Assignment #1: Balanced Scorecard for an Accounting Firm. York, Mason, and Chase (YMC) is an accounting firm in Miami. The firm has had a very loose and relaxed management style that has served it...

Assignment #1: Balanced Scorecard for an Accounting Firm. York, Mason, and Chase (YMC) is an accounting firm in Miami. The firm has had a very loose and relaxed management style that has served it well in the past. However, more aggressive accounting firms have been winning new clients faster than YMC has. Thus, the managing partner, Jerry Mason, recently attended a CPA seminar on performance measurement in accounting firms, where he learned about the balanced scorecard. He thought it might be a good tool for YMC, one that would allow the firm to keep its culture yet still more aggressively seek new clients. Mason identified the following strategic objectives that fit with the firms’ core values and provided a framework for assessing progress toward the firm’s goals: Financial a. To steadily increase the firm’s revenues and profits Customer a. To understand the firm’s customers and their needs. b. To value customer service over self-interest Internal Business Process a. Encourage knowledge sharing among the accounting staff b. To communicate with each other openly, honestly, and often c. To empower staff to make decisions that benefit their clients. Organizational Learning a. To maintain an open and collaborative environment that attracts and retains the best accounting staff. b. To seek staff diversity. Required: 1. Balanced Scorecard Theory. Identify and explain what BST entails and discuss its advantages and disadvantages. This discussion should include references to a minimum of five published sources. One of these should be Kaplan and Norton, who first advanced this concept as a management tool. Only one reference can be from a web site. All others must be from published practitioner magazines or academic journals. You may reference the text book, but it does not count as one of the five reference sources. Remember: a research effort is only as good as the quality of the reference sources. Poor quality references are indicative of an uninspired research effort XXXXXXXXXXBalanced Scorecard Case Study. Respond to the following requirements (a), (b) and (c) below. Support your answer by references to material in the case and to the material you presented in the Balanced Scorecard Theory section of this paper. a. Develop at least one measure for each of the strategic objectives listed. b. Explain how YMC can use this balanced scorecard to evaluate staff performance. c. Should staff compensation be tied to the scorecard performance measure? Why or why not? 3. Application. If your firm uses the balanced scorecard as a management tool, discuss how it is doing this. If not, as an alternative discuss how you might employ the balanced scorecard idea to improve performance in your organization XXXXXXXXXXReferences. Set forth all sources used to develop this case study. All references must be from published sources. If you use an Internet source, make sure it is of academic quality. For example, the Academy of Management or the American Accounting Association websites are examples of an acceptable www citation. Conversely, websites like www.deborahpendarvis.com are not of academic quality and, therefore, are unacceptable reference sources. Only one citation can come from an Internet website source. Wikipedia is NOT and acceptable reference, nor is the textbook or any other textbook. These sources are not considered research quality in academia.