Discussing a balanced scorecard for one local independent New Zealand church

Abstract

This article explores internal discussions of a performance measurement tool called the balanced scorecard (BSC) for potential application in a suburban church. Interviews were conducted with church leaders exploring issues they face if a BSC was adopted to assess church performance. A significant finding was the difficulty church leaders had incorporating a finance perspective into their organizational thinking as a performance measurement factor because of the church’s primary focus and function as not-for-profit orientation to spiritual mission. This article argues churches like other organizations need a performance measurement tool, such as a BSC, to regularly monitor their organizational well-being, if they are to survive in a highly competitive and complex environment, even as non-commercial institutions with transcendent goals. The findings suggest the value for churches incorporating a finance perspective in measuring performance since finance sets the possibilities for the sustainability of the organization, even though religious or faith-based objectives are themselves not financial.

Influence of strategy formulation on the performance of catholic parishes in Kenya

“…Kaplan and Norton embarked on a study to develop new techniques of measuring performance. The starting points of the BSC are grouped into four categories namely; finance, customer, internal business procedures, and innovation and learning (Yahanpath et al, 2017).…”

“…Churches as human organizations require a performance measuring system such as BSC to enable them assess their soundness and relevance if they are to wither the complex and competitive atmosphere, even if they are non-profit organizations with transcendent goals (Yahanpath et al, 2017).In the recent decades, church members are increasingly demanding accountability from church leadership. Even the highly formalized churches like the Catholic Church have not escaped the demand for accountability and transparency as noted by Economist (2014).…”

“…This study holds the latter view and it therefore included finance as one of the performance indicators. Authors who agree with this view include (Yahanpath et al, 2017). Keyt (2001) employed the BSC to a church set-up where he adopted its four performance aspects, namely; internal business, customers, finance, and innovation and learning, and adapted them to four measurement perspectives for churches.…”

The Christian Body at Work

“…Delbecq 2010, Kinjerski & Skrypnek 2008, religious contexts (e.g. Inauen et al 2010, Lewis-Anthony 2014, Payer-Langthaler & Hiebl 2013, Pfang 2015, Yahanpath et al 2017, and secular organizations (Whipp 2008). Another group of publications addresses faith, spirituality or religion at work with respect to different types of work or different professions (for an overview, see e.g.…”

Mentoring Undergraduate Bachelor of Arts Students at an Australian University Regional Campus

“…In a useful overlap between those previous mentoring involvements with my present undergraduate mentoring, I was approached by a former colleague to co-author an undergraduate project he had supervised that showed promise of further development. Working interactively, this was eventually published (Yahanpath, Pacheco & Burns, 2018). Another intermediate experience in how undergraduate regional research can provide important academic insights come from collaborating with my PhD supervisor in writing up an undergraduate project he had conducted for several years in rural Australia.…”