Resumen de Implementing balanced scorecards in the Spanish city councils
In the present study we describe, compare and analyze the implementation of the Balanced Scorecard model in two Spanish city councils. Both organizations decided to use this model responding to the governmental requirements calling for the introduction of strategic planning and reporting. We found, that throughout the implementation, one of the organizations followed tightly the BSC postulates, while the other loosely coupled the model’s premises. In the first case, BSC usage triggered many problems with data processing of the data and model failed to gain legitimacy among managers. As a result the project was abandoned. In the case of loose-coupling, a strategic alignment started to take place and the new technique gradually gained legitimacy. However, similarly to the first case the process of implementation is constrained by the technical problems and organizational resistance to innovation. The complex nature of public sector organizations, such as the multiplicity of the stakeholders and activities, challenges the introduction of the strategic performance measurement systems
