The opportunity to apply the balanced scorecard in football clubs

Abstract

The changes in the environment of sports organizations (SOs) in recent years, and the need for professionalization, require the deployment of new performance management tools. The BSC is a well-known management tool, designed mainly to create "a strategy-oriented organization" (Kaplan & Norton, 2001, p.10). This tool, which was initially developed for the commercial world, seems to us to be suitable for football clubs (CSF) as well.  This is due to its ability to consider financial and non-financial perspectives and to ensure overall long-term performance, which is perfectly suited to the challenges faced by FSBs. Through a rigorous literature review, this paper proposes to provide a theoretical reflection on the ability of the BSC to facilitate the evolution of CSFs in a more strategic direction. It seeks to demonstrate that it is in the interest of the leaders of these organizations to implement this tool, which offers several considerable opportunities, especially as the management of CSFs is a complex process (Gulak-Lipka, 2020). In this respect, the present research discusses the possibilities of applying BSC and its contributions in the sports sector, while focusing on the specificities of managing LSFs. And based on the work of Simons (1996), we have also shown that the BSC will contribute to the desired performance depending on how it is used by managers. This, of course, assumes that management control (MC) systems are sufficiently developed within these organizations, and that managers acquire knowledge and know-how that goes beyond their technical expertise. However, our research is limited by the approach taken and requires further in-depth research.

Classification: Z29

Type of article: Academic article