). The authors provide a step-by-step guide to building a balanced scorecard and explain very shortly the link between the balanced scorecard and external reporting. The article concludes with an interview with Larry Brady, executive vice president of FMC Corporation (diversified company in the US), who explains how their organization has implemented the balanced scorecard.

I was disappointed by this article. The weakness in this article is that it is useless without reading the authors' first article on the balanced scorecard. In my opinion this article just provides the reader with examples of the introduction, implementation and use of the balanced scorecard within companies. Okay, the authors provide a useful step-by-step guide for building a balanced scorecard, but that does not make up for the lack of new information/knowledge on the subject. My advice: Get their first article 'The Balanced Scorecard: Measures that Drive Performance, and then read their 1996-article 'Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System' or their 1996-book 'The Balanced Scorecard: Turning Strategy into Action'. The article is written in simple US-English.

This 1996 Harvard Business Review article, by Harvard Business School professor Robert Kaplan and David Norton, president of Nolan, Norton & Co., is an extension to their articles 'The Balanced Scorecard: Measures that Drive Performance' (1992) and 'Putting the Balanced Scorecard to Work' (1993). The balanced scorecard made it possible for managers to express and measure operational performance.

This article discusses the integration of the four balanced scorecard perspectives (financial, customer, internal-business-process, and learning-and-growth) into strategic planning. In order to do this the authors introduce four (new) processes. The first process is called 'translating the vision' and helps managers to build a consensus around the organization's vision and strategy. The second process - communicating and linking - allows managers to communicate their strategy throughout the organization and link it to departmental and individual objectives. The third process - business planning - enables companies to integrate their business and financial plans. The fourth and final process - feedback and learning - gives companies that capacity for strategic learning (single-loop and Chris Argyris' double-loop learning). Each of these processes are discussed using various companies as examples. The aim of the authors is to enable managers to use the balanced scorecard as a framework for managing the strategy and vision, thereby linking long-term strategic objectives with short-term actions.

I did enjoy the authors' original balanced scorecard-article, I did not enjoy their second and I am disappointed by this third article. This article does not focus that much on the balanced scorecard, therefore readers expecting more information and knowledge on the balanced scorecard will be disappointed (like me). The article is more about the strategic planning/budgeting process, and how companies should use the balanced scorecard within this process. But I am in the opinion that those processes are better discussed by other sources/authors. The article is written in simple US-English.

I have studied many aspects of financial and management accounting, management issues, etc. from introductory to advanced levels. I have never used such an unappealing book. The student must sift through much wordiness. There are few, and sometimes no examples of the various calculations. There is very little use of white space. Virtually no colour, no use of bullets. Not only is the material presented in a "dry" form, but the book is not pretty to look at. The most praise I can give this book is that it is not too heavy to carry, and it has a pretty blue cover.

I have studied, practiced and taught managerial accounting for more than 17 years at work, using excellent supporting text and case books from recognized US authors. But to be honest Dr. Kaplan is making easy concepts to appear complicated and cumbersome. His case readings as well as the text materials are very length and hard to "digest" since it does not capture the attention of the reader.I would not recommend the book neither for and undergraduate or graduate degree, despite the well known and worldwide recognition of Dr. Kaplan. His book is far from being pedagogical in nature.

MBA students alike may not even have the patient to read through it. But, as a management consultant in China ( i used to work for 2 of big 4 accounting firms, and now working as a freelance to help local companies to solve their managerial costing problems), this book is my primary reference for my work. I applied ideas in this book helping my clients building ABC and transfer pricing and costing control models. When you really need to solve true business problems (rather than reading in the school), you will find this is "the" book. In my view, you have to read Kaplan and Cooper's staff if you want to get some true knowledge about managerial accounting.

I cant believe Professionals cant explain topics in a easy words. Trying to use grandma stories and without explaining where numbers come its impossible to understand.

1) explanations are not good at all very confusing if you are a beginner.
2) Examples are like grandma tale and will make you sleepy.
3) dull and boring.
4) the authors need to put them self in the students shoes rather than assuming they are teaching a CPA.
I would recommend Schaums Series or barrons series for learning, Its easy and also easy on your wallet...compared to this...

I would not recommend this book to anyone who has not have any prior Managerial Accounting classes or sufficient work experience in this area. The way the topics are presented in the book requires familiarity with a number of related concepts in order to gain full understanding. Additionally, there is a number of instances in which concepts are introduced in a given chapter, but not explained until a later one, which makes it really confusing for those exposed to Managerial Accounting for the first time.

My MBA program used this book. I found the book easy to read and liked its consideration of behavioral issues usually ignored in other books. The book covers new and important topics in management accounting (activity-based costing, balanced scorecard, JIT, target costing, kaizen costing, environmental costing and benchmarking). A companion book (Readings in Management Accounting) has lots of articles describing applications of material presented in the textbook.

This CLIFFS NOTES guide to the works of T.S. Eliot may have contained a wealth of information when it was written in 1965, but so many advances have been made in Eliot studies since that this guide is now out-of-date. Since it was written, we have seen the finding of the original manuscripts of "The Waste Land," Valerie Eliot's compedium of T.S. Eliot's letters, Eliot's youth poetry, etc.

The book is heavily slanted towards "Prufrock" and "The Waste Land," so that it gives short shrift to Eliot's later works, which are among his most beautiful. "Four Quartets" is only briefly covered, and the section on "Ash Wednesday" doesn't even mention the Dantean influence that is such a large part of the work!

"The Waste Land" is covered in great detail, but most of the explication is now obviously misguided because it is mostly based on Eliot's footnotes which, after the discovery of the original drafts and Ezra Pound's comments, are now understood as something of a joke.

If you are looking for insight into the poetry of T.S. Eliot, the CLIFFS NOTES guide is not the way to go. Try one of the latest books, such as the one by Cambridge University Press.