authors
Jemal Abagissa

abstract
The objective of the study is to assess the Implementation of Balanced Scorecard in the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia. The CBE has 109 branches in East Addis Ababa district. Out of 109 in this district, the researcher selected three branches targeting all employees and management staff. The primary data were collected using questionnaires and interview. The data were analysed using graphs, tables and percentages. The findings show that the Bank achieved many benefits from the BSC implementation by aligning day-to-day activities to its strategy, improved service delivery system and organization performance, raised employees understanding of the bank vision, mission and values, and enhanced resource. However, there are still many challenges. There is lack of leadership commitment and support with regard to awareness creation for employees. Besides, the top management tends to focus on strategy formulation than strategic implementation. From the employees part there is lack of readiness in terms of mentality, skill and competence toward BSC implementation. Furthermore, problems in setting performance measurement and linking performance with reward system is hindering the effectiveness of the BSC in the branches. Lack of employees’ participation, negative attitude of employees toward BSC implementation, poor monitoring and evaluation system and lack of linkage with rewards adversely affect benefit obtained from BSC implementation. To alleviate the problems the bank should work on changing the attitude and perception of employees toward BSC by promoting its benefits. To achieve this attitude change CBE should undertake trainings to help employees acquire adequate knowledge and understanding of BSC. Target setting should be fair and realistic ensuring appropriate combination of mutually agreed financial and non-financial target among performers considering the nature and position of jobholders.