Managing Strategy Risks through Balanced Scorecard (BSC) : A Survey Study in the Iranian Petroleum Equipment Industry

Abstract: Purpose- This thesis aims to identify the role of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) for managing strategy risks as well as the types of strategy risks that can be managed using four perspectives of the BSC in the Iranian Petroleum Industry Equipment Manufacturers (IPIEM). Design/ approach/ methodology- In this thesis cross-sectional design and the deduction approach are used. For collecting data for quantitative analysis, a questionnaire was conducted by the research team. Then the data collected from respondents were then analyzed through running simple linear regression analysis in the SPSS software. Findings- The first research question (RQ) is about BSC’s roles in managing strategy risks in IPIEM. These roles are risk assessment, risk controlling and collecting data for decision making of strategy risks. It was proved by the research team that BSC can play a role of the assessment of strategy risks in IPIEM. This means by using BSC as an RM tool in IPIEM, companies can assess strategy risks through identifying, analysing and evaluating strategy risks. However, the results indicate risk controlling and collecting data for decision making cannot be managed by using BSC. The second Research question is about the types of strategy risks that four perspectives of BSC can manage. The results show that from the 8 strategy risks chosen for this thesis, 6 of them which are “liquidity risk” from the financial perspective; “risk of clients’ opposition to pilot testing of the product” from the customer perspective; “risk of improper design of the product at development stages”, and “risk of improper selection of international partners” from the internal perspective; “risk of incorrect evaluation & selection of technology options” and “the risk of not enough operational experience in similar previous projects” from the learning and growth perspective can be managed through using BSC as an RM tool in IPIEM. Based on the conclusion of RQ1, the effect can now be adjusted into RQ2 findings. This study concludes that IPIEM can use BSC for risk assessment of the above-mentioned six different strategy risks. It can also be concluded that the BSC cannot be a full RM tool for managing strategy risks in the companies, since it only can apply for one of the three processes of RM; risk assessment.