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Sabtu, 13 Juni 2009

Kamis, 11 Juni 2009

The Effect of Value Added Auditing to Improve Financial Performance, an Expanding Role of the Registrars

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. The Demand for Audit Function
It's no exaggeration to say that dramatic changes have occurred recently in business. Enron, WorldCom and a number of other companies have collapsed. The U.S. government has passed laws requiring financial disclosure. And on Aug. 1, 2002, the New York Stock Exchange began requiring all its listed companies to have an internal audit function. Generally, this trend is called value-added auditing. North America's top registrars are also emphasizing value. With today's stock market volatility, investors want higher assurance of company performance. Value-added auditing is so hot that the New York Stock Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission now require value-added audits of more than 17,000 listed companies. AOQC Moody International is rapidly moving in this direction.

1.2. Becoming Certified
Becoming certified to an established international standard is one way organizations can prove and publicize their quality control efforts, but the certification process can be long, complicated and expensive. Attaining certification can be an enormous cost to an organization in terms of time spent on preparing for third-party auditing, required reports and related meetings. It's also costly financially. Predictably, organizations want to get the most "bang for their buck." Focusing only on the cost of certification, though, can be a slippery slope. Research proves that certification will help a company maintain and improve its processes and product quality, but the decision to undertake the registration process is a major one that should be carefully considered. Chief among the decisions to be made is how to prepare for the required audits and how to hire a certification body or auditor to guide the company through the process. Choosing based solely on price is a very bad idea. Choosing an inexpensive, commercially driven auditor with little experience in your industry may result in certification, but it almost certainly won't drive the quality and process improvements that the registration is supposed to show. That will cost dearly in the long term. There are also a lot of options: Is it better to hire an independent auditor, or would it be better to retain a certification body that provides one of its own auditors? Does any of this really matter, as long as the certification process is successful? Finally, how much is all this going to cost?
The main research question is whether or not certification body or registrar is effective in driving the Value Added Auditing what factors should be considered to choose certification body or registrar. Are the auditors performing value added service over and above simply auditing, do they have ability to communicate well and partner with the client, do they have consistent interpretation between auditors, etc. Subsidiary research question include whether or not the cost for certification is worth for the result. Does it pay for firm to seek certification or does it contribute to improving financial performance.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Reason for Certification
The reasons for attaining certification are as varied as industry needs. According to a survey conducted by the Independent Association of Accredited Registrars, the main reasons organizations cited for quality management system certification are as follows:
• Customer mandate: 29 percent
• Competitive pressure or advantage: 17 percent
• Continuous improvement based on customer requirements: 16 percent
• Improve quality: 14 percent

Less frequently cited reasons also included "implementation of best practices" (10%) and "corporate mandate" (9%); reduced cost and legal reasons were each cited by 1 percent of respondents. In the IAAR survey, 84 percent of certified companies realized a positive return on their investment (ROI) in certification. Eleven percent of these reported an ROI from their certification of more than 20 percent, 15 percent of organizations had an ROI of 10-20 percent, and 27 percent attained an ROI of 6-10 percent. For 31 percent of respondents, the ROI on certification was 5 percent or less.
Although the bottom line may mean a lot to management, the process improvement that comes with quality certification was also noted by respondents to the IAAR survey. The most frequently named external benefits were "improved perceived quality" (57%), "improved customer satisfaction" (55%), "competitive advantage" (38%), "reduced customer audits" (31%), "increased market share" (11%), and "quicker time to market" (4%). Internal improvements were also cited as benefits of certification, with 73 percent of respondents reporting greater quality awareness and better documentation, 37 percent reporting increased efficiency, 33 percent citing positive cultural change, 12 percent finding improved financial performance and 9 percent reporting improved employee morale.
A comprehensive 2002 study is published by the International Organization for Standardization (Does ISO 9000 Certification Pay? ISO Management Systems July-August 2002) found that improving profit was not the most cited result of certification. Instead, the survey of 7,598 organizations found that internal productivity almost always spikes--and remains improved--when the certification process starts. Firms that don't seek certification, according to the study, saw no such organic process improvement. In other words, the study seems to suggest that if organizations don't make process improvement a priority, business will almost certainly suffer in the long term.
According to the study, non certified organizations experience a substantial loss of productivity and sales compared to certified firms, a gap that widens to 9.9 percentage points three years after certification. The study authors summarize that certified firms avoid the steady erosion of their quality and internal processes that non certified organizations almost always suffer from.
"It seems as if ISO 9001 certification is more often a necessary condition to maintain current performance, rather than a sure-fire way to improve performance," write the study authors. "Our results suggest that failing to seek ISO 9001 certification contributes to gradually worsening performance. This leads us to a seemingly contradictory conclusion: The decision to seek ISO 9001 certification did lead to substantial performance improvement, but it is difficult to justify in advance using a traditional cost-benefit analysis, implying that it has to be based, to some extent, on faith."
Table 1. Top Ten Countries for ISO 9001 Certification
1
China
143,823
2
Italy
98,028
3
Japan
53,771
4
Spain
47,445
5
United Kingdom
44,270
6
Germany
39,816
7
India
24,640
8
France
24,441
10
Australia
16,922
Source: The ISO Survey of Certification 2005

2.2 Types of Certification Body
Nigel Croft, convener of ISO/TC 176 (which oversees the ISO 9000 series of standards and is currently revising ISO 9001 and ISO 9004) went so far as to separate certification bodies into the "good guys" and the "bad guys." "The bad guys are almost completely commercially driven, and only concerned with increasing their market share," Croft says. "The good guys, the ones we need to promote and encourage, consider the needs of their client, as well as the client's customer. They protect the consumer's interest by ensuring that their clients produce well-made products. There are a lot of minimalist organizations out there [that don't care if] bad certification organizations give them certifications that don't mean anything. We need to get angry and get those bad guys out of the business because they are doing us all a disservice."
Finding the balance between these characteristics--detail-oriented and careful without being too tough--can be challenging. Although delivering high-quality, careful audits with attention to detail is supremely important to maintaining a good reputation as an effective quality auditor, very few auditors want the reputation of being nitpicky documentation commandos who make the auditing process a lot more stressful than it needs to be. On the flip side, being too lax with clients--which may result in almost certain certification, with few if any non conformances--isn't any good either. Leaning too far this way could lead into the "bad guy" territory Croft warns against.
The cost of the audit is usually determined by the number of days an auditor or audit team spends on-site. Therefore, the only negotiable part of a rate quote is the auditor's day rate. This fee generally includes the auditor's per diem expenses (for lodging, if necessary, and for meals), and can vary widely. An auditor who has to travel out of town for an on-site audit will naturally cost more, as the client will be responsible for his or her lodging. Auditors with experience in a client's specific industry will also cost more, because their feedback is considered more valuable.
A decade ago, there were approximately 10 certification bodies operating in North America; now, there are almost 100. Worldwide, reports the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB), there are more than 750 certification bodies operating. As the market has become more crowded, more auditors and registrars are willing to negotiate on their day rates. This can be good and bad, and clients should be vigilant when selecting an auditor.

2.3 Value Added Auditing
Why should quality auditors pay attention to value-added auditing? We're now officially in a recession, and senior managers don't want surprises. They and their boards of directors are thinking, "Do we have sufficient information and assurance of operational effectiveness internally, as well as with our supply partners, to make robust decisions?"
Internal auditing departments are responsible for conducting value-added audits. Because of recent legislation concerning corporate governance, these reports often go directly to the board of directors' audit committee and indirectly to the chief financial officer. Steve Jameson, the Institute of Internal Auditors' director of technical services, recently had this to say about the new regulations coming out of Congress, the SEC and the NYSE: "Requiring public reporting on internal controls is the grand prize that the internal audit profession has sought for years. The U.S. Congress has now mandated that requirement. The IIA standards and the IIA's value-added mindset for the profession support and promote internal auditors as the key organizational resource for providing assurance about internal controls to the [board of director's] audit committees and management."
Many people think that internal auditing focuses primarily on financial audits. The Institute of Internal Auditors developed a definition of auditing that introduces various elements of value-added auditing: "Internal auditing is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an organization's operations. It helps an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance processes."
We can infer a number of value-added auditing "best practices" from that definition. Value-added audits aim to:
Provide independent and/or objective operational analysis
Examine every function, process and activity of an organizational and external value chain
Help an organization achieve its business strategies and objectives
Follow a systematic and disciplined approach in its assessment
Evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance processes

3. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The main research questions are:
· Whether or not Value Added Auditing contributes most to improve financial and operation performance compare to simply compliance auditing and company without certification.
· Are these improvements a direct causal effect of Value Added Auditing?
· Whether or not registrar or certification body is effective in driving the Value Added Auditing.

Figure 1. Relations between cost and value received by the clients

Figure 2. Relations between registrar and improvement in financials KPI
Subsidiary research question includes
· What factors should be considered to choose certification body or registrar. Is the value added auditing the most important criteria that the clients search for registrar.
· Which certification body gives the most value added auditing?
· Whether or not the cost for certification is worth for the result, or does it contribute to improving financial and operation performance.













Figure 3. Categories and Factors influencing decision making to choose registrar

4. RESEARCH STRATEGY
Both quantitative and qualitative methodology will be used in this research.
4.1 Quantitative method
Quantitative method is used to know how many clients registered in certification body, what industry sectors are they come from. Prime sources of information needed to be able to collect data on all ISO 9000 certifications awarded in the UK until 2009. These data will tell the name and location of the site receiving certification, the date of certification, and other information not critical for our study.
To answer first question of research objectives, how clients rate registrar and which registrar certification body gives the most value added auditing, a survey instrument will be developed and faxed to clients. Pre survey interviews will be conducted to 100 randomly selected ISO 9000 registered company, to determine quality dimension and questions to be listed in the form. Data for the study will be collected by means of an analytic questionnaire survey given to the 5000 ISO 9000 registered clients in data base for which it has fax numbered.
These questions cover seven categories: (rating scale ranging from ‘low’ (1) to ‘high’ (5)
· Customer Loyalty, or whether the customer would recommend the registrar to others or purchase its services again;
· Communication, that is, how easy was it to contact the auditor/registrar;
· Value-Added, or added service beyond simply auditing;
· Administration, or audit scheduling and certificate issuance;
· Interpersonal Relationships, or how auditors/registrars deal with clients; and
· Consistent Interpretation.
· Price for certification and surveillance

The questionnaire pack included a cover letter explaining the objectives of the study, the questionnaire, a reply-paid self-addressed envelope, and a letter of support encouraging cooperation in the research from accreditation body.
To examine the effect of ISO 9000 certification on performance, data will be collected from the database of financial information on all publicly traded firms, from 1998 to 2008. Data from database should be ascertained whether it had ever received ISO 9000 certification, and when. This matching proved to be anything but straightforward. To analyze the financial (ROA, EBITDA, COGS, Profitability) and operational performance (inventory turn over, on time delivery) study compares performance of a group of firms that have undergone their first ISO 9000 certification with particular certification body with the performance of a comparable group of firms that did not undergo that event.
By choosing a control group of firms based on having comparable characteristics before receiving ISO 9000 certification, an event study will allow to test whether firms that receive ISO 9000 certification from particular certification body practicing value added auditing and achieve higher performance compare to other certification body that only doing simply compliance auditing and otherwise comparable firms that did not receive any certification.



4.2 Qualitative method
Qualitative method will be used to understand why and how registrar uses Value Added Auditing. Qualitative method which is a kind of communication between the researcher and the respondent (Andersson, 1994) use to investigates how an individual or a group understands a situation by investigating them (Lundahl & Skärvad, 1999). This means that an investigation that will go more in depth than an quantitative method would do i.e. we want to find out why and how This means that an investigation that will go more in depth than an quantitative method would do i.e. we want to find out why and how the registrar practicing value added auditing. First it deals with some theories which is normative and suggests how auditing should be practiced. Later this study describes how some registrars really work with value added auditing. Therefore, this study also can be seen as an explorative study since it aims to explore how registrar work with value added auditing.

Research focused on the four industrial sectors with the largest number of ISO 9000 certificates: SIC codes 28 (chemicals and allied products), 35 (industrial and commercial machinery and computer equipment) and 36 (electronics and other electrical equipment and components), and health care service industries. The registrar that will survey in the research are top five registrar in the countries in term of numbers of customers and certificate that they issued.

5. ANTICIPATED RESULT AND DATA ANALISYS
5.1 Anticipated Result
The results in financial performance for each of the three industries will be shown for certified and non-certified firms in financial performance from t-2 years to t+3 years. The graph also will be shown to compare financial performance of company certified with registrar that practicing value added auditing and company certified with registrar who only provide simply compliance auditing and company who doesn’t registered for any certificate. Who give the most influence in clients bottom line result?
Correlation between value added auditing received by the clients and its financial performance will be measured. Company registered with the value added auditing certification body is predicted to increase significantly in financial performance.
Each quality dimension asked in the questionnaire will also be measured using correlation analysis. The highest correlations are expected between customer loyalty and value added auditing. The result to rating and benchmark registrar will be shown in the graph. Who is the top rank registrar perceived by the clients and what criteria they have been valued?
It is also expected that firms will experience significantly better performance after deciding to seek their first ISO 9000 certification than a control group of firms with similar performance prior to that decision, and even more better if they certified with value added auditing certification body. Changes are expected directly or indirectly, led to relative improvements in financial measurement: ROA, both through superior cost control and higher sales.

5.2 Data Analysis
To analyze the data collected from two independent samples: Value Added Auditing and Compliance Auditing and its impact to Improvement in Financial performance; z test will be used to test the hypothesis for the following purpose
· To know that registrar will give improvement in financial indicator compare to those who doesn’t go for any certificate, and
· To know that value added auditing give better improvement in financial indicators compare to compliance auditing.
To know whether there is a significant variance between improvements in financial performance over time in value added auditing and compliance auditing, the F test will be used.
The satisfaction data from questionnaire that received from 4 groups of customers will be counted for its average, and to check the differences between average score for each registrar, ANOVA is run on all the construct variables measured in the questionnaire.
Reliability and validity checks for the two composite variable measures employed in the study, that is, Value Added Auditing and Financial Performance, are performed through correlation and regression coefficients, and goodness-of-fit statistics.

6. PROGRAM SCHEDULLE AND BUDGET
6.1 Program Schedule
In duration, the research project will be conducted within 3 years (from 1 September 2009 to 30 November 2012). Research will take place in UK / Australia






No
Activity
Year
H2 2009
H1 2010
H2 2010
H1 2011
H2 2011
H1 2012
1
Search for Related Literature and selection of the topic






2
Definition of the Problem and Objectives






3
Selection of Methodology






4
Check the availability and accessibility of resources






5
Write the draft of the proposal






6
Prepare tools, and interview schedule






7
Select the study sample






8
Conduct research proper






9
Administer research tools






10
Do the assessment techniques






11
Gather and analyze results






12
Interpret findings






13
Preparation of the final report






14
Formulation of conclusions and recommendations






15
Editing and Final Formatting







6.2 Budget
The research will be fully funded by scholarship of UK/ Australian government. However if the funds have not been acquired the money will be self payment. Total budget is 10,000 US$. The budget will include (US$):
costs for printing questionnaires 1, 000
mailing questionnaires 1, 000
costs for follow-ups or return (mailing, telephoning, envelopes) 1, 000
cost for interviewing (traveling within UK/Australia) 5, 000
cost for printing documents 2, 000

7. References and Bibliography
(1) John H. Johnson Value Added Auditing, First presented at the 1995 ASQ National Audit Conference, Baltimore
(2) Greg Hutchins, Value Added Auditing, Your Best Assessment Tools, Quality Digest Magazine, page 16- 17, October 2002
(3) Patricia D. Carden, Ph.D.; Lawrence S. Aft; and Dirk Dusharme, Rating the Registrar, Quality Digest Magazine, page 23-24, July 2001
(4) Laura Smith, The Hidden Cost of Cheap Certification, Quality Digest Magazine, page 19-20, May 2007
(5) Charles J Corbett, Maria J Montes, David A Kirsch, Maria Jose Alvarez-GIL, Does ISO 9000 certification pay ? Special Report ISO Management System, page 31-40, August 2002
(6) Dr Roy Rimington, Value Added Auditing Techniques – Putting the icing on the cake, Public Service Centre for Organizational Excellence, 2004
(7) Charles A Mills, A Management Evaluation Tools, Mc Graw Hill, 1989
(8) Scott Parsowith, Fundamental of Quality Auditing, ASQC, 1995
(9) Dennis R Arter, Quality Audits for Improved Performance, ASQC, 2003
(10) Sid Kemp, Quality Management Demystified, McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing, December 2005

Minggu, 31 Mei 2009

Human Capital Allignment with Mission and Startegy in Healthcare Organization

RESEARCH PROPOSAL
May 16th, 2009

Align Human Capital with Healthcare Organization’s Strategy, Could the Balanced Scorecard Help?

Firdaus Basbeth

Supervisor:

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of









CONTENTS
PAGE Nos.

1. Introduction 3

2. Literature Review 4
2.1 Balanced Score Card 4
2.2 The Strategy Maps 6
2.3 BSC Success Rate 8
2.4 Healthcare Organization 9

3. Research Objective 10

4. Research Strategy 11

5. Anticipated Result and Data Analysis 12
5.1 Anticipated Result 12
5.2 Data Analysis 13

6. Program Schedule and Budget 14
6.1 Program Schedule 14
6.2 Budget 14

7. References and Bibliography 15









1. INTRODUCTION
The changing nature of today's health care organizations, including pressure to reduce costs, improve the quality of care and meet stringent guidelines, has forced health care professionals to re-examine how they evaluate their performance. While many health care organizations have long recognized the need to look beyond financial measures when evaluating their performance, many still struggle with what measures to select and how to use the results of those measures.
In 1992, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton wrote The Balanced Scorecard as an introduction to their management strategy for business in the information age. The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is used to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals. It is a performance measurement framework that added strategic non-financial performance measures to traditional financial metrics to give managers and executives a more 'balanced' view of organizational performance.
Although many successful stories of using balanced scorecard have been reported in other organization, little evidence of its application to healthcare organization has been reported (Chow and et al, 1998), Nevertheless, there was a strong consensus among prominent researchers from many countries about the need to use balanced scorecard reporting by healthcare providers (Forgione, 1997).
As a first step in filling this gap, this study will assesses
1. How widespread is the use of the BSC in the healthcare organization?
2. What factors that drive hospital management to undertake a balanced scorecard initiative
3. What would balanced scorecard look like for a healthcare organization, and how organization align four perspectives customer, process, learning and development, and financial performance with strategy
4. Does adopting the BSC improve a healthcare organization’s customer, process, learning and development, and financial performance?
Moreover, the intangible assets identified in the balance scorecard’s learning and growth perspective are clearly the foundation of an organization’s strategy. The most valuable intangible category is human capital because of its emphasis on the most important jobs. According to a survey by Balanced Scorecard Collaborative and the Society of Human Resource Management, only 19 percent actually integrate their strategic plans with those of the organization. To measure the contribution of well aligned of Human Capital with Healthcare organization’s mission and strategy, finally the next research questions is
5. How much does improvement in Human Capital practice through implementation of BSC in healthcare organization actually contribute to the bottom line?


2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The Balanced Score Card
The basic idea of the Balance Scorecard is to focus the organization on metrics that matter as seen from a strategic point of view. To avoid focusing only on short term financial measures the scorecard comprises metrics from areas such as customer, internal processes, and learning and growth perspectives respectively. The balanced scorecard suggests that we view the organization from four perspectives.
§ The Learning & Growth Perspective
The Learning and Growth Perspective of the balance scorecard focus on the competencies and resources needed in order to make the deliveries defined in the internal processes objectives.
§ The Internal Processes Perspective
The Internal Processes Perspective of the Balance Scorecard focus on the deliveries the organization must make in order to be perceived by customers according to its customer objectives.
§ The Customer Perspective
Looking at an organization using the Customer Perspective is about how the customers perceive the value offered. The objectives should closely define how customers should perceive the value proposal in order for them to reward the organization with the financial results they expect.
§ The Financial Perspective
When we are looking at an organization using the Financial Perspective it is all about financial performance - at least for the profit maximizing business. The objectives should be defined in order to excite the owners or sponsors to ensure continued funding of the organization.

2.2 The Strategy Maps – Bringing It Together
A strategy map is a useful tool for linking strategy with the company's intangible assets. The strategy map shows that intangible assets influence the performance of a company through enhancing internal processes. According to Kaplan and Norton, there are three categories of intangible assets that are essential for implementing any strategy identified in the Learning and Growth Perspective of the Balanced Scorecard: human capital, information capital, and organization capital. Certain intangibles are hard for competitors to replicate. These types of intangible assets include employee skills, information technology systems, and the organization's culture. Because of this, the company that possesses the right set of intangible assets has a powerful competitive advantage.

Figure 1 Strategy Map

2.3 Balanced Scorecard in Healthcare Organization
Performance measurement is not a new concept to the healthcare industry. “Hospitals have been using metrics for a long time, longer than most other organizations..” Technology has enabled hospital leadership to collect and distribute vast amounts of data; benchmarking process that allow healthcare organizations to measure their performance against industry averages have been in place since the late 1970s” (Pieper 2005, p.9). Since the 1990s, health care organizations have had to face greater pressures from society, for example, increased payer power and constraining regulations. They balance complex tradeoffs among cost, quality, access, and consumer choice (Inamdar and Kaplan, 2002). “When dramatic changes are inevitable, developing a strategic focus and examining the business and quality of the health care in a measurable and repeatable manner become each organization’s opportunity” (Meliones, Ballard et al. 2001, p. 28). So it is not surprising that so many health care organizations chose to apply BSC and their BSC practices had unique characteristics. BSC in healthcare organizations presents a different picture compared to other industries. For example, most health cases used other perspectives in their BSCs, but Speckbacher, Bischof et al.’s (2003) survey in German-speaking countries only 17% of the companies used other perspectives. The use of the learning and growth perspective was similar, but there was less use of the customer perspective


2.4 . Aligning Human Capital with Strategy
In the knowledge based global economy, intangible assets like human capital account for nearly 80 percent of an organization’s value. Converting intangible assets to tangible results represents a new way of thinking for most organizations. Every organization has workers and leaders who require development and a climate that requires shapes, therefore organizations can create value by improving the development of human capital throughout their business unit. Experience indicates that if these processes are linked to strategy, the value of the organizations human capital increase dramatically. Survey research demonstrates that superior human capital practices are not only correlated with financial returns, they are, in fact, a leading indicator of increased shareholder value. Creating alignment and measuring strategic readiness enable HR executives to manage these processes. According to a survey by Balanced Scorecard Collaborative and the Society of Human Resource Management, only 19 percent actually integrate their strategic plans with those of the enterprise.
In particular, in the learning and growth perspective which Marr and Adams (2004) argue is its weakest link. Frigo and Krumwiede (1999) reported that the majority of BSC users rate the effectiveness of the innovation perspective as ‘less than adequate to poor’ while Speckbacher et al. (2003) concluded that over 30 percent of the BSC users in their study has no ‘learning and growth’ perspective. Kaplan and Norton admit (1996b, p.144) that “this gap is disappointing since one of the most important goals for adopting the scorecard measurement and management framework is to promote the growth of individual and organizational capabilities”.
Deloitte's study - the Deloitte & Touche Human Capital ROI Study - answers the question of how much do effective people practices actually contribute to the bottom line of an organization by measuring human capital practices and linking them to corporate financial performance. Deloitte's results suggest that human capital practices may account for as much as 43% of the difference between a company's market-to-book value and its competitors.

3. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
Since the inception of the BSC in the health care and other organization, much has been written touting its benefits, though it can be costly to develop and implement. There has been little empirical evidence, however, that health care organization adopting the BSC have experienced the benefits. The research will find out if healthcare organizations implementing the BSC have improved their performance as a result. We set out to clarify:
How widespread is the use of the BSC in the healthcare organization?
What factors that drive hospital management to undertake a balanced scorecard initiative
What would balanced scorecard look like for a healthcare organization and how organization align four perspectives customer, process, learning and development, and financial performance with strategy
Does adopting the BSC improve a healthcare organization’s customer, process, learning and development, and financial performance?
How much does improvement in Human Capital through implementation of BSC in healthcare organization actually contribute to the bottom line?
4. RESEARCH STRATEGY
Both quantitative and qualitative methodology will be used in this research to answer the research questions.
4.1 How widespread is the use of the BSC in the healthcare organization? data will be collected through healthcare organizational association and the Performance Measurement Association via Internet search. The main sources were published papers and internet sites identify successful implementations. We searched Google as well as academic databases – searching for several key words: balanced scorecard in hospital and health care. These findings will tell the name and location, size of the organization, the year of the implementation of BSC.
4.2 What factors that drive hospital management to undertake a balanced scorecard initiative? data will be collected through interview with 50 healthcare organization’s management across UK.
4.3 What would balanced scorecard look like for a healthcare organization and how they align four perspectives customer, process, learning and development, financial performance with the strategy, we used two types of method:

4.3.1 Interview
Data will be collected through interview with 50 healthcare organization’s management across UK, to understand How organization align four perspectives customer, process, learning and development, financial performance with the strategy.

4.3.2 Perception Survey
A model will be constructed and used to evaluate the strategy map and objectives in balanced scorecard based on the internal organization perception. Survey instrument will be developed on the website and an email will be sent to management in the healthcare organization that uses the Balanced Scorecard asking them to fill in the questionnaire, with the address of the website provided. After period of time, the data obtained from each questionnaire will be gathered from the website. This method is selected to enables the questionnaire to be directed to the most appropriate person, the one with experience in using the Balanced Scorecard. Scores will be derived based on their importance and rating on a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high). Based on results from interviews, list of objectives and measures suggested constructing the model. This model, with the explanation, was then resubmitted to the respondent for further comments. The comments were then used to improve the use of the model. The example of the questionnaire as shown below

4.4 Does adopting the BSC improvement in a healthcare organization’s customer intimacy, operational excellence, learning and development, and financial performance? The way to measure will be using four types of methods.
4.4.1 Measuring internal perception and satisfaction
Survey instrument / questionnaire will be sent to 100 selected personnel internal organization, to determine balanced scorecard objectives-KPI’s and practices and its benefit to the organizations. Those interviewed are healthcare stakeholders, comprising of healthcare organization staff, physicians, management, administrative staff, managers, governing board, patience, community, donor, and legislator. Data will be collected to be able to derive scores for each participating company on a scale of 1 (low) to 100 (high). The score is an indicator of the strength of a company's balanced scorecard objectives-KPI, and practices relative to other participating companies.
4.4.2 Measuring Patient Satisfaction
Survey instrument will be sent to the patients. Data for the study will be collected from 500 patients in the data base for which it has fax or telephone numbered. These questions will likely covers four categories: (rating scale ranging from ‘low’ (1) to ‘high’ (5) on Customer Loyalty, Communication, Easy Access, Administration, Interpersonal Relationships.
4.4.3 Measuring Objectives Achievement
To examine the effect of balanced scorecard implementation on performance, the event-study methodology for detecting improvements in operating performance will be followed. Types of information will be needed financial and non financial performance from the most recent fiscal year (market-to-book ratio, year total return to shareholders, revenue growth, operating margin) and non financial indicators: customer intimacy, operational and learning and growth performance.
In a nutshell, an event study compares performance of a group of firms that have undergone a particular event (in this case, their first year balanced scorecard implementation) with the performance of a comparable group of healthcare organization that did not undergo that event. This method is commonly used in financial research and has also been used to show that TQM (total quality management) improves firms’ performance (Hendricks and Singhal 1997).
An event study requires specifying the event period, which in our case is the period during which balanced scoracard is implemented. A typical implementation takes anywhere from six to 18 months, so we define our event period as the year in which the first certification was received (call this year t) and the year immediately preceding certification (year t – 1). The period preceding the event period (year t – 2) is used for determining the control group.
The years following the event period (years t + 1 through t + 3) are used to test whether certified firms experienced superior (or excess) performance compared to the control group. For example, if a healthcare organization implement balanced scorecard in 2004, we use its performance in 2002 to select a control group, and then compare financial performance in all subsequent years, i.e. year t – 1 (or 2003), year t (or 2004), etc.
By choosing a control group of firms based on having comparable characteristics before implementing balanced scorecard, an event study allows us to test whether firms that adopting balanced scorecard achieve higher performance than otherwise comparable firms that did not receive certification



d. Correlation Matrix
To see the correlation of the KPI financial and non financial performance, a matrix will be created with the three value drivers of financial performance, revenue growth, operating margin, along one axis against non financial performance of operational excellence, customer intimacy, and learning and growth on the other axis.

4.5 How much does improvement in Human Capital practice through implementation of BSC in healthcare organization actually contribute to the bottom line? We collected two types of data: Information on human capital practices (e.g., pay, performance measurement, training and development, communication and leadership) and Information on financial and organizational performance from the most recent fiscal year. Scoring system will be assigning an overall score to each participating Healthcare organization. The score is based on the 17 critical survey items that linked most strongly with financial performance. The score is an indicator of the strength of a company’s human capital practices relative to other participating organizations. A Correlation matrix will be used with the three value drivers of revenue growth operates margin, market to book ratio vs 17 survey items.


5. ANTICIPATED RESULT AND DATA ANALISYS
In this research we will examine and find out the answer of the research questions and the findings will be as the following:
§ The list of healthcare organization, the size and the year of the implementation of BSC, and the reason for implementing balanced scorecard: customer mandate, donor and government mandate, competitive pressure or advantage, continuous improvement based on customer requirements, improve quality. Data will be analyzed to examine whether healthcare organization are internally driven or externally driven in adopting balanced scorecard.
§ The process to create, translate and develop performance measure and practice based on the balanced scorecard model from their mission and strategy. From the survey result, and interview, different model and dashboard of indicators will be obtained. Different set of indicators will be the reflection of the different objectives and concern. Data will be analyzed to examine the maturity level of the organization in implementing balanced scorecard, and the strategy map model that they used. The higher the maturity level, the better the strategy map, the dashboard of indicators, and the alignment to the strategy and healthcare’s mission. The “BSC – Value Map” model will be drawn from this step, and will be used to answer the research question no 3, the benefit of implementing balanced scorecard in healthcare organization.
§ The effect of adopting balanced scorecard to the financial and non financial performance. We compare whether the performance indicators improved after the balanced scorecard implementation. Healthcare organization that chooses the right performance metrics should have financial and non financial indicators improvement over time, and substantially outperform healthcare organizations that do not. Financial performance improvement should give a positive correlation to non financial indicators.
§ The improvement in Human Capital through implementation of balanced scorecard in healthcare organization actually contributes to the bottom line. Data will be analyzed to identify linkages between specific human capital practices and the financial; measures looking at the market to-book value of a company – a solid Indicator of a company’s ability to create value above and beyond its physical and financial assets, to find out the strongest statistical linkage to human capital practices. As a final step in the analysis, a proprietary scoring system that allows us to assign an overall HC score to each participating company will be developed. The HC score is based on the 17 critical survey items that linked most strongly with financial performance (as shown on page 13). The score is an indicator of the strength of a organization’s human capital practices relative to other participating organization’s. The financial consequences of a high or low HC score should be extraordinary. Participating organizations will be divided into four quartiles based upon their HC Score, then will be compare the aggregate financial performance of each quartile. Organization with high HC scores on average earns more money for their shareholders than their peers in the middle and bottom quartiles.
§ Three types of Statistical Test will be used : Z test: to know that four balanced scorecard perspectives, objectives and measures will give better alignment to achieve strategy and hospital mission compare to peer that doesn’t align Human Capital in their BSC implementation. F test: to know whether there is a significant variance between improvements in financial performance over time in healthcare organization that implement balanced scorecard and others that doesn’t. Reliability and validity checks for the two composite variable measures employed in the study, that is, internal organization performance and Financial Performance, are performed through correlation and regression coefficients, and goodness-of-fit statistics.


6. PROGRAM SCHEDULLE AND BUDGET
6.1 Program Schedule
In duration, the research project will be conducted within 3 years (from 1 September 2009 to 30 November 2012). ). Research will take place in the UK with the following schedule


6.2 Budget
The research will be fully funded by scholarship of UK government. However if the funds have not been acquired the money will be self payment. Total budget is 15,000 US$. The budget will include (US$):
costs for printing questionnaires - 2, 000
mailing questionnaires 2, 000
costs for follow-ups or return (mailing, telephoning, envelopes) 2, 000
cost for interviewing (traveling within UK/Australia) 6, 000
cost for printing documents 3, 000


7. References and Bibliography
1. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “Alignment, Using the Balanced Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies”, Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 2006
2. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass., 2001.
3. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action”, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass., 1996.
4. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “Strategy Maps”, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass., 1996.
5. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, "Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Management System," Harvard Business Review, January-February 1996, pp. 75-85.
6. Kaplan, R. S. and D. P. Norton (2000). "Having trouble with your strategy? Then map it." Harvard Business Review: 167-176.
7. Hugh Pforsich, "Does Your Scorecard Need a Workshop?" Strategic Finance, February 2005, pp. 31-35.
8. Kaplan and Norton, January-February 1996, pp. 75-85.
9. Christopher D. Ittner, David F. Larcker, and Marshall W. Myer, "Subjectivity and the Weighting of Performance Measures: Evidence from a Balanced Scorecard," The Accounting Review, July 2003, pp. 725-758.
10. Health care financial and quality measures: international call for a "balanced scorecard" approach. Journal of health care finance 1997;24(1):55-8.
11. Clare Chow-Chua, Mark Goh, Framework for evaluating performance and quality improvement in hospitals. Journal: Managing Service Quality, Year: 2002, Volume: 12, Issue: 1, Page: 54 - 66
12. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3257/is_5_55/ai_75215154/
13. http://www.balancedscorecard.org/BSCResources/ExamplesSuccessStories/tabid/57/Default.aspx
14. http://www.qualitydigest.com/may99/html/body_health.html
15. http://www.workinfo.com/free/downloads/HCROReport.pdf
16. http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=171333&promo=100511
17. Kaplan, R. S. and D. P. Norton. 2004. Measuring the strategic readiness of intangible assets. Harvard Business Review (February): 52-63.
18. R. Charan and C. Golvin, Why CEOs fail, Fortune 21 June 1999
19. Tian Gao, Bruce Gurd, 2006, Lives In The Balance: Managing With The Scorecard In Not-For-Profit Healthcare Settings
20. Inamdar N, Kaplan RS, Bower M, Reynolds K. Applying the balanced scorecard in healthcare provider organizations. J Hlthcare Mngmnt. 2002:47; 179–196.
21. Pink, McKillop, Schraa, Preyra, Montgomery, Baker, 2001, Creating a Balanced Scorecard for a Hospital System
22. Shutt, Judith A., Balancing the Health CareScorecard, Southwest Texas State University - San Marcos 2003
23. Shih-Jen Kathy Ho, Yee-Ching Lilian Chan, The Use Of Balanced Scorecard In Canadian Hospitals 2001
24. DeBusk, Gerald K, “Does the Balanced Scorecard Improve Performance?” Management Accounting Quarterly 2006
25. http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=171333&promo=100511
26. Kicab Castañeda-Méndez, Performance Measurement in Healthcare 1999 Macpherson Publishing, New Zealand
27. Graham Woodward, Vivek Goel, Doug Manuel, , Developing Balanced Scorecard for Public Health, June 2004, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Science Investigation Report, Toronto.
28. Craig Symons with Tom Pohlmann, Natalie Lambert, and Olivia Ester, The Human Capital Management Value Map, March 2, 2005
29. Creating shareholder value through people, Deloitte & Touche The Human Capital ROI Survey Results, Originally by Andersen 2002.