Strategic performance evaluation of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) based on Balanced Scorecard (BSC), the case study of a corporation in energy industry

Performance evaluation models are essential for assessment and improvement of management systems. However, they should be customized for specific requirements of their users, usually corporations. The purpose of this article is to develop a model to evaluate the performance of HSE management systems according to the corporations’ strategies. This article is a qualitative research based on the case study method which reports the strategic performance evaluation of the HSE management system in a large corporation. Studying many existing models and standards in the field of HSE management systems, we customized a model based on the BSC framework. The model, then, has been peer-reviewed and refined through Individual Depth Interviews (IDIs) with three HSE experts and consultants of the corporation in terms of validity and applicability. According to the model and its scoring guide, the strategic performance of the corporation’s HSE management system has been evaluated by external impartial HSE auditors. The HSE management system of the organization in this case study scored 63.9 of 100 as the HSE strategic performance indicator. Based on the detailed scorecards of each indicator, the study revealed that the company had a great performance in ‘HSE processes’ layer whereas there had been some weaknesses in ‘Learning and Growth’ layer especially in “human and information capital” indicators of strategic performance. The case study results show that the customized Balanced Scorecard (BSC) model developed in this research could evaluate and measure the strategic performance of HSE management systems of the case. Moreover, the model is a starting point to measure strategic effects of HSE management systems in organizations.