Triple Bottom Line and Balanced Scorecard: Framework for Ethics

¶ … Ethics

Over time, various models have been developed in an attempt to bring into focus not only behavioral, but also structural ethical performance of organizations. These include the Triple Bottom Line, the Balanced Scorecard, and the Six Sigma. This text will concern itself with the Balanced Scorecard and the Triple Bottom Line.

Components of the Balanced Scorecard and the Triple Bottom Line and How they Can be Utilized to Enhance Ethics and Business Performance

The Balanced Scorecard, in basic terms, "is a management system that focuses on all the elements that contribute to organizational performance and success including financial, customer, market, and internal processes" (Ferrell, Fraedrich and Ferrell, 2014, p. 249). On the other hand, the Triple Bottom Line, as the authors further point out "provides a perspective that takes into account the social, environmental, and financial impacts of decisions made within an organization" (Ferrell, Fraedrich and Ferrell, 2014, p. 249).

The four key components of the Balanced Scorecard include: the financial perspective, the customer perspective, the learning and growth perspective, and the internal business perspective (Jackson, Sawyers, and Jenkins, 2008). The financial perspective has got to do with how well an entity is doing on the financial front -- with regard to expenses and revenue. To enhance business performance, a business could come to the conclusion that benefits are eating up a significant portion of revenues, and hence seek ways of bringing down the same. Ethical performance could be enhanced by tying bonuses to best practices on the ethical front. Next, we have the customer component, in which case the key considerations include, but they are not limited to, quick response to customer concerns and enhancement of customer satisfaction. The customer perspective is important in seeking to enhance business performance as "it is the customer who ultimately incurs the costs of producing products and contributes to a company's profits" (Jackson, Sawyers, and Jenkins, 2008, p. 443). A key success factor in this case, as the authors point out, is the enhancement of the quality of goods and services. In seeking to enhance ethics, a business ought to ensure that the products it offers for sale meet and surpass quality standards -- lowering the probability of harm to the customer, and thereby increasing customer satisfaction.

The last two perspectives, i.e. internal business perspective and the learning and growth perspective have got to do with "the objectives across the company's entire value chain" and "the critical success factors in the other perspectives" respectively (Jackson, Sawyers, and Jenkins, 2008, p. 443). The internal business perspective focuses on such areas as the reporting of financials, human resource practices, and IT. To enhance ethics and business performance, therefore, a business ought to ensure that accounting information is presented in accordance with the existing standards and conventions and that staffing is done in a way that facilitates the achievement of the desired business results.

As per the perspective provided by the Triple Bottom Line; key components include the financial, environmental, and social dimensions. Of importance in this case is how these impact on organizational decisions. While the financial/economic dimension concerns itself with a firm's economic exploits and impacts, the social dimension focuses on the impact of a firm on a number of stakeholders, such as suppliers, consumers, and employees. The other dimension, i.e. The environmental dimension, looks into the impact of an enterprise on the environment. A business entity could therefore utilize the said models to enhance ethics and business performance by charging fair prices for its products or remitting taxes as would be appropriate (economic/financial dimension), making contributions to charitable causes and providing opportunities for employees to advance their careers (social dimension) and finally, reducing greenhouse emissions and water consumption (environmental dimension).

How Organizations Can Utilize the Models to Drive Ethical Decision-Making

Effective leaders are always on the lookout for approaches that in addition to enhancing business performance, also improve ethical behavior. With regard to the Triple Bottom Line, business leaders are increasingly engaging themselves in social and environmental stewardship undertakings. This is particularly the case given that the key idea behind this ethical auditing system is to divert the attention of business entities from mere profit making to other societal or environmental concerns. Today, social responsibility has become more of a mandatory, as opposed to optional, concern for businesses. Businesses could integrate the Triple Bottom Line into their business ethics programs by conducting an audit of their organizational mission, values, as well as conduct. Any deficiency between the existing framework and the broader performance of the business would necessitate a restatement of not only what managers and employees perceive as the organization's operational values, but also the organization's core purpose.

It is also important to note that the Balanced Scorecard management system could also help in the transformation of the strategies and vision of an organization into a set of performance measures that are both rational and consistent. To fully utilize the Balanced Scorecard approach to drive ethical decision making, all level of management ought to be roped into the undertaking. The top managers must adopt a work ethic that there no working in the business, but on the business. Their actions, therefore, ought to be tailored to satisfy this work ethic. It is through the precedence set by the top officers of the firm that the entire organization can make a full transition to a BSC organization, where business systems are optimized, product development enhanced, and the behavior of management improved. The Balanced Scorecard model could be integrated into the business ethics programs via the re-articulation of organizational values, formulation of goals for change, as well as the conduction of a comprehensive review of the organization's standards of conduct.