Breakthroughs in the Management Accounting Science: Imaging a Balanced Scorecard Thought by Lean Philosophy Rationales

This paper aims at providing a proposal for a new way of conducting the balanced scorecard (BSC), assuming a model that fulfils the leading features of lean philosophy and designing a research strategy that could explain how to act for arguing a “Lean–Balanced Scorecard”. Management solutions inclined towards lean thinking try to solve contemporary worldwide market challenges by focusing on a virtuous corporate functioning, thanks to a shared philosophy that relies entirely on the minimization of any kind of waste: their main target is to achieve business goals in a way that is absolutely flexible and can be shared at any strategy level within the firm. In the transition towards new management accounting paradigms, might the use of the BSC enhance information processing, useful for spreading lean thinking all over the firm, and for testing its effects? Moreover, thanks to lean thinking, might we suppose improvements related to the BSC functioning, by streamlining that information processing? According to the literature, little is known about how to answer these questions. By answering them, however, we may find innovative solutions towards a better measuring process of firm success—especially from the perspectives of integrated management reporting activities in turbulent times.