Reputation: The 5th Perspective of the Balanced Scorecard

Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one of the contemporary techniques of management accounting which is used as a system of operations evaluation and strategic management, organizational change framework and the means to align the interests. This method attempts to align the internal and external stakeholders’ interests. However, some of the relevant stakeholders (shareholders, employees and customers) are taken into consideration and no attention is paid to creditors, suppliers, government and the society in it. In addition, BSC considers short term and long term objectives but fails to pay attention to the objectives of sustainable development. Therefore, this study tries to improve BSC by adding the reputation perspective to the traditional perspectives. The main purpose of this study is to provides a contemporary model of BSC that not only aligns the interests of all stakeholders, but also provides a path to the sustainable development. It is concluded that the main advantages of the new model are as follows: 1) Focusing more on intangible assets; 2) aligning the interests of all stakeholders, 3) balancing between economic, social, environmental and political results and responsibilities and achieving sustainable development; 4) more emphasis on the supply chain; and 5) providing more basis for implementation and evaluation of the Blue Ocean Strategy. These advantages lead to the development of the management accounting, particularly in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of the strategy.