OUTSOURCING THE INTERNAL AUDIT FUNCTION: A SURVEY OF THE UK PUBLIK AND PRIVATE SECTORS

Georges Selim and Arestodemos Yiannakas

Meskipun bukan fenomena baru di dunia usaha, outsourcing saat ini terjadi pada skala lebih luas dan seringkali mencakup berbagai kegiatan tradisional di dalam organisasi. Penelitian ini melaporkan hasil survei kuesioner yang dilakukan pada sektor publik dan swasta di Inggris dalam masalah outsourcing audit internal. Para penulis percaya bahwa beberapa keraguan hadir antara organisasi ketika datang ke outsourcing fungsi audit internal. Hal ini didukung oleh temuan survei yang menunjukkan bahwa organisasi yang telah menerima outsourcing dan telah mempercayakan penyediaan berbagai layanan seperti pembersih, teknologi informasi dan keamanan untuk penyedia layanan di luar, tidak begitu tertarik untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi audit internal.

SUMMARY
Penelitian ini mencakup analisis data dari survei yang dilakukan di Inggris antara bulan Mei dan Juli 1999. Dalam survei ini, sejumlah Direksi Keuangan dan / atau Direksi Audit baik dari sektor publik dan swasta ikut ambil bagian. Selain melihat faktor bertindak sebagai kekuatan pendorong utama di balik keputusan untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi internal audit, penelitian juga meneliti bagaimana audit internal dianggap dan kemungkinan dampak keputusan outsourcing ini atas independensi auditor dan kualitas layanan audit internal.
Penelitian ini juga menunjukkan bahwa organisasi-organisasi, secara umum, puas dengan kualitas jasa audit outsourcing. ketiga organisasi Satu dari tiga fungsi audit internal dalam organisasi, menunjukkan bahwa dalam waktu dekat setidaknya beberapa, jika tidak semua, fungsi audit internal dapat disediakan oleh penyedia layanan di luar. Terlepas dari kenyataan bahwa mereka menunjukkan preferensi mereka terhadap memperoleh layanan dari salah satu dari 'lima besar perusahaan akuntan publik, sejumlah besar organisasi masih dapat mempertimbangkan penggunaan khusus penyedia audit internal.

PENDAHULUAN
Outsourcing yaitu praktek dimana perusahaan dikontrak untuk melakukan satu atau lebih kegiatan bisnis yang secara tradisional telah dilakukan dalam organisasi, telah menjadi ciri mapan cara bisnis dilakukan. Sekarang secara luas diakui bahwa agar suatu organisasi bersaing secara efektif, penting untuk berkonsentrasi pada apa yang dilakukannya menjadi terbaik.
Meskipun semua publisitas baru-baru ini telah diterima, outsourcing tidak benar-benar sebuah fenomena baru. Fungsi organisasi outsourcing seperti keamanan dan pemeliharaan gedung selama beberapa dekade. Organisasi outsourcing sekarang dengan berbagai aktivitas baru, yang mereka tidak akan lakukan di masa lalu. Orang-orang digunakan untuk kegiatan seperti organisasi-organisasi outsourcing. Namun, kesepakatan baru-baru ini termasuk outsourcing fungsi sumber daya manusia, akuntansi, teknologi informasi dan bahkan audit internal. Menurut pandangan ini, organisasi yang merangkul outsourcing karena mereka menyadari bahwa mereka memiliki keterbatasan tertentu dan karena ada organisasi khusus di pasar sebagai kekuatan mereka.

REVIEW LITERATUR
Apakah Outsourcing itu perlu?
Selama beberapa tahun terakhir, banyak artikel telah ditulis dan diterbitkan tentang outsourcing telah sengit diperdebatkan. Ini adalah wajar bagi mereka yang mendukung akan sangat antusias dan ingin menerapkannya dalam berbagai peran manajemen. Quinn dan Hilmer (1995), misalnya, yang secara luas mendukung outsourcing sebagai respon strategis untuk persaingan yang meningkat. Mereka mengklaim bahwa organisasi yang paling substansial dapat memanfaatkan sumber daya mereka melalui strategis outsourcing: pertama, mengembangkan serangkaian kompetensi inti yang dipilih dengan cermat untuk pelanggan dan organisasi dapat menjadi yang terbaik di dunia. Kedua, memfokuskan investasi dan manajemen menjadi perhatian mereka, dan akhirnya, banyak kegiatan strategis outsourcing lain yang perusahaan memiliki kebutuhan strategis tidak kritis atau kemampuan khusus. Jennings (1996) dan. Hinton (1996) juga berbagi pandangan yang sama.
Di sisi lain, beberapa skeptis memperingatkan bahwa organisasi bergantung pada outsourcing mengundang bencana kehilangan daya saing. Di antara peningkatan jumlah mereka yang menyatakan bahwa outsourcing dapat menggerogoti daya saing, Prahalad dan Hamel (1990) menunjukkan bahwa keterampilan yang menimbulkan generasi berikutnya kompetensi inti tidak bisa 'menyewa dalam' oleh outsourcing. Argumen mereka adalah bahwa kompetensi inti harus dipupuk dan dilindungi dari waktu ke waktu untuk sukses kompetitif. Kompetensi adalah perekat yang mengikat bersama-sama bisnis yang ada dan mesin untuk pengembangan bisnis baru. Demikian pula, Bettis, Bradley, dan Hamel (1992) menyimpulkan bahwa penyalahgunaan outsourcing memainkan peran penting dalam penurunan terus kompetitif di banyak perusahaan Barat. Mereka lebih lanjut menyatakan bahwa keputusan outsourcing, diambil oleh para manajer Barat, cenderung meningkat.
Bermasalah dengan masalah keuangan perusahaan sering menganggap outsourcing menjadi solusi yang paling tepat untuk masalah mereka. Hoewing (1992) menyatakan bahwa kehati-hatian harus diambil untuk tidak tugas outsourcing sebagai jalan terakhir. Tugas outsourcing dalam upaya untuk menyelamatkan sebuah perusahaan finansial tidak stabil jarang bekerja. Dengan kata lain, jika kasus tersebut lebih atau kurang harapan, bahkan beralih ke keahlian luar tidak mungkin untuk menghasilkan hasil yang positif.
Dalam banyak kasus, keputusan untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi tertentu terlalu cepat diambil oleh CEO atau oleh chief financial officer dan cepat disetujui oleh dewan direksi dengan over-antusias. Willis (1996), mengklaim bahwa pelaksanaan keputusan outsourcing seharusnya merupakan proses tidak tergesa-gesa. Sejumlah besar organisasi dimengerti menemukan keinginan untuk melakukan outsourcing cukup menarik. Ide untuk mengubah biaya tetap menjadi biaya variabel dapat membuktikan menjadi pilihan yang menggoda. Untuk organisasi yang outsource dan mendapatkan yang benar, manfaat tampak semakin bermanfaat. Di sisi lain, karena organisasi yang melakukan outsourcing dan mendapatkan kesalahan, biaya bisa lebih dari jumlah berapapun yang disimpan. Organisasi bisa, pada kenyataannya, akhirnya membayar lebih ke penyedia layanan di luar dari mereka akan menghabiskan jika mereka melakukan fungsi in-house. Dalam jangka panjang, McCune (1993) berpendapat bahwa, meskipun organisasi outsourcing dapat memberikan fleksibilitas untuk bereaksi dengan cepat terhadap perubahan kondisi pasar atau untuk memanfaatkan peluang-peluang baru, mungkin tidak selalu menjadi strategi terbaik untuk setiap fungsi. Outsourcing memungkinkan organisasi untuk tumbuh tanpa investasi aktiva tetap apakah peralatan, atau personil - tetapi strategi harus terus dievaluasi ulang.
Outsourcing Fungsi Internal Audit
Outsourcing seperti yang disebutkan sebelumnya, mungkin istilah yang relatif baru, tetapi bukan merupakan konsep baru. 1980-an dan awal 1990-an, melihat fungsi penting, seperti teknologi informasi dan akuntansi, dan diperlakukan sebagai ‘non-inti' dan, sebagai akibatnya, mereka menjadi kandidat utama untuk outsourcing. Fungsi audit internal merupakan salah satu yang terbaru, fungsi audit internal dalam organisasi tradisionla yang saat ini menjadi target untuk
Mereka yang melawan outsourcing audit internal akan menyarankan bahwa keputusan untuk melakukan outsourcing audit internal seluruh departemen adalah langkah yang paling keliru yang dibuat tim manajemen senior dan selanjutnya akan dianggap sebagai kesalahan serius (Acciani, 1995; Courtemanche, 1991). Bahkan Acciani (1995) dan Courtemanche (1991) berpendapat bahwa, sementara outsourcing dapat terlihat seperti pengaturan yang menarik di awal, akhirnya akan biaya organisasi lebih tinggi daripada mempertahankan tim audit internal dalam organisasi. Selanjutnya, kritik outsourcing adalah cepat dalam menunjukkan keprihatinan tentang kebebasan, konflik kepentingan, dan kerahasiaan yang muncul ketika perusahaan akuntan publik yang sama memberikan layanan baik internal dan eksternal audit.
Institute of Internal Auditor (IIA), meskipun tren besar terhadap outsourcing, masih percaya bahwa, fungsi audit internal sebaiknya dilakukan oleh sepenuhnya sumber daya dan staf profesional yang kompeten yang bersifat internal dan bagian integral dari struktur manajemen sebuah organisasi. IIA secara terbuka menyatakan bahwa departemen audit internal yang kompeten yang terorganisasi dengan baik dengan staf yang terlatih dapat melakukan fungsi audit internal yang lebih efisien dan efektif daripada jasa audit kontrak. Standar dan Pedoman Praktik Profesional Audit Internal, di negeri lain, masih terbuka kemungkinan untuk layanan eksternal yang disediakan, dengan menyarankan bahwa jika departemen audit internal tidak memiliki pengetahuan yang diperlukan, keterampilan, dan disiplin untuk melaksanakan tanggung jawab audit, maka dianjurkan untuk memperoleh dari luar penyedia layanan.
Para pendukung outsourcing berpendapat bahwa lebih baik hasil ini didapat dari semua outsourcing atau bagian dari fungsi internal audit. Jasa outsourcing yang dipilih dapat membuktikan menjadi solusi yang paling tepat untuk auditor internal yang telah diminta untuk secara signifikan mengurangi jumlah staf yang bekerja, sementara pada saat yang sama memperluas cakupan program audit. Menurut Marshall (1994), satu klaim, yang sering diangkat untuk mendukung outsourcing, adalah ‘fleksibilitas’. Sebuah penyedia jasa layanan audit luar internal biasanya dapat disewa setiap saat atau untuk periode waktu tertentu. Ini akan sangat berguna di mana fungsi audit internal dalam organisasi memiliki kesulitan dalam memenuhi rencana audit dan di mana tugas-tugas tertentu memerlukan keahlian spesialis yang tidak tersedia dalam organisasi. Pelfrey dan Peacock (1995) berbagi pandangan yang sama, bahwa mereka mempertahankan staf auditor internal pokok untuk menangani fungsi-fungsi tertentu, sehingga proyek-proyek khusus atau tugas yang akan dioutsource ke penyedia layanan di luar. Outsourcing pada kenyataannya dapat menghilangkan kebutuhan untuk mempekerjakan staf permanen ketika fungsi audit internal dalam organisasi tidak dapat mengatasi jumlah tambahan pekerjaan yang harus dilakukan.
Meskipun semua yang telah dikatakan di atas, harus diingat, bahwa outsourcing fungsi audit internal tidak sama dengan outsourcing fungsi lainnya. Di sisi lain, kegiatan kritis menempatkan, seperti audit internal, di tangan penyedia luar dapat membuktikan menjadi kesalahan serius dan mungkin dapat menyebabkan sejumlah besar masalah kepada organisasi, masalah yang tidak biasanya muncul pada fungsi outsourcing lainnya. Verschoor dan Farell (1996) menyatakan bahwa audit internal adalah salah satu pokok sumber informasi yang dibutuhkan untuk memenuhi tanggung jawab pengawasannya. Hasil keseluruhan akan meningkat risiko direksi. Itulah sebabnya organisasi harus berpikir dua kali sebelum outsourcing fungsi audit internal.

PERTANYAAN PENELITIAN
Berdasarkan publikasi saat ini, sedikit penelitian tentang masalah outsourcing fungsi audit internal telah dilakukan di Britania Raya hasilnya banyak pertanyaan yang masih tetap tidak terjawab. Salah satu studi paling baru dipublikasikan adalah penelitian yang dilakukan oleh Rittenberg dan Covaleski (1999) yang meneliti 'pengujian pasar' dari kegiatan audit internal di dalam Pemerintah Inggris di mana tekanan Pemerintah untuk mempertahankan fungsi outsourcing menantang departemen audit internal untuk bersaing dengan sektor swasta. Kedua penulis melakukan serangkaian wawancara dengan pihak-pihak utama yang terlibat dalam tes pasar jasa audit internal (yaitu outsourcing penyedia dan kepala atau departemen audit internal). Hasil penelitian ini memberikan beberapa pengamatan yang menarik tentang efek positif yang dihasilkan dari kompetisi di putaran kedua kualitas layanan yang disediakan dan efisiensi layanan tersebut. Ia juga mengidentifikasi masalah utama yang dihadapi, dan strategi yang digunakan oleh kedua departemen yang ada dan outsourcing penyedia dalam berkompetisi untuk penugasan audit.
Selain menyediakan beberapa informasi baru tentang outsourcing fungsi audit internal di Britania Raya, kajian ini berupaya untuk menjawab tiga pertanyaan dasar penelitian. Pertanyaan pertama terfokus pada bagaimana internal audit disadari oleh Direksi Keuangan dan Direksi Audit baik dari publik dan sektor swasta. Partisipan diminta untuk menyebutkan apakah mereka menganggap audit internal menjadi inti 'atau' non-inti 'kegiatan dan apakah atau mereka tidak menganggap untuk menjadi menjadi 'penting'? Pertanyaan kedua berusaha untuk mengidentifikasi motif pokok dan faktor di balik keputusan untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi audit internal. Hal ini diklaim secara luas dalam literatur bahwa 'penurunan biaya' adalah salah satu alasan utama, jika bukan alasan utama, sebagian besar organisasi yang menggoda untuk melompat ke bandwagon outsourcing. Namun, tampaknya bahwa sejumlah faktor lain seperti akses ke auditor internal dengan keterampilan khusus dan untuk menjamin kualitas layanan dapat diajukan sebagai penjelasan yang benar-benar mempengaruhi keputusan untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi audit internal.
Pertanyaan terakhir adalah berkaitan dengan dampak dari keputusan untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi internal audit pada independensi auditor (internal dan eksternal) dan kualitas layanan audit internal. Sejumlah besar perusahaan akuntan publik yang telah secara aktif terlibat dalam pemasaran jasa internal audit, telah mengangkat pertanyaan mengenai kesesuaian dan potensi bahaya mendapatkan kedua layanan dari sumber yang sama (Accianit 1995; Aldhizer III dan Cashell, 1996). Demikian pula, kualitas jasa audit internal diberikan oleh penyedia layanan di luar, terutama perusahaan akuntan publik, juga perhatian utama (Courtemanche, 1991).

METODOLOGI
Sampel yang terdiri dari 250 organisasi baik dari publik dan sektor swasta di Britania Raya telah diambil. Dari sektor swasta, 125 Top perusahaan yang terdaftar di London Stock Exchange dipilih, sedangkan 125 dari sektor publik campuran dipilih dari Pemerintah Departemen, Instansi Pemerintah, Non Departemental Public Bodies(NDPB's), Northern Ireland(NI) Departemen, dan Housing Federation Members. Untuk tujuan survei ini, diputuskan bahwa penggunaan kuesioner akan menjadi cara yang paling tepat. untuk mengumpulkan data, terutama karena merupakan kendaraan yang paling efektif untuk mencapai sejumlah besar responden di wilayah yang luas. Instrumen survei (kuesioner pos) dipilih untuk mengumpulkan data primer dibagi menjadi lima skenario yang berbeda dan masing-masing responden diminta untuk menanggapi hanya salah satu skenario sesuai dengan ketentuan saat ini jasa audit internal dalam organisasi masing-masing. Lima skenario adalah:
• Fungsi audit internal diselenggarakan dalam organisasi (Skenario I)
• Fungsi audit internal outsourcing sebagian (Skenario II)
• Fungsi audit internal outsourcing sepenuhnya (Skenario III)
• Partnering / Co-sourcing (Skenario IV)
• Tidak ada fungsi audit internal saat ini (Skenario V)
Karena banyak tes menunjukkan bahwa persentase pengembalian secara signifikan dapat ditingkatkan melalui sebuah pemberitahuan terlebih dahulu, diambil keputusan untuk memperkenalkan awalnya kuesioner dengan menelepon semua Drektur Keuangan dan / atau Direktur Audit dalam organisasi yang ada dalam sampel. Selama jangka waktu delapan hari (dari 20 Mei hingga 28 Mei 1999), 250 Direksi dihubungi dan mereka akan menerima informasi tentang kuesioner pos. Dalam beberapa kasus di mana kontak langsung dengan Direksi tertentu tidak bisa dilakukan, sebuah pesan yang melalui sekretaris atau rekan kerja lainnya. Sejak kuesioner didistribusikan itu diluar kekuasaan peneliti, dan karena para peneliti tidak punya cara lain untuk membantu responden untuk memberikan respon yang jelas dan akurat, menyelesaikan segala potensi ambiguitas atau kebingungan untuk arti pertanyaan-pertanyaan tertentu.
Dalam rangka mengurangi persentase non-responden dan meningkatkan tingkat respons secara keseluruhan, tindak lanjut surat pada 21 Juni 1999. Dari total 250 kuesioner yang dikirimkan, 165 (66%) akhirnya selesai dan dikembalikan 5 Juli 1999. Tingkat respons untuk mailing awal 53,2% sedangkan mailing kedua menghasilkan lebih lanjut 12,8%. Dari 125 organisasi dari sektor publik yang awalnya dilakukan, 89 (71,2%) menjawab (67 Pemerintah Departemen, Lembaga, NDPB, dan NI Departemen dan 22 Haousing Federation Members). Dan dari sektor swasta 76 (60,8% ) berpartisipasi dalam survei kami.

HASIL PENELITIAN
Penyediaan Internal Audit
Sebagian besar responden (120 dari 165) menunjukkan bahwa mereka saat ini memiliki fungsi audit internal di dalam organisasi mereka. Selain itu, sebanyak 160 (97%) organisasi memiliki baik fungsi audit internal di dalam organisasi atau mereka menggunakan layanan dari penyedia layanan di luar. Pengamatan penting adalah bahwa semua organisasi dari sektor publik menyatakan bahwa mereka baik memiliki fungsi audit internal dalam organisasi (61 dari total 89 sebenarnya tidak berpengaruh pada fungsi audit internal dalam organisasi) atau mereka menggunakan layanan dari penyedia layanan di luar. Hanya 5 Direksi dari sektor swasta menunjukkan bahwa organisasi mereka tidak memiliki fungsi audit internal. Kelima Direksi ditanya apakah organisasi masing-masing pernah akan mempertimbangkan kemungkinan memiliki fungsi internal audit. Dua Direksi menjawab Ya mereka akan mempertimbangkan dan tiga menjawab Tidak.
Organisasi dengan Fungsi Internal Audit
Beberapa alasan utama diidentifikasi oleh Direksi. Sebagai pengaruh utama dalam keputusan mereka untuk menjaga fungsi audit internal di dalam organisasi:
I. Untuk memastikan kualitas layanan
II. Penyedia layanan audit internal tidak akan tahu bisnis organisasi yang mereka lakukan
III. Apakah fungsi outsource organisasi akan kehilangan bantuan / konstruktif positif yang diberikan oleh fungsi audit internal;
IV. Akses ke auditor internal setiap saat'; dan
V. Kebutuhan tetap untuk auditor internal dengan keterampilan khusus.
Dari total 75, 48 berasal dari sektor publik dan 27 dari sektor swasta. Perbedaan antara kedua sektor dapat dijelaskan, sampai batas tertentu; oleh fakta bahwa departemen pemerintah - dalam upaya untuk mencapai nilai terbaik, uang untuk pembayar pajak – test market secara teratur, antara lain. kegiatan, fungsi internal audit.
75 responden yang sama kemudian diminta untuk menunjukkan jika di masa lalu mereka telah keluar-sumber baik seluruhnya atau sebagian fungsi audit internal mereka dan kemudian, untuk satu alasan atau lainnya, mereka memutuskan untuk membawa kembali audit internal organisasi. 11 organisasi dari sektor publik memiliki pengalaman dengan outsourcing fungsi audit internal tetapi pada tahap tertentu mereka memutuskan untuk membawa kembali fungsi audit internal organisasi. Di antara alasan-alasan yang diajukan untuk menjelaskan keputusan mereka untuk membawa fungsi audit internal kembali ke dalam organisasi:
I. Kualitas penyedia staf audit memburuk sebagai kontrak mendekat sampai akhir
II. Penyedia tidak lagi mampu menyediakan pelayanan karena kekurangan staf. Dalam satu kasus, penyedia telah mengalami kesulitan dalam mempertahankan staf yang ada dan merekrut yang baru;
III. Kualitas buruk penyedia layanan
IV. Ketidakpuasan dengan kinerja keseluruhan penyedia
V. Kurangnya pemahaman penyedia bisnis';
VI. Dalam upaya untuk mendapatkan kembali sekali lagi kontrol keseluruhan fungsi tersebut, maka diputuskan untuk membawa kembali fungsi Internal Audit di organisasi
Sejauh menyangkut masa depan, sepertiga dari Direksi organisasi yang saat ini memiliki fungsi audit internal dalam organisasi mengindikasikan bahwa mereka akan mempertimbangkan outsourcing Jika bukan untuk keseluruhan, setidaknya untuk beberapa fungsi audit internal mereka. Sementara sisa dua pertiga dari Direksi menyatakan bahwa mereka tidak berharap untuk melakukannya. Mereka tidak akan mempertimbangkan outsourcing fungsi audit internal mereka, 43 Direksi berasal dari sektor swasta dan sisanya dari sektor publik.
Fungsi Outsourcing Internal Audit
4o organisasi responden baik sebagian atau seluruhnya outsourcing fungsi audit internal atau telah mengadopsi kemitraan / co-sourcing diminta untuk mengatakan kapan mereka mulai melakukannya. Hal ini terbukti bahwa mayoritas (31 dari 40) dari organisasi mulai outsourcing fungsi audit internal dari sekitar lima tahun yang lalu. Angka-angka ini pastikan bahwa meskipun 'outsourcing' adalah bukan fenomena baru, praktek dimana organisasi outsource dalam fungsi audit internal sebenarnya relatif baru.

Penyedia Jasa Internal Audit
Selama beberapa tahun terakhir, perusahaan akuntan publik telah menyadari potensi penghasilan sangat besar dari pasar outsourcing audit internal, yang menurut Rittenberg dan Covaleski (1997) adalah 2 - 3 kali pendapatan saat ini yang dihasilkan oleh audit hukum dan , sebagai hasilnya, mereka telah mulai menyediakan layanan audit internal di samping audit eksternal biasa dan konsultasi. Untuk mengidentifikasi sumber utama jasa audit internal, organisasi-organisasi yang sedang outsourcing fungsi audit internal, diminta untuk mengidentifikasi penyedia layanan mereka. Hasil survei menunjukkan bahwa 29 dari 40 organisasi memanfaatkan layanan dari 5 besar perusahaan akuntan publik. Hanya satu organisasi dari sektor publik adalah pada penggunaan kini membuat layanan dari penyedia audit khusus internal.

Persepsi Internal Audit
Dari total 165, 97 responden menganggap audit internal menjadi kegiatan inti sementara sisa 68 menganggapnya sebagai kegiatan non-inti. Namun, para peneliti merasa perlu mengeksplorasi masalah ini lebih lanjut dengan meminta partisipan untuk menyatakan apakah dalam pandangan mereka audit internal adalah kegiatan penting dalam organisasi mereka. Hasil survei mengungkapkan mayoritas, 151 dari 165 memang mempertimbangkan audit internal menjadi kegiatan 'penting'. Seperti yang diharapkan, semua lima organisasi dari sektor swasta tanpa fungsi audit internal menyatakan bahwa mereka tidak menganggap audit internal menjadi tidak inti 'atau' esensial '. Hal ini juga layak disebutkan bahwa dari 40 responden, yang saat ini organisasi outsourcing fungsi audit internal, 21 menyatakan bahwa mereka menganggap audit internal menjadi sebuah aktivitas inti.

Pengalaman Outsourcing
Ketika diminta untuk menyebutkan apakah organisasi mereka telah outsource fungsi lain yang bersumber selain dari audit internal, 152 (92,1%) menyatakan bahwa mereka telah menggunakan beberapa bentuk outsourcing, sebuah hasil yang jelas menunjukkan adopsi meluas dari outsourcing di Britania Raya di kedua sektor. Hal ini juga layak disebutkan bahwa 110 dari total 120 organisasi yang belum outsource fungsi audit internal, faktanya outsourcing untuk fungsi tingkat yang lebih besar seperti katering / kebersihan, keamanan, teknologi Informasi, penggajian dan manajemen armada kendaraan, dan untuk fungsi tingkat yang lebih rendah seperti keuangan, manajemen sumber daya manusia dan akuntansi. Fungsi lainnya, yang beberapa organisasi menunjukkan bahwa mereka memiliki outsourcing, termasuk manajemen properti, telekomunikasi, manajemen, pemberian pensiun dan pembayaran, pemeliharaan situs, manajemen fasilitas, hubungan masyarakat, jasa aktuaria, dan pemrosesan cek.
Transfer of Undertakings Protection (TUPE) dan Outsourcing
Ada kepercayaan bahwa organisasi yang sekarang, lebih dari sebelumnya, mau menggunakan outsourcing dalam upaya untuk mengurangi jumlah orang-orang yang dipekerjakan, dan akibatnya mengurangi biaya, selalu di bawah lindungan dari TUPE. Hal ini berpendapat bahwa undang-undang ini memang telah membuat keputusan untuk menggunakan outsourcing lebih mudah karena semua hak dan kewajiban majikan lama dan kontrak kerja secara otomatis dipindahkan ke majikan baru.
Dalam organisasi di mana fungsi audit intern yang telah dioutsource, responden diminta apakah TUPE telah membuat keputusan fungsi outsource mereka lebih mudah. 35 mengatakan bahwa TUPE tidak membuat keputusan mereka lebih mudah sementara 4 mengatakan mdah. Hasil ini jelas menunjukkan bahwa dalam kebanyakan kasus, TUPE tidak mempengaruhi keputusan untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi audit internal. Bahkan responden yang organisasinya memiliki fungsi audit internal dan yang mengatakan bahwa mereka menyadari TUPE, ketika diminta menyatakan apakah undang-undang ini akan membuat keputusan di masa depan untuk melakukan outsourcing internal audit hanya 24 dari sekitar 111 responden menyatakan bahwa TUPE akan membuat keputusan mereka lebih mudah.
Faktor-Faktor yang Mempengaruhi Keputusan untuk Outsource Fungsi Internal Audit
Sejumlah faktor yang dapat mempengaruhi keputusan untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi audit internal telah diidentifikasi dalam survei dan responden diminta untuk menunjukkan, dengan menggunakan skala lima poin (di mana 1 = Tidak relevan, 2 = Tidak Penting, 3 = Penting, 4 = Sangat Penting, dan 5 = Sangat Penting).
Sebuah studi lebih dekat dari angka-angka ini menunjukkan dengan jelas bahwa faktor tunggal, yang dianggap oleh mayoritas responden menjadi sangat penting dalam memutuskan untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi audit internal, adalah “akses untuk auditor internal dengan keterampilan khusus’. Menurut tanggapan lain yang diberikan, yang setiap faktor penting adalah untuk ‘memastikan kualitas layanan'. Akhirnya, faktor penting lainnya menunjukkan adalah generasi penghematan biaya dan ketidakmampuan organisasi untuk mempertahankan (atau merekrut) orang dengan yang diperlukan keterampilan yang diperlukan'.
Dampak Keputusan Outsourcing
Masalah 'Kemerdekaan’
Karena kemerdekaan' adalah sebuah isu yang sangat penting saat outsourcing fungsi audit internal, 40 organisasi yang baik seluruhnya atau sebagian fungsi outsourcing atau telah mengadopsi kemitraan / co-sourcing diminta untuk menyatakan apakah mereka menggunakan operator yang sama untuk kedua layanan internal dan eksternal audit. Selain dari enam organisasi dari sektor swasta, sisanya dari empat puluh organisasi menggunakan dua penyedia audit terpisah. Para peserta juga diminta apakah, pada waktu itu mereka memilih penyedia layanan, mereka dianggap potensi untuk mengorbankan independensi auditor yang mungkin terjadi sebagai akibat dari salah satu operator mengasumsikan peran ganda dari auditor eksternal internal kering. Dua puluh tujuh dari empat puluh responden benar-benar melakukannya saat itu.
27 responden kemudian ditanya apakah mereka setuju bahwa kemerdekaan dikompromikan bila menggunakan penyedia layanan yang sama untuk kedua layanan. Sepuluh mengatakan kemerdekaan yang tidak dikompromikan dan 17 mengatakan dikompromikan. Menarik untuk dicatat bahwa meskipun mereka telah dianggap sebagai kompromi potensi auditor kemerdekaan dan meskipun mereka setuju bahwa kemerdekaan sebenarnya terancam, mereka masih terus berjalan dan menggunakan operator yang sama untuk kedua layanan internal dan eksternal audit.
Kepuasan dengan Layanan disediakan
Para responden diminta untuk menyatakan tingkat kepuasan dengan kualitas layanan yang disediakan. Sebagian besar organisasi dari kedua sektor puas dengan kualitas pelayanan yang mereka terima saat ini. Hanya 3 organisasi dari sektor publik yang baik sangat tidak puas atau tidak puas dengan layanan yang disediakan. Ketiga organisasi itu ditanya apakah mereka mempertimbangkan membawa fungsi audit internal kembali ke organisasi mereka karena mereka tidak puas. Satu organisasi kata Ya mereka akan mempertimbangkannya, kata lain Tidak, dan yang ketiga berkata Mungkin.
30 Direksi yang menunjukkan bahwa organisasi mereka baik puas atau sangat puas, juga bertanya apakah mereka masih akan mempertimbangkan membawa fungsi audit internal kembali ke dalam organisasi. 13 berkata Ya dan 17 berkata Tidak. 13 responden yang mengatakan bahwa mereka masih akan mempertimbangkan membawa kembali fungsi audit internal ke dalam organisasi, juga diundang untuk menyatakan alasan yang mungkin mempengaruhi keputusan mereka. Beberapa alasan yang disebutkan adalah:
I. Penggunaan 'outsourcing adalah tindakan sementara untuk mengatasi kekurangan staff jangka pendek staf
II. Memiliki fungsi internal audit di dalam organisasi akan meningkatkan kemampuan kita untuk menanggapi kebutuhan yang muncul
III. Kami akan mempertimbangkan membawa fungsi audit internal ke dalam organisasi sehingga Group Chief Internal Auditor akan dapat dengan benar mengendalikan program audit seluruh kelompok itu
IV. Untuk menjamin penyediaan audit internal yang berkualitas tinggi
V. Para penyedia layanan sedang dikaji secara teratur dan jika organisasi menjadi tidak puas pada satu titik dengan itu, layanan itu akan dibawa kembali ke dalam organisasi
VI. Jika organisasi berhasil dalam merekrut auditor dengan keterampilan yang diperlukan, maka kami akan membawa kembali fungsi auditor internal ke dalam organisasi.
KESIMPULAN
Hasil survei jelas menunjukkan bahwa mayoritas organisasi di Inggris masih menunjukkan preferensi terhadap fungsi audit internal dalam organisasi. Selanjutnya, hasil survei menunjukkan fungsi audit internal dirasakan oleh mayoritas responden (59%) sebagai 'inti' dan dengan suara yang lebih besar (92%) sebagai 'esensial'. Hasil ini 13 lebih diperkuat oleh fakta bahwa organisasi 160 dari total 165 yang ikut ambil bagian dalam survei saat ini memiliki fungsi audit in-house internal atau menggunakan layanan dari penyedia layanan di luar.
Faktor paling penting yang dikemukakan untuk mendukung keputusan untuk melakukan outsourcing fungsi audit internal adalah ‘akses ke internal auditor dengan keterampilan khusus’. Dalam era yang sebagian besar didominasi oleh pribadi: komputer, internet, pengembangan dan. Penggunaan instrumen keuangan baru (derivatif misalnya), auditor internal kadang-kadang menemukan diri mereka melakukan audit di wilayah asing, dan jika daerah ini harus diaudit secara efektif dan efisien memerlukan pengetahuan dan keterampilan khusus. Organisasi mengakui fakta bahwa mempertahankan staf ahli tidak selalu merupakan pilihan yang realistis mengingat yang biaya tinggi. Outsourcing, oleh karena itu, menyediakan solusi biaya-efektif untuk kebutuhan sesekali untuk auditor dengan keterampilan khusus.

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Biaya Modal (Cost Of Capital)

1. Pengertian dan Fungsi Biaya Modal
Biaya Modal adalah biaya riil yang harus dikeluarkan oleh perusahaan untuk memperoleh dana baik yang berasal dari hutang, saham preferen, saham biasa, maupun laba ditahan untuk mendanani suatu investasi atau operasi perusahaan.
Penentuan besarnya biaya modal ini dimaksudkan untuk mengetahui berapa besarnya biaya riil yang harus dikeluarkan perusahaan untuk memperoleh dana yang diperlukan.
Biaya modal dapat dihitung berdasarkan biaya untuk masing-masing sumber dana atau disebut biaya modal individual. Biaya modal individual dihitung tiap jenis modal. Namun apabila perusahaan menggunakan beberapa sumber modal maka biaya modal yang dihitung adalah biaya modal rata-rata tertimbang (Weightedf average cost of capital/WACC) dari seluruh modal yang digunakan.
Konsep Biaya Modal erat hubungannya dengan konsep mengenai pengertian tingkat keuntungan yang disyaratkan (required rate of return). Tingkat keuntungan yang disyaratkan sebenarnya dapat dilihat dari dua pihak yaitu sisi investor dan perusahaan. Dari sisi investor, tinggi rendahnya required rate of return merupakan tingkat keuntungan (rate of return) yang mencerminkan tingkat resiko dari aktiva yang dimiliki. Sedangkan bagi perusahaan yang menggunakan dana (modal), besarnya required rate of return merupakan biaya modal (cost of capital) yang harus dikeluarkan untuk mendapatkan modal tersebut. Biaya modal bisanya digunakan sebagai ukuran untuk menentukan diterima atau ditolaknya suatu usulan investasi (sebagai discount rate), yaitu dengan membandingkan tingkat keuntungan (rate of return) dari usulan investasi tersebut dengan biaya modalnya.

2. Komponen Biaya Modal
Komponen biaya modal terdiri dari :
 Debt (Hutang jangka pendek dan hutang jangka panjang)
 Preferred (Saham Preferen)
 Common Equity (Saham Biasa dan Laba ditahan)

2.1 Biaya Modal Individual
1. Biaya Modal Hutang Jangka Pendek
Biaya modal hutang jangka pendek merupakan hutang yang jangka waktu pengembaliannya kurang dari satu tahun, biasanya terdiri dari hutang dagang, hutang wesel, dan kredit jangka pendek lainnya. Biaya modal dari penggunaan hutang (cost of debt) dihitung dengan cara :
rd AT = rd BT(1 - T)
Dimana :
rd AT = Biaya hutang jangka pendek setelah pajak
rd BT = Biaya hutang jangka pendek sebelum pajak sebesar tingkat bunga
hutang
T = Tingkat Pajak

2. Biaya Modal Hutang Jangka Panjang
Biaya hutang yang ditanggung oleh perusahaan yang menggunakan dana hutang tidak lain adalah sebesar tingkat keuntungan yang disyaratkan oleh investor. Biaya modal yang berasal dari penggunaan hutang jangka panjang (cost of debt), dihitung dengan

I + (N-Nb)/n
rd = ----------------------
(Nb + N) /2
Di mana :
I = Bunga hutang jangka panjang (obligasi) satu tahun dalam rupiah
N = Harga nominal obligasi atau nilai obligasi pada akhir umurnya
Nb = Nilai bersih penjualan obligasi
n = umur obligasi

3. Biaya Modal Saham Preferen
Biaya modal saham preferen (cost of preferrd stock/rps) adah biaya riil yang harus dibayar apabila perusahaan menggunakan dana dengan menjual saham preferen. Biaya modal saham preferran diperhitungkan sebesar tingkat keuntungtan yang disyaratkan (required rate of return) oleh investor pemegang saham preferen.

r ps = Dps / P0
Dimana :
r ps = Biaya saham preferen
Dps = Deviden saham preferen
P0 = Harga saham preren saat ini (harga proses)

4. Biaya Modal Saham Biasa dan Laba ditahan
Biaya modal saham biasa dan laba ditahan atau sering disatukan menjadi biaya modal sendiri (biaya ekuitas) atau kadang-kadang disebut biaya modal saham biasa saja. Biaya modal ekuitas merupakan biaya yang dikeluarkan perusahaan yang memperoleh dana dengan menjual saham biasa atau menggunakan laba ditahan untuk investasi.

r s = D1 / P0 + g
Dimana :
rs = biaya modal ekuitas
D1 = Deviden saham yang diharapkan pada tahun pertama
P0 = harga saham saat ini
g = tingkat pertumbuhan

2.2 Biaya Modal Keseluruhan (Weighted average cost of capital/WACC)
Biaya modal secara keseluruhan merupakan biaya modal yang memperhitungkan seluruh biaya atas modal yang digunakan oleh perusahaan. Biaya modal yang diperhitungkan merupakan biaya modal dari seluruh jenis modal yang digunakan. Karena biaya modal dari masing-masing sumber dana berbeda-beda, maka untuk menetapkan biaya modal dari perusahaan secara keseluruahn perlu dihitung biaya modal rata-rata tertimbangnya (Weighted average cost of capital / WACC). Sebagai unsure penimbanngnya adalah proporsi dana bagi setiap jenis atau sumber modal yang digunakan dalam investasi proyek tersebut.

WACC = wdrd(1 - T) + wpsrps + wcers
Dimana :
W = bobot /proporsi masing-masing dari jenis modal yang digunakan
r = biaya modal masing-masing dari jenis modal digunakan


Referensi

Brigham, Daves, 2004, Intermediate Financial Management, edisi 8
Martono & Agus H, 2001, Manajemen Keuangan, Cet pertsama, Ekonisia Jogjakarta

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AKUNTANSI SUMBER DAYA MANUSIA

Konsep Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia
Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia telah didefinisikan oleh Komite Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia dari American Accounting Association sebagai suatu proses identifikasi dan pengukuran data mengenai sumber daya manusia serta pengkomunikasian informasi ini ke pihak-pihak yang berkepentingan.
Dalam pengertian harfiah, “akuntansi sumber daya manusia” berarti akuntansi untuk manusia sebagai suatu sumber daya organisasional. Hal ini melibatkan pengukuran biaya yang dikeluarkan oleh perusahaan-perusahaan bisnis dan organisasi lainnya untuk merekrut, menyeleksi, mempekerjakan, melatih dan mengembangkan aktiva manusia. Akuntansi sumber daya manusia juga melibatkan pengukuran terhadap biaya yang akan dikeluarkan untuk menggantikan sumber daya manusia dari suatu organisasi.
Dengan demikian akuntansi sumber daya manusia berarti mengukur investasi yang dibuat oleh organisasi dalam manusia, biaya untuk mengganti orang-orang tersebut dan nilai dari manusia bagi perusahaan itu.

Sejarah Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia
Bidang akuntansi sumber daya dikembangkan sejak tahun 1960-an. Bidang tersebut adalah cabang dari kumpulan yang terdiri atas beberapa aliran pemikiran yang independen namun saling berkaitan erat.

Berkembangnya Pengenalan terhadap Pentingnya Aktiva Manusia
Amerika Serikat saat ini sedang mengalami restrukturisasi fundamental terhadap perekonomiannya. Khususnya, ekonomi tersebut sedang dalam proses transformasi kualitatif dari ekonomi industrial menjadi ekonomi berbasis jasa. Transformasi yang dimulai pada akhir Perang Dunia II telah mengarah pada perubahan dalam komposisi dari angkatan kerja tidak hanya pada sektor-sektor di mana manusia dipekerjakan, tetapi juga dalam jenis dan tingkatan keahlian yang diminta.
Saat ini perekonomian Amerika Serikat teah menjadi ekonomi berbasis pengetahuan dan jasa yang disediakan telah menjadi apa yang digambarkan sebagai jasa teknologi tinggi. Jasa-jasa ini adalah produk dari sejumlah besar pelatihan dan pengalaman.

Dorongan terhadap Pengembangan Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia
Dalam struktur ekonomi pertanian dan industrial tingkat modal manusia jauh lebih rendah dibandingkan saat ini. Teori dan metode akuntansi tidak memperlakukan baik manusia atau investasi dalam manusia sebagai aktiva (kecuali budak, yang dipandang sebagai properti). Tetapi dengan semakin pentingnya modal manusia pada tingkat perekonomian secara keseluruhan, serta pada tingkatan perusahaan individual, sejumlah besar riset telah dirancang untuk mengembangkan konsep dan metode akuntansi bagi manusia sebagai aktiva. Bidang ini dikenal sebagai “akuntansi sumber daya manusia”.
Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia adalah suatu pengakuan bahwa orang-orang merupakan modal manusia maupun aktiva manusia. Teori ekonomi dari modal manusia didasarkan pada konsep bahwa manusia memiliki keterampilan, pengalaman, dan pengetahuan yang merupakan bentuk dari modal, yang disebut dengan “modal manusia”. Menurut Theodore Schultz menyatakan bahwa “para pekerja telah menjadi kapitalis tidak hanya dari difusi kepemilikan saham perusahaan sebagaimana yang terjadi dalam dongeng, tetapi dari akuisisi pengetahuan dan keterampilan yang memiliki nilai ekonomi.
Akuntansi sumber daya manusia juga telah mengembangkan dari tradisi yang paralel dalam manajemen karyawan yang dikenal sebagai “aliran sumber daya manusia” yang didasarkan pada pemikiran bahwa manusia adalah sumber daya organisasional yang berharga dan oleh karena itu harus dikelola sebagai sumber daya yang berharga. Teoretikus personalia seperti Odiorne dan psikolog organisasi leperti Likert telah memperlakukan manusia sebagai sumber daya organisasional yang berharga dalam karya mereka.

Riset Awal dalam Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia
Salah satu dari pendekatan paling awal untuk mengukur dan mencatat nilai dari sumber daya manusia dikembangkan oleh R.H Hermanson, seorang akuntan akademis, sebagai bagian dari disertasi Ph.D-nya yang kemudian diterbitkan sebagai mongraf pada tahun 1964 dengan judul ‘Akuntansi untuk Sumber Daya Manusia’. Keprihatinan utama dari Hermanson adalah bahwa laporan keuangan konvensional gagal untuk mencerminkan dengan memadai posisi keuangan dari suatu perusahaan karena laporan tersebut tidak memasukkan aktiva manusia. Pada tahun 1966, seelompok penelitian terdiri atas R.L. Brummet, Flamholtz, dan W.C. Pyle memulai suatu program riset mengenai akuntansi sumber daya manusia di universitas Michigen. Riset ini mengarah pada berbagai konsep dan model teoritis serta aplikasi dari pendekatan-pendekatan ini dalam organisasi yang sesungguhnya.

Riset Selanjutnya mengenai Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia
Sejak studi awal oleh Hermanson, Brummet, Flamholtz, dan Pyle, terdapat sejumlah besar riset teoritis dan empiris untuk mengembangkan konsep, model, dan metode akuntansi bagi manusia sebagai aktiva organisasional. Bidang tersebut secara keseluruhan telah dikenal sebagai ‘Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia’.


Peranan Manajerial Akuntansi Sumber Daya Manusia
Tujuan utama akuntansi sumber daya manusia adalah untuk berfungsi sebagai suatu sistem yang menyediakan pengukuran atas biaya dan nilai dari manusia bagi suatu organisasi. Dari perspektif manajerial, akuntansi sumber daya manusia dimaksudkan untuk membantu para pengambil keputusan untuk menggunakan kalkulus biaya-nilai yaitu, suatu penilaian terhadap biaya dan nilai yang terlibat dalam suatu keputusan.
Pengukuran biaya dan nilai dari sumber daya manusia diperlukan untuk:
1. memfasilitasi perencanaan dan pengambilan keputusan personalia oleh staff manajemen personalia.
2. memungkinkan manajemen puncak untuk mengevaluasi efektivitas dengan mana sumber daya manusia telah dikembangkan, dipelihara dan digunakan oleh manajemen ditingkatan yang lebih rendah (terutama dalam perusahaan besar yang terdesentralisasi)


Akuisisi Sumber Daya Manusia
Melibatkan perekrutan, seleksi dan penerimaan orang untuk memenuhi kebutuhan tenaga manusia organisasi saat ini dan ekspektasi di masa depan. Langkah pertama dalam akuisisi sumber daya manusia adalah untuk memprediksikan kebutuhan tenaga manusia. Langkah ke dua adalah seleksi karyawan yaitu proses lain dimana akuntansi sumber daya manusia dapat memainkan suatu peranan.

Kebijakan Akuisisi dan Pengembangan
Akuntansi sumber daya manusia menyediakan informasi ekonomi yang dibutuhkan oleh manajemen untuk membantu dalam memformulasikan kebijakan akuisisi dan pengembangan karyawan.

Alokasi Sumber Daya Manusia
Alokasi sumber daya manusia adalah proses menempatkan orang ke berbagai peranan dan tugas organisasional. Terdapat beberapa objektif, yang kadang kala saling berlawanan, yang terlibat dalam keputusan alokasi. Idealnya, manajemen mengalokasikan orang-orang ke pekerjaan dengan cara yang mengoptimalkan tiga variabel : produktivitas pekerjaan, pengembangan sumber daya manusia, dan kepuasan individu.

Konservasi Sumber Daya Manusia
Konservasi sumber daya manusia adalah proses pemeliharaan kapabilitas manusia sebagai individu-individu dan efekrivitas dari sistem manusia yang dikembangkan oleh suatu organisasi. Suatu organisasi harus memperhitungkan aktiva manusianya untuk mencegah terjadinya deplesi terhadap aktiva tersebut. Sekarang ini, konservasi sumber daya manusia diukur dalam hal tingkat perputaran. Meskipun demikian, ukuran perputaran bukanlah indikator yang mencukupi terhadap konservasi sumber daya manusia karena dua alasan. Pertama, ukuran tersebut merupakan ukuran historis dan oleh karena itu tidak tersedia bagi manajemen sampai setelah perputaran tersebut terjadi. Dengan demikian, tingkat perputaran tidak dapat digunakan sebagai sinyal peringatan dini untuk memberitahukan adanya kebutuhan akan usaha khusus untuk melakukan konservasi. Kedua, tingkat perputaran tidak sepenuhnya mencerminkan dampak ekonomi dari tingkat perputaran, yang ditunjukkan secara lebih realistis oleh ukuran moneter.

Utilitas Sumber Daya Manusia
Akuntansi sumber daya manusia merupakan suatu proses penggunaan jasa manusia untuk mencapai tujuan organisasi. Akuntansi sumber daya manusia dapat membantu para manajer untuk menggunakan sumber daya manusia secara efektif dan efisien dengan menyediakan suatu paradigma atau kerangka kerja konseptual bagi utilisasi sumber daya manusia.

Evaluasi dan Penghargaan Sumber Daya Manusia
Evaluasi sumber daya manusia adalah proses penetapan nilai manusia bagi suatu organisasi. Hal tersebut melibatkan pengukuran produktivitas (kinerja) dan daya promosi manusia.
Saat ini, sumber daya manusia dapat berguna dalam proses metode nonmoneter. Tetapi, metode-metode ini tidak dapat digunakan pada kebanyakan masalah dan keputusan akuisisi, pengembangan, alokasi, dan konservasi sumber daya manusia sebagaimana dikutip di atas. Oleh karena itu, yang dibutuhkan sebenarnya adalah metode moneter terhadap evaluasi sumber daya manusia.
Akuntansi sumber daya manusia juga dapat digunakan untuk mengevaluasi efisiensi dari masing-masing fungsi manajemen personalia. Hal tersebut juga dapat membantu menetapkan standar dari biaya untuk memperoleh dan mengembangkan manusia.

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HISTORICAL COST DALAM PENGUKURAN AKUNTANSI

Perubahan iklim ekonomi, kenaikan harga yang tidak akan pernah turun, telah membuat pengukuran akuntansi menggunakan prinsip historical cost menjadi mulai dipertanyakan. Sudah lama kritikan pengukuran akuntansi dengan prinsip ini dipertanyakan oleh pelaku pasar modal. Penurunan kandungan sumber daya alam seiring meningkatnya populasi manusia sebagai makluk utama di muka bumi ini yang ikut andil dalam penurunan potensi sumber daya alam tersebut, telah membuktikan bahwa penurunan harga sangat sulit terjadi ataupun harga yang stabil. Penggunaan Historical cost dalam pengukuran akuntansi lambat laun menjadi tidak relevan lagi. Hasil pengukuran dengan prinsip ini tidak up to date,.. informasi akuntansi yang dihasilkan akan menjadi tidak ada gunanya. Informasi akuntansi lambat laun apabila tidak dilakukan perubahan dalam prinsip pengukuran akan ditinggal pergi oleh pengguna. Kalaulah hal ini terjadi, timbul pertanyaan, untuk apa akuntan?

Dalam standar akuntansi indonesia, konsep pengukuran aset, utang dan ekuitas dicantumkan dalam Kerangka Dasar Dalam Penyusunan Laporan Keuangan yang dikenal dengan singkatan KDDPLK yang merupakan bagian dari isi Standar Akuntansi Indonesia (SAK). Dalam pengukuran aset, menganut konsep multiple measurement. Artinya pengukuran aset tidak hanya satu konsep pengukuran saja dalam hal ini historical cost, tetapi dapat juga menggunakan current cost, future value, net realizable value, market value, dan replacement cost. Untuk Aktiva tetap, dalam PSAK 16 yang lama, pengukuran aktiva tetap masih menggunakan historical cost. Tentu saja pengukuran ini tidak relevan lagi dengan kondisi sekarang. IAI melalui Kompartemen Standar Akuntansi, telah melakukan revisi PSAK 16 (revisi 2007) tentang aktiva tetap. Revisi terutama terkait dengan dasar pengukuran aktiva tetap, dapat menggunakan dua alternatif yaitu cost base atau fair value base. Cost base digunakan dengan mengacu pada harga historis (saat perolehan aset tersebut), sedangkan fair value base mengacu pada harga sekarang dari aset tetap tersebut. Masing-masing alternatif pengukuran aset di laporan keuangan memberikan konsekwensi ekonomi yang berbeda bagi perusahaan, manajemen, investor dan kreditor.

Meskipun memberikan konsekwensi ekonomi yang berbeda bagi stake holder, pemberian dua alternatif dasar pengukuran aset tetap akan menimbulkan masalah komparatif, relevansi dan kehandalan pengukuran laporan keuangan, serta memberikan konsekwensi pajak bagi perusahaan. Penerapan fair value base akan dihadapkan pada kendala objektivitas dan evidensi pengukuran aset tersebut....Perlu bantuan pihak III yang sangat independen dalam penerapan fair value base, agar pengukuran-nya tidak subjektif dan kehandalan dapat terjamin. Dengan demikian kita perlu melihat sejauh mana kesiapan lembaga penilai untuk dapat dihandalkan dalam hal ini. Semoga saja.....paling tidak IAI telah mengikuti perubahan zaman dan tekanan pasar dengan mengadopsi IFRS terkait dengan aset tetap....

Sumber :
SPARTA POST
AKUNTANSI, KEUANGAN, EKONOMI DAN AKUNTANSI SYARIAH, MANAJEMEN RISIKO, PENDIDIKAN, DAN UMUM

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Spesific Topic in Finance

Silabus
PERKULIAHAN SEMESTER GANJIL 2010/2011
STIE DHARMA ISWARA MADIUN


I. IDENTIFIKASI MATA KULIAH

Mata Kuliah : SPECIFIC TOPIC IN FINANCE
Jenjang / Jurusan : S1
Semester :
Dosen Pengampu : M. Agus Sudrajat, SE
Email : agus_sudrajat84@yahoo.com
agus.sudrajat84@gmail.com
Blog : http://magussudrajat.blogspot.com/


II. DESKRIPSI MATA KULIAH
Mata kuliah ini menjelaskan bagaimana penerapan teori–teori keuangan untuk menganalisis dan memecahkan permasalahan di bidang keuangan yang dihadapi oleh perusahaan. Di samping itu mata kuliah ini juga memperkenalkan berbagai topik penelitian di bidang keuangan. Pemilihan topik penelitian di bidang keuangan dilakukan oleh dosen atas dasar pertimbangan pentingnya topik–topik tersebut. Mahasiswa diharapkan untuk mengembangkan topik penelitian tersebut sehingga dapat menjadi suatu usulan penelitian penulisan Skripsi.


III. ATURAN PERKULIAHAN
1.Mahasiswa wajib mengikuti perkuliahan. Ketidakhadiran pada perkuliahan maksimal sebanyak 20%. Jika melebihi, mahasiswa tidak diperkenankan mengikuti ujian
2.Penilaian dilakukan dalam 4 (Tiga) jenis, yaitu :
a. Absensi (20%)
b. Partisipasi/Seminar (40%)
c. UTS (20%)
d. UAS (20%)
3.Ujian susulan hanya berlaku bagi mahasiswa yang berhalangan hadir karena sakit atau alasan-alasan yang dapat diterima dengan menyerahkan surat ijin.


IV. MATERI PERKULIAHAN
1. Introduction + Silabus
2. Overview Akuntansi (Akuntansi Keuangan vs Akuntansi Manajemen)
3. Finacial Statement Analysis
4. Budgeting (Financial Planning) and Forecasting (Sektor Firm & Publik)
5. UTS
6. Studi Kasus Perbankan melalui Kebijakan Moneter & Perbankan Syariah
7. Balance Score Card (BSC) & ABC System
8. Management Control System
9. Risk & Return of The Capital Market (Penilaian Investasi)
10. UAS


REFERENSI :
* Fred J. Weston & Thomas E. Coupeland, Managerial Finance, Ninth Edition, The Dryden Press, Florida, 1992
* Fred J. Weston & Eugene F. Brigham, Essential of Managerial Finance, Ninth Edition, The Dryden Press, Florida, 1993.
* Mulyadi, 2001, Balanced Scorecard: Alat Manajemen Kontemporer untuk Pelipatganda Kinerja Keuangan Perusahaan, Jakarta: Salemba Empat.
* Mishkin, Frederic S., The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets, 8th Edition, Addison-Wesley, Singapore, 2007.
* Munawir S, Drs, AK, Analisa Laporan Keuangan, Liberty, Yogyakarta, 1995.
* Kasmir, Bank Dan Lembaga Keuangan Lainnya, Edisi ke enam, PT. Raja Grafindo Persada, Jakarta, 2002.
* Charles J. Woelfel, Memantau Kesehatan Perusahaan Melalui Laporan Keuangan, Abdi Tandur, Jakarta, 1997
* Miswanto, & Eko Widodo, Manajemen Keuangan 2, Gunadarma, Jakrta, 1998.
* Husnan, Suad, dkk, 2002, Bunga Rampai Kajian Teori Keuangan, BPFE, Yogyakarta
* Jurnal-Jurnal Keuangan & Internet Download

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The Balanced Scorecard

1. What is balanced scorecard?
The balanced scorecard is the translation of an organization’s mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures to control organizational activities. It is a sophisticated information system and management approach that links effects (also called organizational objectives, such as profit levels) with causes, such as customer or employee satisfaction.

The balanced scorecard approach focuses on the balanced of both financial and non-financial measures. The balanced scorecard concept suggests that the non- financial measurements are operational measures that drive the future financial performance. The balanced scorecard communicates priorities to management, employees, investors, and even customers. It is used as the focal point for the firm’s efforts in achieving its goals. Firms using the ‘balanced scorecard’ do not have to rely on short-term financial measures as the sole indicators of the company’s performance; the scorecard contributes to linking long-term strategic objectives with short-term processes. Consequently, creating a ‘balanced scorecard’ has forced companies to unite their strategic planning and budgeting, which has helped ensure that their budgets support their strategies.


2. Balanced Scorecard and Performance Measurement

The balanced scorecard is the performance measurement philosophy. The balanced scorecard concept recognizes the importance of measuring performance on multiple financial and non-financial dimensions for influencing business performance. Specifically, this management tool measures the financial, customer, internal business process, learning and growth dimensions of the organization. By adopting such a broad scope approach to performance measurement, managers can observe changes in the market environment, determine and assess progress towards the business unit objectives, and affirm the achievement of business objectives.

3. How Can the Balanced Scorecard Help a Company Improve its Ability to Meet Its Strategies?

By utilizing the balanced scorecard firms can align their performance measurement systems with the goals and strategies of the firm. When effectively designed, the balanced scorecard provides a number of key performance indicators directed at measuring the achievement of the organizations strategies. Furthermore the balanced scorecard uses multiple dimensions to measure the achievement of organizational strategies. These include the financial, internal business process, learning and growth and customer. It is used as the focal point for the firm’s efforts in achieving its goals. To be clear, the use of a BSC does not mean just “using more measures”: it means putting a handful of strategically critical measures together in a single report, in a way that makes cause and effect relations transparent and keeps managers from sub-optimizing by improving one measure at the expense of others.

4. Four Perspectives Covered by the Balanced Scorecard



5. What does it mean with “balanced” in the balanced scorecard approach?

The balanced scorecard is a sophisticated information system and management approach that links effects (also called organizational objectives, such as profit levels) with causes, such as customer or employee satisfaction. It measures performance using multiple dimensions including financial, internal business processes, learning and growth, and customers. The balanced scorecard does not mean that there is the same meaning or weight given to each dimension. The weighting given to each of the dimensions will depend on the strategic priorities and goals of the firm. “Balance” has several meanings. It refers to the notion that management should not pay attention to just one perspective such as customer or financial, but it has to pay attention to all of four perspectives. This suggests that one perspective is not sufficient for maintaining a competitive advantage in today’s changing business environment. The term balanced also refers to the inclusion of both short term and long term objectives and the mix of hard quantifiable and soft subjective measures. The balanced scorecard has the potential to provide managers with a linked set of measures that specifies how the four perspectives of measures stated above can be aligned with overall company strategy, how managers should attend to both financial and non-financial measures of performance, and how they can integrate them.

6. Developing Critical Measures for Each Dimension of the Balanced Scorecard

The balanced scorecard translates the firm’s strategies into objectives and performance measures in each of the four dimensions. To begin with the organizational strategies must be identified. Once this is done critical success factors can be identified. These success factors are necessary for the ongoing success of the company. For instance, one of the company strategies might be to improve returns to shareholders. Shareholder returns can then be identified as a critical success factor. This strategy is consistent with the financial dimension of the balanced scorecard. A suitable performance measure for this objective could be the return on equity. Another strategy might be to increase customer satisfaction to ensure that profits are maximized. This strategy is consistent with the customer dimension of the balanced scorecard. Appropriate performance measures could include percentage increase in market share, number of product returns, number of product defects, number of new customers or number of customers. Another of the organizations strategies might be to improve the quality of products. This relates to the internal business processes perspective. Possible key performance indicators used to measure the achievement of this objective could be number of product defects or number of product returns. Finally, the organization may have a strategy to develop employee’s technical skills. This is consistent with the learning and growth dimension of the balanced scorecard. A possible performance measure for this objective could be the time spent developing employee programs. The choice of performance measure should communicate to employees the drivers of current and future success of the organization.


7. The Limitations from Using the Balanced Scorecard

One of the limitations of the using the balanced scorecard is that it is not easily implemented. The company must have an appropriate facility or information technology to collect, calculate, and analyze the data in a timely and accurate manner. Without appropriate information technology, the implementation of balanced scorecard will costly, time consuming and may be unsuccessful. Further, the vision, mission and the strategy of the company must be clear. Many cases show that the owner and managers do not set these three factors clearly. Another of the limitations of the balanced scorecard approach stems from the willingness of the owner and managers to use the balanced scorecard. The balanced scorecard is a rigid system that needs detail information and analysis. Most of the cases managers do not have enough willingness to sit down and analyze the balanced scorecard data. This would suggest that culture and management style could also influence the success of the balanced scorecard. Some cultures influence the management styles and the evaluation is more subjective rather than objective.


8. The Balanced Scorecard and TQM

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a philosophy based on the notion of continuous improvement. The balanced scorecard provides a feedback mechanism to gauge the organization’s success in achieving quality in all dimensions of the organization. The balanced scorecard is designed to provide a range of financial and non-financial measures, which are used to provide managers with continuous signals as to what is most important in their day-to-day work and where efforts must be directed. To be effective in achieving the TQM goals, TQM firms should implement a BSC-like performance measurement system that identifies appropriate nonfinancial and financial indicators of how the firm is viewed by shareholders (financial perspective), how customers see the firm (customer perspective), in which areas the firm must excel (internal business processes perspective), and how and where the firm can learn and create value (learning and growth perspective). By doing so, the BSC measures can also be designed to pull people toward the firm’s overall TQM program, along with its other organizational strategic priorities.


9. Stronger Market Position and The use of balanced scorecards

Organizations with a strong market position are likely to place greater emphasis on the use of a BSC, to help maintain their strong position. By providing feedback on the essential dimensions (customer perspective, financial perspective, internal business perspective, innovation and learning perspective) of the organization they can manage and control their performance. On the other hand, an organization operating with a weak position in a particular market creates a lesser demand for the use sophistication in management systems. A lesser demand for sophistication suggests a lower deployment of sophisticated management systems such as the BSC. Thus, organizations with a weak market position can be expected to place greater emphasis on traditional, financial oriented, performance evaluation systems for assessing performance.


10. The Organization Size and the Balanced Scorecard
Implementation

The organizations size has an effect on the balanced scorecard implementation. As the size of the firm increases accounting and control processes tend to become more specialized and sophisticated. An increase in size has been linked to greater decentralization and structuring of activities to improve information processing. Furthermore, the need to stimulate effective communication flows becomes more apparent in larger organizations, as in such organizations, the behavioral orientation characterizing management controls in small organizations become unworkable. As a consequence, in large business enterprises, a broader set of information and measurement issues arise. The balanced scorecard can provide such information. Typically, small companies frequently do not require elaborate performance evaluation techniques, such as the balanced scorecard because usually the owners are close to the “action”.

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MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING INFORMATION for ACTIVITY and PROCESS DECISIONS

Biaya Tertanam (Sunk Cost)
a. Sunk costs (biaya tertanam) sering menyebabkan masalah dalam pengambil keputusan:
b. Biaya-biaya sumber daya yang telah dilakukan dan tidak ada tindakan atau keputusan yang dapat diubah saat ini
– Tidak relevan untuk evaluasi alternatif karena sunk costs tidak dapat dipengaruhi oleh alternatif yang manajer pilih.

Keputusan Membuat atau Membeli
a. Sebagai manajer usaha untuk mengurangi biaya-biaya dan meningkatkan daya saing produk mereka, mereka menghadapi keputusan-keputusan apakah perusahaan mereka akan:
– Memproduksi beberapa bagian atau komponen untuk produk mereka di dalam perusahaan.
– Mensubkontrakkan ke perusahaan lain untuk mensupply bagian-bagian dan komponen tersebut.
b. Sebagaimana keputusan membuat atau membeli menggambarkan bagaimana mengidentifikasi biaya relevan dan pendapatan.
c. Sebuah perusahaan manufaktur membutuhkan sekitar 15% lampu untuk pabrik mobil-mobil mereka di Ohio.
d. Presiden perusahaan akan mengurangi biaya dan telah meminta manajer produksi untuk mengevaluasi kemungkinan pengadaan lampu dari luar.
e. Manajer produksi memperoleh kuota dari beberapa supplier untuk empat jenis lampu yang dibuat perusahaan.
– Lampu belakang
– Lampu depan
– Lampu warna belakang
– Lampu samping dan lampu belakang (lengkung)

Sistem Fasilitas Tata Ruang (1 of 2)
a. Untuk menambah pemahaman mengenai biaya relevan untuk beberapa keputusan yang mengubah aktivitas dan proses umum, manajer harus mempertimbangkan seluruh fasiliitas proses operasi
b. Ada tiga tipe umum desain fasilitas:
– Rancangan Proses
– Rancangan Produk
– Pabrikasi Selular
c. Tanpa mengabaikan tipe rancangan desain, sebuah tujuan akhir proses desain adalah untuk mengefektifkan operasi dan sehingga dapat meningkatkan sistem pendapatan usaha
d. Satu metode yang dapat memandu proses ini untuk ketiga desain tersebut adalah teori Constrain (TOC)
e. TOC menjaga bahwa pendapatan operasi dapat meningkat melalui proses pengaturan bottleneck secara hati-hati
– Bottleneck adalah kondisi dimana terdapat penghalang atau penghambat suatu proses yang efisien
– Bottleneck dapat diidentifikasi dengan menentukan point-point dimana jumlah lebih dari barang dalam proses yang dikumpulkan

Faktor-faktor Kualitatif
a. Untuk kebanyakan keputusan seperti ini, beberapa faktor tambahan yang lebih berkualitas, perlu dipertimbangkan:
– Penurunan harga secara permanen
– Kepercayaan supplier:
b. Kesesuaian dengan standar kualitas yang disyaratkan.
c. Pengiriman tepat waktu.
d. Banyak perusahaan telah menerapkan sertifikasi untuk supplier-supplier kecil yang tergantung dan konsisten dalam menyediakan barang-barang berkualitas tinggi yang dibutuhkan.
– Perusahaan memberikan insentif kepada supplier-supplier yang telah disertifikasi berupa pembayaran yang cepat dan garansi jumlah pembelian.

Teori Constrain (TOC)
a. Teori Constrain berdasar pada tiga ukuran :
– Kontribusi keluaran
– Investasi
– Biaya operasi
b. Kontribusi keluaran adalah perbedaan antara pendapatan dan bahan baku langsung untuk kuantitas produk terjual.
c. Investasi biaya bahan terdiri dari : Bahan mentah, barang dalam proses, dan persediaan barang jadi.
d. Biaya operasi adalah adalah seluruh biaya, kecuali biaya bahan baku langsung, yang diperlukan untuk mendapatkan kontribusi keluaran.

Teori Constraints
a. TOC menekankan pada optimasi batasan kontribusi progam jangka pendek
b. Penganut TOC memandang biaya operasi sebagai suatu pilihan yang sulit untuk program jangka pendek
– Oleh sebab itu, analisa aktivitas tipe ABC dan pemicu biaya (costs driver) tidak diselenggarakan.
– Hal ini membatasi kelangsungan penggunaan teori tersebut
– Secara teoritis, bagaimanapun bukan suatu alasan mengapa TOC dan ABC tidak dapat digunakan secara bersamaan.

Just-in-Time
a. Pabrikasi Just-in-time (JIT) adalah sistem pabrikasi yang efektif dan menyeluruh yang mengintegrasikan banyak gagasan.
b. Produksi Just-in-time membutuhkan pembuatan produk atau jasa hanya jika pelanggan internal atau eksternal menghendakinya.
c. Hal itu menggunakan suatu rancangan produk dengan arus yang berkelanjutan.
– Tidak ada keterlambatan saat mulai produkasi
– Harus ada suatu pengurangan yang substansial dalam susunan biaya dengan tujuan untuk menghapuskan jumlah barang yang diperlukan.
– Sistem proses harus dapat dipercaya

Implikasi Pabrikasi JIT
a. Pabrikasi Just-in-time adalah sederhana dalam teori tetapi sulit untuk dipraktekkan.
b. Beberapa perusahaan ragu-ragu untuk menerapkan JIT
– Tanpa adanya barang dalam proses masalah yang ada dalam sistem dapat menghentikan seluruh produksi
– Organisasi yang menggunakan pabrikasi just-in-time menghapuskan semua sumber kegagalan sistem.
– Proses produksi harus dirancang kembali sehingga bukan menjadi penghalang untuk memproses satu atau sejumlah kecil materi pada saat yang bersamaan.
– Hal ini biasanya mengurangi jarak bila barang dalam proses harus dikirim dan menggunakan pegawai yang sesuai dan perlengkapan yang dapat digunakan untuk semua jenis pekerjaan.
c. Proses JIT pada intinya adalah suatu kekuatan pekerja sangat terlatih; terlatih untuk menyelesaikan aktivitas yang menggunakan standard mutu yang paling tinggi
d. Ketika seorang karyawan menemukan suatu masalah dengan suatu komponen yang telah ia terima, adalah tanggung jawab karyawan itu untuk memberikan perhatian segera kepada masalah sedemikian rupa sehingga permasalahan tersebut dapat dikoreksi
e. Para penyalur harus mampu menghasilkan dan menyampaikan material pilihan atau komponen yang baru ketika mereka diperlukan
f. Pada banyak kejadian, perusahaan menjaga suatu kompetisi antara para penyalur komponen yang sama untuk dapat menyampaikan/mengirim mutu yang terbaik
g. Pada akhir periode kerja, penyalur yang melaksanakan kewajiban yang terbaiklah yang akan memperoleh suatu kontrak jangka panjang
h. Pemeliharaan pencegahan juga dilaksanakan sedemikian rupa sehingga kegagalan peralatan menjadi suatu peristiwa yang jarang terjadi.
i. Pabrikasi Just-In-Time mempunyai dua implikasi utama bagi manajemen akuntansi
– Pertama, akuntansi manajemen harus mendukung pabrikasi ke arah JIT dengan monitoring, identifikasi, dan berkomunikasi ke sumber pembuat keputusan yang menyebabkan penundaan, kesalahan, dan mengabaikan sistem tersebut.
– Ke dua, proses klarikal akuntansi manajemen disederhanakan oleh pabrikasi JIT, karena berkurangnya persediaan yang harus di monitor dan dilaporkan
j. Ukuran penting keandalan sebuah sistem JIT meliputi acuan-acuan siklus effektivitas pabrikasi berikut:
– Tingkat penolakan
– Siklus waktu
– Prosentase waktu yang digunakan secara tepat
– Keakuratan/ketepatan pesanan
– Produksi aktual sebagaimana sebuah prosentase produksi yang direncanakan.
– Jam kerja mesin aktual yang tersedia dibandingkan dengan jam kerja mesin yang direncanakan
k. Tenaga kerja konvensional dan rasio produktivitas mesin bukan merupakan filosofi produksi JIT.
l. Pabrikasi JIT telah memberi sebuah keuntungan kepada banyak organisasi.
m. Dalam menerapkan sistem ini memerlukan beberapa hal untuk diingat:
– Beberapa inovasi manajemen yang signifikan, seperti ABC atau JIT, membutuhkan perubahan budaya yang luas pada organisasi.
– JIT juga dapat mengubah langkah pekerjaan dan keseluruhan disiplin pekerjaan organisasi
n. Hal ini dapat menyebabkan perubahan struktural dalam area seperti susunan pengaturan took
o. Karena ide sentral dibalik JIT adalah untuk mengefektifkan usaha dan mengurangi waktu yang terbuang, banyak pihak yang berada di perusahaan merasa “sakit” saat dipersiapkan pada perubahan ini.
p. Karena JIT terletak pada tim kerja, sering secara individual mereka harus menyingkirkan kepentingan pribadi untuk kepentingan tim mereka.
q. Beberapa karyawan menemukan kesulitan ini, khususnya jika mereka datang dari lingkungan kerja dimana mereka bekerja pada komponen tunggal yang relatif terisolasi, atau kepribadian mereka tidak berorientasi pada kerja kelompok (team oriented)

Quality (Kualitas)
a. Kualitas biasanya dapat dilihat dari dua faktor utama, yaitu:
b. Kepuasan pelanggan berkaitan dengan atribut dan performa produk yang sesuai dengan harapan/keinginan.
c. Contoh: manfaatnya dan penjelasannya
d. Keyakinan bahwa aspek tehnik pada desain serta performa produk sesuai dengan standar pabrikasi.
e. Penampilan yang sesuai dengan standar yang diharapkan

Standar Kualitas
a. Kompetisi global mengharuskan pengembangan standar kualitas internasional
b. Sertifikasi perusahaan dibawah standar ini menunjukan kepada pelanggan bahwa manajemen telah terikat untuk mengikuti prosedur-prosedur dan proses yang memastikan memproduksi barang dan jasa dengan kualitas tertinggi.
c. Standar ISO 9000:2000 yang dikembangkan di Eropa adalah satu sertifikasi standar mutu yang dikenal secara luas

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ECONOMIC VALUE ADDED SEBAGAI UKURAN KINERJA DAN FILOSOFI PERUSAHAAN

Pendahuluan
Setiap entitas bisnis (perusahaan) mempunyai tujuan untuk memaksimalkan kekayaan para pemegang saham dengan meningkatkan nilai perusahaan dan semua aktivitas perusahaan harus diarahkan untuk mencapai tujuan tersebut. Keberhasilan entitas bisnis dalam memaksimalkan nilai perusahaan tergantung pada efektivitas gabungan tujuan antara tujuan para pemegang saham dan manajer melalui rancangan skema insentif yang tepat, meningkatkan produktivitas, memperluas jaringan dengan pemasok, distributor dan pemerintah yang efisien serta dengan mengurangi biaya transaksi. Dalam rangka mencapai keselarasan tujuan (goal congruence), kompensasi manajer sering dihubungkan dengan kinerja suatu pusat tanggung jawab dan juga dengan kinerja perusahaan. Oleh karena itu, pemilihan ukuran kinerja yang tepat adalah tahapan yang kritis bagi keberhasilan suatu perusahaan. Sebagian besar ukuran kinerja secara langsung berhubungan dengan laba bersih perioda sekarang, total aktiva, penjualan bersih. Contohnya adalah return on equity (ROE), return on assets (ROA), return on investment (ROI) dan operating profit margin. ROE mengukur kinerja dari perspektif pemegang saham, ROA mengukur imbal-hasil perusahaan yang diperoleh melalui pendayagunaan total aktiva, ROI mengukur tingkat pengembalian investasi (rasio perbandingan antara pendapatan yang dilaporkan pada laporan keuangan dengan aktiva yang digunakan) dan operating profit margin mengukur keberhasilan perusahaan dalam menghasilkan keuntungan melalui operasi perusahaan. Sedangkan laba bersih tergantung pada efisiensi operasi, financial leverage dan kemampuan perusahaan untuk merumuskan strategi yang tepat untuk menghasilkan keuntungan yang memuaskan.
Penilaian kinerja menggunakan ukuran-ukuran di atas lebih menitikberatkan pada maksimalisasi rasio laba daripada jumlah laba absolut, kurang mendorong manajer suatu divisi untuk menambah investasi dan sifatnya hanya jangka pendek sehingga dalam jangka panjang ada kemungkinan terjadi pertentangan dengan tujuan perusahaan. Pengukuran kinerja menggunakan ukuran seperti ROE, ROE dan ROI dapat menimbulkan perilaku disfungsional para manajer. Economic Value Added (EVA) membantu mendorong jenis perilaku yang benar dari para manajer dengan menunjukkan bahwa penekanan semata-mata pada pendapatan operasional tidaklah cukup.
Economic Value Added
Konsep EVA dikembangkan oleh Joel Stern dan Bennett Stewart, co-founders perusahaan konsultan Stern Stewart & Company, EVA merupakan merek dagang Stern Stewart & Company. Konsep EVA didasarkan pada prinsip bahwa perusahaan mampu menciptakan kekayaan untuk para pemegang saham hanya apabila manajer mampu menghasilkan surplus melebihi total cost of capital yang diinvestasikan. EVA adalah jumlah uang, bukan rasio. EVA dapat diperoleh dengan mengurangkan beban modal (capital charge) dari laba operasi bersih (net operating profit). EVA diukur dengan cara sebagai berikut:
EVA = Net profit – Capital charge
Capital charge = Cost of capital X Capital employed
Capital = total assets – non interest bearing debt, at the beginning of the year
Cost of capital =( cost of equity X proportion of equity) + ( cost of debt(1-tax
rate) X proportion of debt in the capital)
Cara lain EVA = Capital employed (ROI – Cost of capital)
Yang dimaksud dengan cost of capital adalah weighted average cost of capital (WACC), sedangkan cost of equity umumnya dihitung dengan menggunakan model CAPM yang menghubungkan tingkat pengembalian aset dengan risiko aset. Dari persamaan di atas, dapat diketahui kunci keunggulan EVA adalah bahwa EVA menekankan pada laba operasi setelah pajak (laba bersih) dan cost of capital aktual. Sehingga EVA menghubungkan laba dengan jumlah sumber daya yang dibutuhkan untuk mencapainya. EVA merupakan estimasi laba ekonomik perusahaan yang sebenarnya dan hal itu jelas berbeda dengan laba akuntansi. EVA menggambarkan laba residu yang tersisa setelah cost of capital, termasuk modal ekuitas, sedangkan laba akuntansi ditentukan tanpa membebankan modal ekuitas
Perusahaan dapat memotivasi para manajernya untuk mengarahkan usaha mereka pada maksimalisasi nilai perusahaan dengan cara, pertama mengukur nilai perusahaan dengan benar dan kedua dengan memberikan insentif kepada para manajer untuk menciptakan nilai. Kedua hal itu merupakan keadaan saling tergantung dan melengkapi. Dengan melihat kedua hal tersebut, maka EVA mempunyai peranan sebagai ukuran kinerja dan sebagai filosofi perusahaan. Sebagai ukuran kinerja, EVA mampu menghasilkan ukuran kinerja yang lebih akurat, komprehensif dan memberikan penilaian yang wajar atas kondisi perusahaan. EVA dapat dijadikan dasar pengambilan keputusan investasi yang mampu mengukur kemampuan perusahaan dalam menghasilkan tingkat pengembalian atas investasi yang dilakukan, karena cost of capital dihitung secara rata-rata tertimbang berdasarkan komposisi struktur modal yang ada.
EVA sebagai filosofi perusahaan, ketika perusahaan menerapkan EVA di semua level proses pengambilan keputusan manajerial, EVA mendorong manajer untuk menggunakan sumber daya hanya pada aktivitas yang meningkatkan nilai dan untuk menyelaraskan tujuan para pemegang saham dengan manajer serta mengurangi biaya keagenan (agency cost). Hal ini melibatkan dua hal, pertama menghubungkan paket kompensasi manajer dengan EVA dan kedua, menanamkan budaya untuk mengevaluasi setiap tindakan dari sudut pandang bahwa itu akan menghasilkan EVA. Bagaimanapun, dengan budaya EVA, fokus perusahaan secara keseluruhan adalah surplus ekonomi pada setiap aktivitas perusahaan.
EVA sebagai Ukuran Kinerja
EVA merupakan ukuran lebih baik bila dibandingkan dengan ukuran kinerja lain dalam empat hal yaitu lebih mendekati arus kas perusahaan yang sebenarnya; mudah dihitung dan dipahami; mempunyai korelasi yang lebih tinggi dengan nilai pasar perusahaan; dan penggunaan EVA dalam kompensasi karyawan mendorong keselarasan tujuan antara manajer dengan para pemegang saham, sehingga hal ini akan mengurangi perilaku disfungsional para manajer. Jika EVA benar-benar menggambarkan arus kas perusahaan yang sebenarnya, mudah dihitung dan dipahami, maka secara otomatis EVA memiliki korelasi positif yang lebih kuat terhadap perubahan-perubahan dalam nilai pasar perusahaan. EVA seharusnya dapat mengurangi perilaku disfungsional manajer ketika digunakan sebagai ukuran insentif. Dengan kata lain, hubungan yang dekat dengan penilaian pasar dan menyatukan kepentingan manajer dengan kepentingan para pemegang saham merupakan ciri khas EVA sebagai ukuran kinerja yang lebih baik. EVA digunakan untuk mengevaluasi kinerja manajer sebagai bagian dari program pemberian insentif, alasannya adalah EVA menunjukkan nilai tambah selama perioda tertentu dan EVA dapat diterapkan kepada unit-unit bisnis atau unit lainnya dari suatu perusahaan yang besar.
Keunggulan EVA sebagai ukuran kinerja tidak lepas dari kelemahan ukuran kinerja lain seperti ROI, ROA dan ROE yang didasarkan pada angka akuntansi. Salah satu kelemahannya adalah mengabaikan cost of equity dan hanya mempertimbangkan cost of debt. Sebagai hasilnya, hal itu akan mengabaikan risiko inheren suatu proyek dan gagal untuk menyoroti apakah tingkat pengembalian sepadan dengan risiko aset yang mendasarinya. Contohnya, keputusan-keputusan yang meningkatkan ROI suatu pusat investasi dapat menurunkan laba keseluruhan. Jika suatu pusat investasi sekarang memiliki ROI 30%, manajer dapat meningkatkan ROI dengan menjual aktiva yang ROI-nya 25%. Tetapi jika keseluruhan cost of capital yang terkait di pusat investasi tersebut kurang dari 25% maka laba absolut setelah mengurangkan cost of capital akan merupakan penurunan bagi pusat investasi tersebut. Pemakaian EVA sebagai ukuran berkaitan dengan permasalahan tersebut. Jika kinerja suatu pusat investasi diukur dengan EVA, maka investasi-investasi yang menghasilkan laba di atas cost of capital akan meningkatkan EVA dan oleh karena itu, akan lebih menarik para manajer.
Jika manajer mengetahui bahwa kinerja mereka diukur dengan EVA dan kompensasi yang akan diterima juga dihubungkan dengan EVA, maka manajer akan meningkatkan EVA dengan cara peningkatan ROI melalui business process reengineering dan productivity gains, tanpa menaikkan dasar investasi; divestasi aktiva, produk dan/atau bisnis yang ROI-nya kurang dari cost of capital; investasi agresif yang baru dalam aktiva, produk, dan/atau bisnis yang ROI-nya melebihi cost of capital; dan peningkatan penjualan, margin laba atau efisiensi modal. Ketika manajer melakukan salah satu atau lebih hal di atas maka nilai perusahaan akan meningkat. Jadi meningkatkan EVA secara teoritis akan meningkatkan nilai perusahaan dan karenanya ini adalah ukuran yang bagus bagi kinerja manajer.
Walaupun EVA sebagai ukuran kinerja memiliki keunggulan dibandingkan ukuran kinerja lainnya, masih banyak perusahaan yang mengalami kesulitan berkenaan dengan EVA. Kesulitan yang dihadapi kebanyakan perusahaan adalah menghitung cost of capital yang terpakai dan menghitung cost of equity dengan model CAPM. Dua langkah untuk menghitung cost of capital yang terpakai yaitu menentukan biaya tertimbang rata-rata atas modal (dalam persentase) dan menentukan total jumlah modal yang dipakai. Untuk menghitung biaya tertimbang rata-rata atas modal, perusahaan harus mengidentifikasi seluruh sumber dana yang diinvestasikan. Perhitungan cost of equity memakai model CAPM mendatangkan kesulitan tersendiri, karena sulit untuk mengukur berapa risk-free-rate of return, beta dan market premium.
Kesulitan makin bertambah jika perusahaan berada pada lingkungan ekonomi, dimana suku bunga berfluktuasi, indeks pasar modal mempunyai volatilitas yang tinggi dan kebijakan pemerintah yang tidak jelas. Oleh karena itu, EVA sebagai ukuran kinerja perusahaan lebih tepat diterapkan oleh perusahaan-perusahaan yang berada di negara yang kondisi perekonomiannya stabil. Kesulitan lainnya adalah EVA tidak dapat memberikan sinyal masa depan. EVA adalah ukuran perioda tunggal dan didasarkan pada peristiwa yang sudah terjadi. Jadi nilai EVA sekarang tidak memberikan sinyal apapun tentang EVA yang akan datang dan karenanya tidak memberikan indikasi apapun tentang kinerja yang akan datang.
EVA sebagai Filosofi Perusahaan
EVA sangat berguna untuk meningkatkan produktivitas perusahaan, apabila EVA diterapkan sebagai filosofi perusahaan. Produktivitas harus diukur dalam bentuk penciptaan kekayaan untuk para pemegang saham. Suatu filosofi perusahaan yang tepat harus menghasilkan keselarasan tujuan (goal congruence) dan harus menyalurkan semua usaha manajer dan karyawan ke arah tujuan dan strategi perusahaan yang telah ditetapkan sebelumnya. Perusahaan dapat meningkatkan nilainya hanya jika perusahaan mampu mencapai produktivitas optimal, dalam jangka waktu perioda yang panjang. Selama bertahun-tahun ahli manajemen dan konsultan telah mengusulkan banyak alat dan teknik untuk meningkatkan produktivitas. Alat dan teknik itu antara lain Management Information System (MIS), Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Meskipun semua alat tersebut mempunyai perspektif berbeda, tetapi tujuannya adalah meningkatkan produktivitas dalam arti fisik dan mengabaikan konsep nilai. MIS meningkatkan kualitas dan aliran informasi, BRP dengan menyederhanakan proses yang ada dan menghilangkan aktivitas yang tidak bernilai tambah, dan ERP dengan memastikan alokasi yang efisien dan utilisasi sumber daya perusahaan. Alat tersebut memudahkan perusahaan meningkatkan produktivitas dan efisiensi yang pada akhirnya akan meningkatkan laba perusahaan tetapi laba perusahaan yang meningkat, bukanlah jaminan untuk meningkatnya nilai para pemegang saham. Keberhasilan alat-alat ini digambarkan dalam pengurangan biaya pengiriman barang atau jasa kepada pelanggan, meskipun itu tidak selalu meningkatkan nilai para pemegang saham. Alat-alat tersebut gagal untuk membedakan aktivitas yang menciptakan nilai dan aktivitas yang menghancurkan nilai karena tidak mengukur surplus secara ekonomi yang dihasilkan oleh aktivitas yang berbeda.
EVA merupakan konsep yang mudah dipahami. EVA, sebagai filosofi perusahaan, memerlukan pemakaian EVA di setiap tingkat keputusan dalam organisasi. Sesungguhnya EVA harus diadopsi sebagai budaya dalam perusahaan daripada hanya digunakan untuk proyek. EVA ketika digunakan sebagai filosofi perusahaan tidak memerlukan estimasi yang tepat, oleh karena itu kesulitan dalam mengestimasi EVA tidak menjadi hambatan untuk membangun EVA sebagai budaya organisasi. Perusahaan dapat memperkirakan berapa kira-kira WACC sebagai cost of capital perusahaan yang akan digunakan dalam keputusan penganggaran modal. Oleh karena itu, tidak sulit bagi karyawan menggunakan EVA untuk pembuatan keputusan termasuk keputusan operasional.
Ada lebih dari 300 perusahaan yang telah menerapkan EVA sebagai filosofi perusahaan. Banyak dari perusahaan ini adalah perusahaan multinasional yang sukses seperti Coca-cola, Baush & Lomb, Briggs & Stratton dan Herman Miller. Budaya EVA dapat meningkatkan efisiensi dalam pemberian pelayanan dan memotivasi karyawan. Keunggulan EVA dibandingkan alat-alat lain (MIS, ERP,BRP) adalah kemampuan EVA meningkatkan nilai perusahaan karena mudah dipahami dan jelas secara konsep. EVA mempertimbangkan cost of capital dan hal ini harus dipahami oleh setiap orang yang terlibat dalam kegiatan operasional. Manajer berusaha untuk menyampaikan kepada semua karyawan bahwa setiap aktivitas adalah aktivitas yang meningkatkan nilai dan menghasilkan tingkat pengembalian melebihi cost of capital yang digunakan untuk aktivitas tersebut.
Seperti telah dijelaskan sebelumnya, metoda kompensasi berdasarkan EVA mampu mencapai keselarasan tujuan dan meminimalkan biaya keagenan (agency cost). Pemakaian EVA meningkatkan pengelolaan internal perusahaan dalam pengertian bahwa EVA memberikan motivasi kepada manajer untuk menghilangkan aktivitas yang bersifat merusak nilai dan hanya berinvestasi pada proyek yang diharapkan dapat meningkatkan nilai para pemegang saham.
Idealnya, sistem pengendalian manajemen harus mendorong manajer untuk mengendalikan dirinya sendiri daripada manajer yang diawasi karena manusia mempunyai kecenderungan tidak mau diawasi. Pemberian kompensasi yang dihubungkan dengan EVA membantu karyawan untuk mengawasi dirinya sendiri dalam setiap tindakan yang diambil untuk memastikan bahwa tindakan tersebut meningkatkan EVA perusahaan. Pemakaian EVA sebagai ukuran kompensasi, mendorong manajer menciptakan aktivitas yang bernilai sehingga pada akhirnya akan meningkatkan nilai perusahaan. Pemakaian EVA sebagai ukuran kompensasi dapat menghasilkan perbaikan dalam efisiensi operasi dengan meningkatkan perputaran aktiva; mengarahkan manajer untuk menggunakan aktiva perusahaan lebih produktif; membuang aktiva yang tidak berguna dan mengurangi investasi baru (asumsi jika aktiva tidak dapat menghasilkan tingkat pengembalian yang cukup jika dibandingkan dengan keseluruhan cost of capital); membantu mengurangi perbedaan tujuan/kepentingan antara manajer dengan para pemegang saham. Sehingga dapat disimpulkan bahwa EVA sebagai filosofi perusahaan dapat meningkatkan pengelolaan internal perusahaan dan menyelaraskan tujuan antara manajer dan para pemegang saham.
Kesimpulan
Konsep EVA didasarkan pada prinsip ekonomi yang sehat bahwa nilai perusahaan akan meningkat hanya jika dapat menghasilkan surplus melebihi cost of capital. Perusahaan memakai EVA secara internal sebagai ukuran kinerja untuk memperbaiki produktivitas yang pada akhirnya akan meningkatkan nilai para pemegang saham. EVA sebagai filosofi perusahaan dapat memberikan motivasi dan pembelajaran kepada karyawan untuk membedakan antara aktivitas penciptaan nilai dan aktivitas yang bersifat merusak nilai dan meningkatkan pengelolaan internal perusahaan. EVA akan mengarahkan seluruh usaha perusahaan dalam penciptaan nilai untuk para pemegang saham dan menyelaraskan tujuan manajer dengan tujuan para pemegang saham.

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The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations

Harvard University
Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations Working Paper No. 18
May 2003
The Public Value Scorecard:
A Rejoinder and an Alternative to "Strategic Performance Measurement and
Management in Non-Profit Organizations" by Robert Kaplan
By
Mark H. Moore
The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
The Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
This paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network
Electronic Paper Collection: http://ssrn.com/abstract=402880
Mark H. Moore is Professor of Criminal Justice Policy and Management and Director of
the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at the John F. Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University.
Abstract
Robert Kaplan's Balanced Scorecard has played an important and welcome role in the
nonprofit world as nonprofit organizations have struggled to measure their performance.
Many nonprofit organizations have taken both general inspiration and specific
operational guidance from the ideas advanced in this important work. Their pioneering
efforts to apply these concepts to their own particular settings have added a layer of
richness to the important concepts. Given the great contribution of this work to helping
nonprofits meet the challenge of measuring their performance, it seems both ungracious
and unhelpful to criticize it. Yet, as I review the concepts of the Balanced Scorecard,
and look closely at the cases of organizations that have tried to use these concepts to
measure their performance, I believe that some systematic confusions arise. Further, I
think the source of these confusions lies in the fact the basic concepts of the Balanced
Scorecard have not been sufficiently adapted from the private, for-profit world where
they were born to the world of the nonprofit manager where they are now being applied.
Finally, I think a different way of thinking about nonprofit strategy and linking that to
performance measurement exists that is simpler that and more reliable for nonprofit
organizations to rely upon. The purpose of this paper is to set out these contrarian ideas.
The Public Value Scorecard:
A Rejoinder and an Alternative to "Strategic Performance Measurement and
Management in Non-Profit Organizations" by Robert Kaplan
by
Mark H. Moore
I. The Revolutionary Impact of the Balanced Scorecard in Business and Non-Profit
Management
For commercial, business enterprises, the Balanced Scorecard posed a significant -- even
revolutionary – challenge. In the past, business firms had relied primarily on the famed
“bottom line” to measure their performance. Kaplan and Norton argued that this
essentially backward-looking financial measure was not adequate to guide strategic
decision-making in the fast-paced world of business at the end of the 20th century. They
criticized this common practice on three grounds.
First, they challenged the for-profit's world reliance on financial measures as the
exclusive focus of measurement. While they agreed that the financial performance
of the firm was the ultimate measure of the firm’s success, they went on to argue
that measures of financial success alone would not be adequate to guide choices
about how to become and remain financially successful. To be financially
successful, a private sector firm had to know more than its financial results. It had
to understand many more particular concrete things about how the firm was
positioned, how it was operating, and how it was developing its capabilities over
time. For these purposes, financial measures alone were inadequate. A firm had
to develop and use non-financial measures focusing on customer relations,
operations, and learning to be able to plan for sustained profitability in the future.
Second, they criticized the financial “bottom line” as too backward looking to be
of much use. They argued that instead of focusing attention on the organization’s
past performance, the organization should develop measures that focused the
attention of the firm on the factors that could sustain financial performance in the
future. Indeed, the principal reason to add the non-financial measures was not to
change the purpose of the firm (that remained to maximize profits over the long
run), but instead to focus attention on the aspects of the organization’s operations
that would allow it to become even more profitable in the future.
Third, since the long run success of a firm depended on its ability to imagine and
reliably execute a value creating strategy, it was important that the measures
developed for any particular organization be closely aligned with the particulars
of its overall strategic vision. The organization had to be looking not only at its
financial results, but also at the way it was executing its basic strategy, and the
extent to which that basic strategy still seemed a viable one.
In short, the Balanced Scorecard took a giant leap into the future for business managers
by urging them to go well beyond their traditional reliance on the “financial bottom line.”
It focused their attention not on what their financial performance had been in the past, but
what they needed to do to sustain that financial performance into the future. That, in turn,
shifted their attention from an exclusive focus on financial measures to the importance of
developing a set of non-financial measures that tracked their success in implementing an
agreed upon strategy.
Important as these ideas were to the for-profit sector, they resonated even more
powerfully in the non-profit world. The reasons are not hard to see.
First, for non-profit boards and managers who had long struggled to create a
something equivalent to a “financial bottom line” for their organizations, it came
as a great relief to have a leading business expert claim that financial measures
were inadequate to the task of measuring business performance and guiding
business operations. If business, with all its emphasis on financial performance,
needed non-financial measures to complement the financial measures, then how
much more important would it be for nonprofit enterprises to rely heavily on nonfinancial
measures. After all, while the ultimate goal of business was financial
performance, that was not true for nonprofits. Most nonprofits understood that
their goal was to produce valuable social results, not maximize financial
performance. Of course, nonprofits had to pay attention to their financial
performance to ensure their viability. And, it always seemed like it might be
possible for nonprofits to find ways of monetizing the value the social results they
produced. (Indeed, the interest in producing a true bottom line for nonprofits had
stimulated major efforts to achieve this particular goal.) But the starting point for
the measurement of nonprofit performance was the achievement of social results,
and that would necessarily involve the use of non-financial measures. To be
“authorized” to rely on non-financial measures as an acceptable way of measuring
organizational performance allowed nonprofits to focus on their primary mission.
Second, the idea that it was important to monitor not only ultimate results, but
also the state of relationships and processes that could be expected to lead to the
desired ultimate results was also important to nonprofit organizations. After all,
most nonprofits lived in a world where the results they sought were both
uncertain, and far into the future. This fact left them in an awkward position. On
one hand, if they stayed true to the principle that they ought to measure only
ultimate results, they would have to wait a long time for the results to appear.
That made it difficult for them to make themselves accountable to those who had
entrusted them with assets in the short run. It also made it difficult for them to
hold their own managers accountable for a result that was so far in the future. On
the other hand, if they measured intermediate processes, while they could create
some kind of accountability, they could not be sure that they were actually
producing the social results that justified their existence. When Kaplan and
Norton explained to business that they had to monitor both intermediate processes
(through non-financial measures), and ultimate results (measured through
financial measures), they simultaneously encouraged nonprofit managers to
measure both intermediate processes (measured through non-financial measures)
and ultimate results (also measure through non-financial measures).
Third, the idea that measurement systems should be closely tied to the execution
of a particular forward looking strategy for creating ultimate value also resonated
strongly in the nonprofit world. Nonprofit entities were learning about the
importance of having an explicit “logic model” or “value proposition” that would
establish the link between their own activities and the results they were trying to
achieve now and in the future. They increasingly thought of this as a “strategy” of
value creation they were trying to pursue. The idea that they should measure
intermediate results as well as ultimate outcomes forced them to think more
explicitly about these connections. Indeed, it seemed obvious that once they had
worked out their particular theory or strategy of value creation that they would
also then have identified some key points along the way where (non-financial)
measures could be used to monitor how reliably they were executing the strategy
they had agreed upon. If that strategy seemed to be succeeding, they could stay
the course. If, on the other hand, it seemed to be faltering, they would be forced to
learn and to change. That was far better than continuing along a path that had no
particular logic or evidence to commend it.
Fourth, the fact that the Balanced Scorecard recommended the use of multiple
measures that could not easily be compared or combined also offered some
welcome relief from the idea that nonprofit organizations needed some simple
summary statistic that could reveal their ultimate value. Instead of being forced to
figure out how accomplishments in changing adolescent attitudes towards
premarital sex could be evaluated against accomplishments in reducing out
adolescent out of wedlock births, both could be measured and used in the
evaluation of the overall efforts of a nonprofit organization devoted to reducing
the rate at which children were having children.
The fact that this discussion of ultimate goals, strategies to achieve them, and
measurements to check on both these things could be carried on using multiple, nonfinancial
metrics was a huge and welcome relief to the nonprofit world. It meant that they
didn't necessarily have to monetize the value of the results they intended to achieve. It
meant that they would be allowed to measure intermediate as well as final results. It
meant that they could look at multiple as well as single measures. It is no wonder that
nonprofit firms that had previously struggled with the challenge of developing “financial
bottom lines” took comfort in these ideas. Instead of having to twist themselves into the
shape of a for profit enterprise, they could turn their energies to doing what they should
have been doing from the outset: getting clear about the social results they were trying to
produce, the strategy that they thought would be successful in producing the results, and
measuring the extent to which they were being successful in implementing their strategy.
It is here, however, that the more specific ideas of the Balanced Scorecard began to get
into trouble, and to lead to confusion rather than enlightenment. The trouble comes from
both the general categorization of the different kinds of measures to be developed, and
with the emphasis to be given to the various families of measurements. These difficulties,
in turn, come from not sufficiently adapting the concepts to the unique characteristics of
the nonprofit environment.
II. Problems with the Balanced Scorecard in Non-Profit Management
The Balanced Scorecard (famously) argued that organizations should develop
measures that could be fitted within four different perspectives:
the financial perspective,
the customer perspective,
the operational perspective, and
the learning and growth perspective.
It also seemed to argue that these perspectives should be attended to roughly in that
particular order. The financial perspective remained at the top of this pyramid because
financial performance was the ultimate objective of a for-profit firm. The customer
perspective was second because it was understood that holding on to the loyalty and
enthusiasm of customers was a key future oriented strategy for maintaining financial
performance. Operations and learning were third and fourth because it was here that the
organization built value into the products and services it offered, and found ways to
reduce costs and/or increase quality, and/or when combined with marketing and strategic
planning, to develop new products that were important for the future.
While this framework can be made to work for nonprofit organizations, several features
seem incongruent with key aspects of nonprofit management.
A. Financial Measures as a Means Not an End
The most important difficulty lies in the emphasis that the Balanced Scorecard continues
to give to financial measures of performance. True, the Balanced Scorecard argued for
relaxing the stranglehold of financial measures on the imagination of for profit managers.
True also, Kaplan is clear to say in subsequent work addressed to nonprofit managers that
the “mission” of the nonprofit organization should occupy the place at the top of the
organization’s goal hierarchy. But the shift away from financial measures and toward
measures of mission accomplishment is less decisive than it needs to be to reflect the
important difference between the ultimate goals of for-profit and non-profit management.
The Balanced Scorecard recommended the use of non-financial measures to business
firms not because it sought to change the ultimate purposes of the firm. It did not attempt
to bring in measures of social responsibility that could “balance” the financial goals of
the firm and social goals such as protecting the environment, or living up to
responsibilities to communities in which they became important social, economic, and
political forces, or ensuring fair hiring practices and good working conditions for
employees. The whole purpose of the Balanced Scorecard was to help business entities
do even better in maximizing profits over time. The Balanced Scorecard recommended
the use of non-financial measures not to change the goal from maximizing profits to
something else, but because financial measures alone could not help managers figure out
how to sustain financial performance in the future.
In the non-profit sector, in contrast, what is important about non-financial measures is not
that they help us to understand how to make more money; it is that the goals we seek to
achieve through nonprofit organizations are social rather than financial, and that these
accomplishments are best measured by non-financial measures. Essentially, the ultimate
goal that nonprofit organizations seek to achieve – the ultimate value they hope to create
for society – is not sustained profitability, but the social ambitions outlined in their
mission. Typically, nonprofit missions are conceptualized and denominated in terms of
individual needs to be met, or social conditions to be brought about, or good works to be
completed. Ordinarily, the best way to measure such things is to do so concretely: to see
how many have been fed and how well, to see how many have been educated and to what
degree, etc. Of course, as noted above, it might be possible to impute some financial or
economic value to the accomplishments of nonprofit organizations by finding a way to
measure the concrete results they have and then monetizing those concrete results. But
that is always a poor substitute for the information about value that a business firm
obtains when willing customers plunk down hard earned dollars to consume a bit of what
the organization has on offer. In the common case, the best way to measure the value
created by nonprofit organizations is by developing measures of their success in
achieving their mission. That usually requires non-financial rather than financial
measures.
Note that this is not meant to imply that financial measures are unimportant to nonprofit
organizations. Nonprofit organizations have to be as concerned about their financial
viability – their ability to cover the costs of operating with revenues – as their private
sector peers. Otherwise, they will pass out of existence. They also have the same kind of
obligation (and many of the same kind of opportunities) to examine the costs of their
operation, and to figure out how to reduce the costs without sacrificing quality in what
they do. So, it is important for nonprofit organizations to have strong financial measures
that can tell them about their overall financial viability, and the costs of their operations.
The difficulty they have with the financial measures is that the financial measures alone
cannot tell them whether they are creating the public value they intended to create. They
have all the same financial information that their private sector counterparts have with
respect to their operating costs. They also have the same financial information their
private sector counterparts have with respect to their financial viability (i.e. their ability
to cover their operating costs with revenues from various sources). What the financial
measures do not tell them, however, is how much public value they have produced
through their efforts. To repeat, their goals are social goals, not financial ones. Their
value is not measured primarily by the willingness of customers to plunk down money to
consume the goods and services they offered. It is measured instead by non-financial
measures consistent with their social mission. For the Balanced Scorecard to keep the
financial measures at the top of the list of things to measure is, from the point of view of
the nonprofit manager, to treat what should be the means to an end (financial solvency to
sustain public good production) as the end in itself (financial profitability). It is also to
distract attention from the urgent task of being clear about what the organization means to
produce, and how to measure that in a reliable and effective way.
The important difference betweens for-profit and non-profit managers’ use of financial
and nonfinancial measures can be described in the following simple aphorism: For profit
managers need non-financial measures to help them find the means to achieve the end of
remaining profitable. Nonprofit managers, on the other hand, need non-financial
measures to tell them whether they have used their financial resources as effective means
for creating publicly valuable results. These are two very different ideas about why nonfinancial
measures of performance are important, with importantly different implications
for how non-financial measures are developed and deployed in the two different kinds of
enterprises.
B. Third Party Payers and Upstream Customers
A similar problem arises with the emphasis given to customers in the Balanced
Scorecard. Again, it is not surprising that a commercial enterprise would see the
satisfaction of customers, and the relationship that the firm has with its customers as an
important relationship to monitor as it tries to find and stay on a value-creating course.
Customers are important to a private firm both as a practical means of surviving and
remaining profitable, and as an important part of the social justification of the firm’s
activities. It is the customers’ continued willingness to buy a company’s products that
allows a company to survive and succeed. It is the customer’s decision to buy a product
or service that sustains the claim that the organization is creating something valuable for
society.
The difficulty in applying this concept to the nonprofit world, of course, is that it is by no
means clear who the important “customers” of nonprofit organizations are. Of course, if a
nonprofit organization is providing a service of some kind to individuals, and if those
individuals are paying a (more or less subsidized) price for the service, nonprofits have
customers who resemble customers in the for-profit world quite closely. Just as in the
private sector, the existence of customers who pay for the products and services supplied
by non-profits solves a (larger or smaller) part of the problem of staying alive and
profitable as a firm. And, it is their interest in consuming the product that provides part of
the social justification for the nonprofit’s activities.
Even if a nonprofit firm is providing beneficial services to individuals who pay nothing
for the good or service being provided, we might still say that the clients of the enterprise
are essentially “customers.” After all, they are the ones who get the service and benefit
from it, and they are where we expect to see customers – “downstream” in the production
process where the work of the organization finally achieves its purpose.
Yet, it should be clear that all nonprofit organizations have a different kind of “customer”
than the ones who buy their products and services, and/or benefit from the work of the
organizations. Generally speaking, most nonprofits have some third party payers that
cover some portion of the costs of producing the goods and services that the organization
delivers. Those third party payers typically include both charitable donors of various
kinds, and government. If nonprofits did not need or have a third party payer – if they
could support their activities entirely through sales to willing customers -- then they
would not have to be a nonprofit firm. They could operate successfully as a for-profit
entity. The only reason for a nonprofit firm to exist is if there is some social value that is
to be produced that cannot be covered by a revenue stream generated by willing and
financially able customers.
If there is always a third party payer of some kind in a nonprofit enterprise, then it
becomes important for nonprofit organizations to focus on these “upstream customers”
who contribute resources as well as those that they meet “downstream” at the production
end of the organization. The upstream customers – the donors who contribute to the
cause, the government that agrees to pay for services to particular clients or to achieve
particular social outcomes through the activities of the nonprofit organization – are
certainly practically important to the nonprofit organization. If they don’t put their money
into the nonprofit organization, it will cease to exist.
But these entities are also normatively important to nonprofit organizations since
satisfying the expectations and demands of these contributors and contractors is an
important moral and legal obligation of the nonprofit organization. They are the ones who
as both a practical and a normative matter get to arbiter the value of what the nonprofit
organization produces. Of course, the donors and the government may say that the
important goal of the nonprofit organization is to satisfy a particular group of clients that
they deem deserving of their assistance. But it is often true that both donors and
governments want something different (or more) than the satisfaction of the clients the
nonprofit organizations serve. Often, they want to achieve social outcomes by helping
particular clients. They support job training programs not only to help particular
unemployed workers get jobs that would make them happy, but also to reduce aggregate
unemployment and redeem the broader social objective of ensuring equal economic
opportunity for all. They support drug rehabilitation efforts not only to help individual
drug users escape the trap of addiction that has ruined their lives, but also to reduce crime
and enhance security in the communities in which the drug users live. Insofar as these
“upstream customers” pay for social outcomes as well as the satisfaction of individual
clients, they become important customers for social results rather than individual
products and services. Exactly how to keep such clients happy differs from the task of
sustaining the loyalty of those who buy products and services in the private sector.
C. Partnerships Rather than Competitive Advantage
There is one last distorting element of the Balanced Scorecard that is important to note.
Implicit in the conception of the Balanced Scorecard is a particular view of what should
drive the overall strategy of an organization; namely, that organizations succeed by
adopting a “competitive strategy” that makes the best use of the “distinctive competence”
of the firm. The challenge facing an organization’s management team is to find a way to
develop and exploit a competitive advantage with other firms so that it can capture and
hold onto a significant share of the markets in which they are operating. Indeed, it is this
perspective that provides the focus the two “internal” measures of the organization’s
performance: the operational perspective, and the learning and growth perspective. It is
by paying close attention to operations – including opportunities to enhance quality and
productivity – that firms can maintain their competitive edge in existing markets. It is by
adopting a learning and growth perspective (combined with a sure sense of what
customers want) that can allow firms to spot and exploit emerging opportunities in the
market where they can enjoy a competitive advantage.
Again, insofar as these perspectives focus the attention of nonprofit organizations on their
internal operations, and the adaptations they can make to changing technologies and to
changing market demands for their products and services, these measures are welcome in
the nonprofit as well as the for profit world. The difficulty with these concepts in the
nonprofit world is less in the importance of developing these measures, than in the
motivation that justifies them. More specifically, for most nonprofit organizations a deep
question exists as to whether their goal is to develop a competitive advantage in the
markets in which they are operating vis-à-vis other nonprofit organizations, and to
capture and hold onto a significant share of the market; or whether their goal should be to
strengthen the industry as a whole by widely sharing their ideas about what works, and by
encouraging as many other firms to enter the industry as possible.
Of course, we all understand that, as a practical matter, nonprofit organizations are
importantly competitive with one another. This is particularly true when they are trying to
persuade donors and governments that their approach to a given problem, and that their
capabilities for dealing with a particular problem are superior to their “competitors.”
Such arguments increase the likelihood that they will attract the lion’s share of donations,
or win the competition for the government grant or contract.
Yet, as a normative matter, we also want nonprofit organizations to co-operate with one
another when it comes to dealing with the social problems they are trying to solve. The
reason is partly that the social problems they confront are typically very large relative not
only to the resources of a single nonprofit organization, but also relative to all the
nonprofit organizations working on that particular problem. Since the resources are
typically so small relative to the size of the problem, it often seems silly for the leaders of
these enterprises to spend much time and effort squabbling among one another about who
should have the pre-dominant role. It seems much more appropriate for the organizations
to sit down and pool their combined resources to see how they can make the greatest
combined contribution to the solution of the problem they embraced. Moreover, precisely
because the goal of nonprofits is to achieve social results without worrying too much
about earning financial or material rewards for doing so, it seems that nonprofit
organizations should be willing to set aside their narrow interests in protecting their
organization’s competitive position for the broader purposes of achieving the desired
results. Instead of seeing other firms in their market as competitors, then, they should see
them as partners and collaborators in dealing with a problem to which all are committed
to solving, but for which none has the only answer, or the only needed capacity.
Nonprofit firms that develop good approaches to dealing with a problem should, in
principle, be willing to give that new technology away to other firms who want to work
with it rather than hold it as an asset that gives them a competitive advantage in their
industry.
These observations suggest that when one is using the Balanced Scorecard to examine an
organization’s performance from either the operational or the learning perspective, it
might be important to change the unit of analysis from the organization itself, to the
industry as a whole in which the organization is operating. It may be important for a
nonprofit organization to think of itself as having responsibilities for strengthening the
industry’s overall ability to deal with problems rather than developing and holding onto a
large market share within the industry. While it might be advantageous for the nonprofit
firm to develop and exploit a distinctive competence in terms of its own survival and
growth, that survival and growth could come at the expense of achieving the social goals
to which it was originally committed. The alternative would be to co-operate with other
firms in a combined effort to deal with a social problem that was beyond the capacity of
any single organization to achieve.
III. An Alternative: The “Public Value Scorecard”
An alternative way of developing a useful method for measuring nonprofit performance
would be to take all the important wisdom offered by the idea of the Balanced Scorecard
– that non-financial measures are important, that process measures are important as well
as outcome measures, that a measurement system ought to support the execution of an
agreed upon strategy – but to put this wisdom to work through the use of strategic
concept that seems more appropriate to nonprofits than the competitive strategy model
that seems to drive so much of Kaplan and Norton’s thought. The alternative strategic
conception is one that I have elsewhere described as the “Public Value Strategy.”
A. The Public Value Strategy
The basic idea behind the public value strategy can be captured in a simple mnemonic
device: the “strategic triangle” presented as Figure 1. This triangle directs the attention of
nonprofit boards and managers to three calculations that they should make in advance of
committing their organization to any overall strategy.
The first point of the triangle – the value circle – focuses attention on the key question of
what constitutes the ultimate value that the organization seeks to produce. In the for-
profit world, that value would be something like the maximization of shareholder wealth,
or sustained profitability – goals that can be captured quite well in financial terms. In the
nonprofit world, however, the value that is to be produced usually involves social
objectives such bringing relief to distressed humans, or altering social conditions in some
important way, or producing some important public work that can be enjoyed by all.
These goals cannot typically be usefully summarized in financial terms. They describe
particular people to be aided in particular ways, or particular social conditions to be
achieved through the work of the nonprofit firm. Whatever these goals might be –
however lofty and intangible they might seem – it is important for the purposes of setting
a strategy and successfully managing the enterprise, that these goals be explicitly stated
and defended as important social goals to pursue.
The second point of the triangle – the legitimacy and support circle – focuses attention on
those “customers” we described above as “upstream customers” or “third party payers.”
Again, if nonprofits were just like for-profit entities, we might not need to have a
legitimacy and support circle in our strategic calculation. Virtually all of the financial
support and much of the social legitimacy of a for-profit firm comes from delivering
products and services that individual customers are willing to buy. The fact that they put
down their money to buy the provides both the financial resources the firm needs to stay
in business, and assures us that these individuals value the produce and service – thereby
conferring some kind of legitimacy on the enterprise as well as guaranteeing its survival.
But nonprofits are not just like for-profit entities. They receive donations of various kinds
from third party payers who do not benefit directly from the operations of the firm. They
are provided with grants or hired by government to produce results that the electorate has
asked them to achieve. Presumably, they earn these revenues by promising the donors
and government something that they want – some kind of public value rather than
financial returns. Depending on what public value they intend to produce, donors and
governments can either show up to support them or not, just like regular customers in the
for-profit world. The important difference is that the value they get is a social value that
aligns with their purposes rather than a private financial return that comes from selling a
product or service well above cost.
Because these third party payers are important, and because their support essentially
constitutes a vote in favor of the public purpose that the nonprofit organization is
producing, it is important in thinking about strategy in the nonprofit sector that we think
about where the legitimacy and support from the enterprise will come as well as the value
that will be produced. A nonprofit cannot simply assume that if it produces something of
public value that either financial support or legitimacy will be forthcoming. It has to earn
its standing not just in the community of consumers, but also in the community of donors
and governments that are pursuing various public purposes.
The third point of the triangle focuses attention on “operational capacity” – the question
of whether the enterprise has the ability to achieve the desired goals. Note that the
concept is “operational capacity” not “organizational capacity.” The reason is the point
made above: namely, that when nonprofit organizations are trying to achieve social
outcomes, they often need assistance from other organizations to help them. They are
rarely large enough to accomplish important social goals all by themselves. They need
other entities in their “industry” to act as partners, or collaborators, or co-producers of the
desired results. This means that nonprofit organizations must often face important choices
about how much of their resources to expend on themselves, and how much to use in
mobilizing contributions from other organizations with whom they might work to
accomplish their shared goals.
The three points of the triangle have been represented here as important calculations that
responsible boards and managers should make when conceiving a sustainable, value
creating strategy for a nonprofit organization. Inevitably, these calculations also become
the focus of measurement systems used to monitor the execution and the success of the
strategic vision. Just as Kaplan and Norton suggest the use of measures that explicate the
financial perspective, the customer perspective, the operational perspective, and the
learning and growth perspective, I am advocating the use of a set of measures that
explicate the public value perspective, the legitimacy and support perspective, and the
operational capacity perspective. Some ideas about what these measures might be are
presented below.
B. Recognizing Public Value in Nonprofit Organizations
The key feature of the measurement system that focused on "value" would be some kind
of pyramid of values, goals, and objectives that would allow the organization to
recognize (in an accounting sense) the extent or degree to which it was achieving its
intended mission. Often, this pyramid of values, mission, goals, and objectives turns out
to be difficult to construct. The reason is that it is not clear how one moves from a very
abstract, general idea of the organization's mission (e.g. to promote the welfare of
mankind) to more concrete and specific objectives that are more easily observable and
measurable (e.g. deliver nutritious food to a particular village that has been hit hard by
famine.) The relationship between the most general ideas that define the overall mission
of an organization on one hand, and the more concrete, particular goals or objectives that
serve to provide more specific operational guidance to the organization, and make it
possible to hold an organization accountable for performance on the other, can be
variously understood.
One possibility, for example, is that the general ideas of mission define the "ends" of the
organization (i.e. the valued results), while the more particular goals and objectives
describe the "means" the organization relies upon to achieve the desired results. A handy
way to think about this conception is that there is some kind of "value chain" or "logic
model" that specifies the relationship between desired outcomes on one hand, and the
resources, processes, activities, and outputs that are required to achieve the desired
results..
For example, one can say that the mission of the organization is to "improve the health of
children." Important means to that end include: 1) ensuring the nutrition and general
health of pregnant women; 2) effective immunization against childhood disease; and 3)
regular physicals infants and toddlers. Each of these is a means to the end of ensuring the
health of children. Each of these activities, in turn, has its own technical, operational
requirements. To ensure the nutrition and general health of pregnant women, we would
have to develop some methods for getting in touch with these women, and some method
of working with them to ensure that they kept their health and nutrition up. To provide
effective immunization, we would, once again, have to have some means for getting in
touch with the children who needed to be immunized, and some means for delivering the
immunizations safely and inexpensively. And so on.
The point is that we understand the relationship between our ultimate mission and our
sub-goals and objectives in terms of an ends/means logic: the mission is the end, the
goals and objectives specify the means for achieving the desired end. Figure 1 presents a
graphic illustration of this idea. In this conception, the logic that links mission to goals
and objectives is a causal theory that claims that if we engage in a particular set of
activities we will, in fact, achieve the desired result. That theory, of course, is open both
to skeptical reasoning in advance of real evidence, and to more or less rigorous empirical
testing.
A slightly different idea is that the important relationship between broad mission on one
hand, and more narrow goals and objectives on the other is that the broad mission
describes the most comprehensive and ambitious purposes of the organization, while
goals and objectives define results that represent a subset of the organization's most
ambitious goals. For example, we may have as our mission the protection of the health of
children. We understand that in order to achieve this goal, we might have to provide
services to support maternal health, provide immunization and good medical care for
kids. Further, that we would like to do this not only for the kids in Delhi, India, but also
for the kids throughout India, or Asia, or the world.
If we provide immunization to 1,000 kids Delhi, we can say that that is a contribution to
the overall mission. But it is a contribution in two slightly different respects. On one
hand, insofar as the immunizations have a positive effect on the heath of the kids in
Delhi, we can say that we have found an effective means for accomplishing our objective.
On the other hand, insofar as our target population ultimately includes all the kinds in the
world, we can say that we have made a contribution toward the goal of ensuring the
health of children by accomplishing that goal (more or less completely) for a segment of
the population that we were trying to reach. This is en route to achieving our goal, but it
is on a path that reaches the ultimate goal by increasing the scale of the effort, not finding
an effective means. The relationship between the larger mission and the smaller goals and
objectives is one of addition and aggregation; not means and ends. If we did exactly the
same thing in all the cities of the world, we would say that we had achieved our ultimate
mission.
A third idea is that the relationship between the broad, general mission on one hand, and
narrower goals and objectives can also be understood as a move from "long term" goals
to "short term objectives." In this formulation, one could say that the broad goal was to
reduce infant mortality rates across the world by 20% over the next ten years. The short-
term goals might include things as increase inoculations against measles in South Africa
by 200% in the next year, or develop a new milk substitute that could nourish infants
whose mothers had died shortly after their birth. Here, the pyramid of goals and
objectives includes the idea that lower level ideas are means to the end, but they are also
understood to be things that can be accomplished in the short run versus the long run.
Finally, the move from the broadest ideas to more specific, concrete and measurable
ideas as a move from an abstract concept, to a specification of what we mean by the large
idea. Thus, for example, one could move from the idea of promoting children's health to
the idea that the goal was to reduce deaths before age 5, or to reduce days lost from
school, or to ensure that children had their eyes tested and their vision corrected with
glasses. In this case, we are describing what we mean by children's health in more
specific and detailed terms. The narrower goals and objectives are constitutive of the
larger mission.
Obviously, there is much to be said about efforts to construct the pyramids of missions,
goals, and objectives that capture at a conceptual level the value that nonprofits are trying
to produce, and the specific performance measures that will allow us to measure the
extent to which they are achieving their goals. For example, it is now the conventional
wisdom among those giving advice to those creating performance measures in the public
sector that a good performance measurement system would be one which focused
attention on a small number of outcome measures. I think there are lots of reasons to
doubt the wisdom of that advice.
I, for one, would not be inclined to take the advice that there should only be few
measures. The reason is that I think that most organizations produce quite a large number
of important effects on society -- some good, some bad. It seems important for strategic
management purposes that we be alert to a large number of possible effects, including
those that are unintended. Otherwise, we risk optimizing performance on a narrow set of
objectives and producing losses along dimensions that were not measured.
Similarly, I would be wary of relying only on outcomes. The reason is that while it is
extremely valuable to have information about outcomes, the systems that capture reliable
information about the outcomes of nonprofit efforts are usually not particularly helpful in
managing organizations in the short run. The efforts to measure outcomes are too
expensive and too slow to provide comprehensive, fast feedback about how an
organization is performing. It is important to measure performance with respect to
outcomes, of course. How else could an organization know if it was achieving its ultimate
goals. But it would be wrong, I think, to limit performance measurement to outcomes,
because that robs nonprofit managers and overseers of the information they need to hold
the organization accountable on a real time basis. Nonprofit managers are probably going
to need a mix of outcome, output, process and input measures to allow them to recognize
value in what they are doing, and find ways to improve their performance.
C. Gauging Legitimacy and Support for Nonprofit Missions
The second circle of the "strategic triangle" focuses attention on the sources of legitimacy
and support for nonprofit enterprises. The implicit claim is if nonprofit managers are to
keep their attention focused on both the overall success and sustainability of their
strategy, they have to develop and use measures that monitor the strength of their
relationship with financial supporters, and public legitimaters and authorizers as well as
those that record their impact on the world. This information is as important to nonprofit
organizations as customers would be to a for-profit entity.
For many purposes, it is useful to keep the ideas of legitimacy and support together. After
all, the more legitimacy an organization has in the eyes of the world, the better its
chances of raising money, attracting volunteers, and enjoying the kind of deference and
trust that will allow it to operate relatively autonomously in the world. And, it is
important to keep in mind that the sources of legitimacy and support often come from all
stakeholders, not just clients, and not just donors. Yet, for purposes of constructing a
public value scorecard, it is probably useful to break this big idea into smaller bits that
can be measured.
For example, it is obviously important for INGO's to focus on sources of revenue, and the
state of their relationships with those who provide financial revenues to the organization.
Many INGO's have multiple sources of revenue. They have charitable donors. They have
members or regular contributors. They have government financial supporters. And they
sometimes have paying customers for some of their operations. Some organizations may
even have endowment income, or income generated from investments through effective
cash management. In addition, there are many nonprofits that rely not only on financial
support from individuals, but also other material contributions such as time, tissue, and
material. The American Red Cross, for example, could not operate without a sustained
flow not only of financial contributions from financial supporters, but also a flow of time
from their volunteers, and a flow of blood from unpaid blood donors. Money might well
be the most valuable resource contributed by supporters and donors, simply because it is
the most fungible, and requires the least work to make it fit the ultimate purposes of the
organization. But it would be a great mistake to ignore the importance of both volunteer
time and material contributions to many nonprofit organizations.
In principle, one can imagine constructing a set of performance measures that monitor
how well the organization is doing in raising financial revenues and other material
resources from these different sources, and in maintaining satisfactory relationships with
the contributors. One way to think about this would be to imagine that each of the sources
of revenues constitutes an "account" that the organization is trying to maintain or further
develop further. The "accounts" could be ordered in terms of their size and strategic
importance to the organization. The larger ones attended to more closely than the smaller
ones. Performance objectives could be set with respect to each account just as they are for
private sector firms. The entire set of accounts could be monitored to determine whether
it was expanding or contracting; whether it was becoming more or less concentrated; and
whether the substantive or political focus of the set of accounts was changing over times
in ways that did or did not align with the long run strategy of the organization. The entire
set of accounts could also be examined in light of who was not present in the set of
accounts who might be recruited to support the organization financially and materially. In
some sense, as the set of accounts grew larger, more loyal and more generous, one could
say that the potential of the organization to achieve its mission would be increasing.
One further point is worth making about the measurement of the quality of the
organization’s relationship with those who contribute their money, their time, and their
property to nonprofit organizations. The most natural way for nonprofit mangers to think
about their relationship to financial and material supporters is to think of them primarily
as means of achieving the nonprofit mission; not as an end in itself. In this conception,
the ultimate ends of the nonprofit organization lies in the achievement of its mission. All
the value of the organization lies "downstream" in its production processes at the delivery
end of the organization rather than "upstream" where the organization raises resources to
pursue its objectives.
It is worth noting, however, that the efforts to attract financial support from contributors -
- particularly charitable donors -- could be understood as an end as well as a means of the
organization. In this conception, there are many private individuals throughout the world
who are looking for a particular product and service that they value. This particular
product and service is an opportunity for them to give their money to causes in which
they believe. Their aims can be largely expressive: they simply want to align themselves
with an organization that stands for a particular set of values, and enjoy the experience of
standing with like-minded persons. Or, they can have instrumental aims that are linked to
helping particular individuals, or establishing particular relationships with other human
beings in much different social circumstances than themselves, and be glad to find an
organization that can deliver their assistance and construct the relationship in an efficient
way. Or, they can have instrumental aims focused on trying to alter aggregate social
conditions in the world, and be glad to find an organization that can parlay their small
contribution into a larger social effect.
The point is that in each of these cases the donor is getting some significant value out of
the transaction, and that this value exists somewhat independently of the achievement of
the desired goals at the production end of the organization. Of course, I don't want either
to demean the motivations of the givers by suggesting that they don't really care about the
ultimate impact, and are giving only for the "selfish" reason of feeling good about
themselves. Nor do I mean to diminish the fiduciary responsibility that a nonprofit
organization has to its donors to find efficient and effective means of using their
contributions to achieve the desired results. I am simply pointing out that in any full
accounting of the value produced by nonprofits, we would have to include the satisfaction
that the donors found in being able to contribute money to a purpose that they cared
about. Having organizations to meet this kind of human aspiration seems at least as
important as having organizations that can meet the demand for sweet smelling soap.
And, if the customer satisfaction with the purchase of sweet smelling soap counts as a
part of enhanced social welfare, then the donor satisfaction in finding a way to satisfy his
or her desire to help should count as well -- above and beyond the impact that the
donation has on either the clients or states of the world that the nonprofit entity is trying
to affect.
In addition to financial and material contributions to nonprofit organizations, a public
value scorecard would also focus attention on what might be considered the flow of
authorizations or political legitimation that nonprofits receive that allow them to operate,
or to have important political influence with those they seek to influence. In constructing
a performance measurement system for political authorization and legitimation, it might
be useful to think of the organization as having a set of accounts with those who provide
“licenses to operate” or “vouch for the organization with other players” as well as those
that provide material and financial resources. That set of accounts would include all those
from whom the organization was receiving financial and material contributions for the
simple reason that their material contributions represent enthusiasm for the cause as well
as material resources
Beyond the material contributors, however are other "accounts" that are important
because they affect the nonprofits’ formal or informal authorizations to act, or their
overall public legitimacy and reputation. This includes government chartering
organizations. It may also include government taxing authorities. It may even include
accounting organizations, or accrediting organizations, or other professional peers who
talk about the performance of the organization. The set of “legitimating accounts” would
also include the media that covers the nonprofit and its activities, and any rating agencies
that came into existence that provided rankings of a nonprofits performance. What is
needed from these accounts is not a flow of material resources, but instead a flow of
“good will” or enthusiasm for the nonprofit. The more of this the organization has, the
easier it will be for it to raise funds, to attract volunteers, to exercise effective leadership
in the industry of which it is a part, and to act independently and creatively on behalf of
its goals. Just as in the case of the set of accounts representing material supporters, it
would be important for a nonprofit organization to evaluate both the quality of its
relationship with individual accounts, and to see the shape and character of the overall set
of accounts.
D. Measuring Operational Capacity
The third component of the strategic triangle directs a non-profit board or manager’s
attention to what is described as "operational capacity." This is the apparatus that
converts the political authorization and the fungible material resources provided to the
organization into important results in the world; in essence, the technologies that convert
inputs into outputs, and outputs into satisfied clients and desired outcomes.
Figure 2 presents a schematic diagram of the “operational capacity” of a nonprofit
organization in the form of a “value chain.” The idea of a value chain is that there is some
kind of process that converts the fungible inputs the organization receives from its
“authorizing environment” to a set of outputs. (An output is defined as the set of
activities and transactions that the organization produces right at its boundary.) The value
chain also identifies the particular processes and activities it now relies upon to produce
its outputs. As Figure 2 illustrates, all these steps are either internal to the organization, or
right at the boundary of the organization, and therefore relatively easy and inexpensive
for the organization to monitor if it chooses to do so.
But Figure 2 also shows that the “value chain” for a nonprofit organization stretches
beyond the activities and outputs of the organization itself. Out there in the world beyond
the organization’s boundaries (and not subject to its direct control) the outputs of the
organization are turned into something that could be described as client satisfaction (or
benefits) on one hand, and something that could be described as social outcomes on the
other. Just as the ultimate value of a private sector firm’s operations lie in the satisfaction
that is generated among consumers, so the ultimate value of a nonprofit organization can
be measured by the satisfactions and benefits it delivers to its clients, or in the social
results that it produces for society at large. This value is measured (imperfectly) in
private sector organizations right at the boundary of the organization when customers put
their money down, and reveal how much they value the output of the private entity. It is
measured much less perfectly (and much more expensively!) when nonprofits look down
the value chain beyond the boundaries of the organization and ask whether they have not
only satisfied their clients, but also helped them to change their lives, and to achieve the
social outcomes that they intended to achieve.
Figure 2 also points beyond the boundary of the non-profit organization to focus on
“partners” and “co-producers” as well as the organization itself. The reason is that in the
public value concept, the idea of "operational capacity" is a larger idea than
"organizational capacity." When we are looking at the "operational capacity" of a
nonprofit to achieve its desired results, we can begin with the organization itself: the
bundle of assets it controls, the quality of the people employed by the organization, the
set of operating procedures and technologies it has at its command to accomplish certain
purposes, and so on. That is what we examined first in looking at operational capacity.
But most nonprofits depend on people outside the organization to help them achieve their
goals as well. In the private sector, these outsiders would be called suppliers. In the
nonprofit world, these outsiders are called "partners" or "co-producers" of the desired
outcomes. In some cases, these are "partner agencies" with which a nonprofit co-operates
to deliver aid, or build the social, economic or political capacity of their clients, or to
achieve political goals and objectives. It might also include firms that in the for-profit
world would be viewed as competitors since they are working in the same industry, and
competing for the subject organization with other nonprofit organizations. At other times,
the co-producers include the clients themselves, since these organizations cannot succeed
without the clients taking actions in furtherance of the nonprofit goals.
As Figure 2 illustrates, a nonprofit organization can spend its own resources directly to
produce outputs that are thought to lead to client satisfaction or social outcomes. Or, it
can spend its resources indirectly to support the effort of partners and co-producers to
help it accomplish its goals. These efforts could take the form of packaging and
disseminating ideas, or providing technical assistance of various kinds to partner groups.
Or, it could take the form of developing a political environment that mobilizes other
organizations to participate with the originating nonprofit in its efforts. Or, it could take
the form of joint planning and contracting to execute specific projects that are in line with
the nonprofit organization’s mission.
The point is that one important way in which non-profit organizations can create social
value is by “leveraging” the efforts of other organizations who share their goals, or who
have capabilities that the non-profit can use. To measure this kind of effort, it is
important to measure the specific activities the organization relies upon to exploit these
partnership opportunities, and to measure the ways in which their leverage efforts pay off
in the form of increased activity by their partners and co-producers. Indeed, there are
some nonprofit organizations – often called capacity building nonprofit organizations –
whose only value lies in the support they give to other direct-producing organizations.
(These might be thought of as the functional equivalent of consulting firms in the private
sector.)
While Figure 2 gives us a conceptually rich picture of the kind of operational capacity a
nonprofit organization might have in trying to achieve its desired social results, it has two
important weaknesses. First, Figure 2 it seems to suggest that nonprofit organizations
have a relatively homogeneous and standard production process: that there is only one
thing that the organization does on behalf of its mission. The reality, however, is much
different than this. Most nonprofit organizations are complex organizations containing
many different activities or “product lines” which have more or less direct and complex
relationships to the achievement of the organization’s mission. As noted above, a
nonprofit enterprise that sought to prevent children from having children could have
programs that were designed to encourage sexual abstinence, or the use of contraceptives,
or information about abortion, or the development of adoption opportunities. One could
say, then, that for each of these distinct processes or activities there was a separate “value
chain.” Further, one could say that some part of the organization’s value chain would be
the process that connected these various activities into an ultimate impact on the number
of infants who were being raised by parents under the age of 18.
Second, Figure 2 essentially presents a static picture of a nonprofit organization’s
“organizational” and “operational” capabilities. It does not suggest that these operational
capabilities might be transformed over time by adaptations and innovations made by the
organization. Obviously, the idea of operational capacity can be viewed simultaneously
as a fixed quantity, and as something that can develop over time. At any given moment,
an organization has a certain set of capabilities. It knows how to do certain things. It has
resources committed to the doing of those things. As noted above, the set of things the
organization does can include a small set of standard activities and products, or it can
include a wider variety of customized activities and projects. Viewed over time, the
capabilities of an organization can change as a result of more or less self-consciously
planned innovations and investments. It can change its scale. It can develop new ways of
accomplishing old results. It can bring new products and services on line.
It is worth noting that important innovations and adaptations can occur in many different
ways inside organizations. Sometimes, the innovations and adaptations happen in the
midst of operations as those doing the work encounter a new problem that they haven’t
seen before. Their solution to this problem may turn out to have important implications
for how the organization as a whole does its work. Other times, innovations and
adaptations occur as the result of a conscious, centrally directed effort to initiate
experiments with new methods, or with new activities. This second kind of innovation
often is supported by investment funds of one kind or another.
It is important for most organizations – but particularly those that are operating in
particularly heterogeneous and/or dynamic environments – to be able to learn new ways
of doing its current work, and finding new, valuable uses for the organization in society.
As a result, they have to develop some means for recognizing the ways in which the
organization is learning. This means having some method of recognizing when an
unplanned adaptation or innovation occurred in the organization, working out its
implications, and (when appropriate) spreading the new insights and technologies around
the organization as quickly as possible. It also means that they have to have some way of
initiating explicit experiments designed to show them how to work better, and being able
to measure the results.
This important distinction between doing well what the organization now knows how to
do, and learning and developing overtime is picked up in the Balanced Scorecard as the
difference between the operational perspective on one hand, and the learning and
development perspective on the other. In the public value scorecard, we make the
distinction between current operations on one hand, and innovations and investments to
improve operational performance on the other.
More concretely, we can say that the effective measurement of operational capacity in the
public value scorecard typically begins with measures of organizational output. Often,
organizational outputs are closely tied to, or an intrinsic part of what we discussed in the
section on recognizing value in organizations. Insofar as we have constructed a pyramid
of mission, goals, and objectives that identifies the means of achieving desired results as
well as the desired results, we will have necessarily included some measured of desired
organizational outputs as well as desired outcomes. This follows simply because the
“value chain” portrayed in Figure 2 can be seen as a blown up version of the part of the
“strategic triangle” that links operational capacity to public value.
The organizational output measures should be joined by a set of productivity or efficiency
measures. These measures check the relationship between the quantity and quality of
output on one hand, and the costs of producing those outputs on the other. These can be
supplemented by measures that focus on overhead or direct operating costs to offer
assurances that the organization is operating in a lean way, and delivering a large fraction
of its value to its clients. (This is particularly important for nonprofit organizations that
are often evaluated primarily in terms of their “efficiency” in delivering contributions to
clients).
For nonprofit organizations, it will also be important to produce measure of financial
integrity. By financial integrity, I mean numbers that provide estimates of how much (if
any) money was lost to fraud, waste, or abuse in the operation. Again, there is lots of
pressure to deliver resources through the value chain without having too much of the
resources leak out the sides.
A fourth measure of operational capacity that is particularly important for nonprofit
organizations is some measure of the current state and trends in staff morale and
capabilities. This is important in any organization. It might be particularly important in
nonprofit organizations for the simple reason that many of the people working in
nonprofit organizations are either volunteers, or quasi-volunteers; that is, there are many
people working in the organization at lower than their full market value because they take
satisfaction in the achievement of the organization’s mission. To the extent that nonprofit
organization’s are particularly dependent on morale rather than money to sustain the
organization’s efforts, it might be particularly important to focus attention on morale as
something that is helping the organization succeed, and ought to be carefully managed.
A fifth measure of operational capacity would focus not only on the morale and capacity
of those who worked directly for the nonprofit organization, but also on the morale and
capacity of those organizations that worked with the nonprofit organization as partners
and co-producers. It is important for nonprofit organizations trying to achieve important
social results with limited resources to see the others in their industry, and to understand
that their aim should be to leverage their impact on the problems they are both trying to
solve, rather than to find ways to undermine their performance to maintain their market
share. They might want to maintain market share, but their goal has to be to build the
industry as a whole rather than simply to hold onto the largest share of the market.
Finally, measures of operational capacity should also include accounts of learning and
innovation in the organization. Over the long run, the performance of the INGO will
depend on the rate at which it can learn to improve its operations as well as continue to
carry them out. The learning can be focused on how to increase productivity in standard
activities. It can also be contained in learning how to adapt standard operations to novel
conditions. And, it can be contained in the development of wholly new lines of activity
and service that seem in line with mission. It can also be contained in a recognition that
the overall strategy and mission of the organization has to be changed.
V. Summary
Figure 3 presents a schematic view of the important measures that would be included
within the “public value scorecard.” As in the case of the balanced scorecard, the
measures are aligned with important strategic ideas. Some of the measures are those we
associate with the public value produced by the organization – the extent to which it
achieves its mission, the benefits it delivers to clients, and the social outcomes it
achieves.
Others are associated with the legitimacy and support enjoyed by the organization – the
extent to which “authorizers” and “contributors” beyond those who benefit from the
organization remain willing to license and support the enterprise. These measures can, to
some degree, be viewed as important because they indicate the capacity of the
organization to stay in operation over time. But these measures can also be viewed to
some degree as measures of value creation in themselves. This is particularly true if we
recognize that some part of the value created by nonprofit organizations lies in the
opportunities it affords to public spirited individuals to contribute to causes they care
about, and another part lies in the capacity of the nonprofit organization to link
contributing individuals to one another in a common effort to realized shared social goals.
Still others are associated with the operational capacity the nonprofit organization is
relying on to achieve its results. This includes not only measures of organizational output,
but also of organizational efficiency and fiscal integrity. It also includes measures of staff
morale and capacity, and the quality of the working relationships with partner
organizations. And, it includes the capacity of the organization to learn and adapt and
innovate over time.
In the end, there is a significant amount of overlap between this conception and the
balanced scorecard. Both believe in the importance of measurement, and particularly in
the importance of non-financial as well as financial measures. Both believe in the
importance of fitting the measures to the execution of a future oriented strategy of value
creation. Both believe in the use of process measures as well as outcome measures. Both
believe in focusing attention on learning and change as well as in current operations.
Yet, there are also three crucial differences between the two concepts. First, in the public
value scorecard, the ultimate value to be produced by the organization is measured in
non-financial terms. Financial performance is understood as the means to an end rather
than an end itself. The end in itself is denominated in non-financial social terms. It also
notes that the value produced by the organization may not lie simply in the satisfaction of
individual clients. It can lie, instead, in the achievement of desired aggregate social
outcomes of one kind or another.
Second, the public value scorecard focuses attention not just on those customers who pay
for the service, or the clients who benefit from the organization’s operations; it focuses as
well on the third party payers and other authorizers and legitimators of the nonprofit
enterprise. These people are important because it is they who provide some of the
wherewithal that the organization needs to achieve its results, and whose satisfaction lies
in the achievement of aggregate social states as well as in the benefits delivered to
individual clients.
Third, the public value scorecard focuses attention on productive capabilities for
achieving large social results outside the boundary of the organization itself. Other
organizations existing in a particular industry are viewed not as competitors for market
share, but instead as partners and co-producers whose efforts should be combined with
the effort of the nonprofit enterprise to produce the largest combined effect on the
problem that they are jointly trying to solve. In short, a nonprofit organization should
measure its performance not only by its ability to increase its market share, but also by its
ability to strengthen the industry as a whole.
In these respects, it seems to me, the public value scorecard works better for nonprofit
organizations than the balanced scorecard. It aligns more neatly with the ambitions of
nonprofit organizations which is to find some way to make a valuable contribution to the
society without worrying too much about their financial performance, or their
competitive position. Of course, they have to be able to sustain themselves financially,
and to do that they may have to compete to some degree with other nonprofit firms. But
their ultimate goal is not to capture and seize value for themselves, but to give away their
capabilities to achieve the largest impact on social conditions that they can, and to find
ways to leverage their capabilities with those of others.

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