The Balanced Score Card as a Tool for Performance Management: A Case Study of the Coca – Cola Company

Performance measurement and management has been widely explored by academics and practitioners through history and indisputably is a popular topic for management control. Nevertheless, the evolution of the performance measurement field is a circular iterative process and new questions keep appearing, exceptionally the ones related to performance measurement implementation processes and their effectiveness. In the theoretical part this master thesis analyzes the evolution of performance measurement and management, their role and issues that are faced by corporations. Furthermore, the balanced scorecard will be analyzed as the most discussed performance measurement framework in management accounting literature and compared to a newly developed performance measurement system that has recently become also popular for its simplicity and effective goal-setting mechanism. In the practical part this Master thesis through a qualitative study analyses the way of implementation and effectiveness of a newly adopted performance measurement system in a case company which will be compared to the recommended theories found in literature. Finally, based on the theoretical and practical research a recommendation will be offered to the case company for further improvement.