BALANCED SCORECARD (BSC): DOES IT REALLY MATTER IN MALAYSIAN PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING?

Performance of Institution of Higher Learning is one of the important factors to transform Malaysia to become an education hub in the Southeast Asia. It is necessary for the institutions to determine their performance measurement system to achieve organizational excellence in terms of products and services for their stakeholders, especially for the Private Institution of Higher Learning (PIHL). PIHL is not only needs to offer attractive education services, but also needs to ensure their business and financial sustainability in the long run. In the 20th century, Balanced Scorecard (BSC) introduced by Kaplan & Norton is one of the prominent performance measurement system uses to measure performance and it has been widely applied among profitoriented businesses and western universities. Some have tried to utilize BSC while others argued about its effectiveness in determining performance of IHL. However, the conceptual framework for the implementation of BSC is still unclear. This aim of this paper is to understand how Malaysian PIHL is applying the BSC as their strategy implementation and the challenges they faced while dealing with BSC. The findings of this study indicate that the perception of the responding institutions was in favor of using BSC as their strategic performance measurement system. They also revealed the items that need to be included in the BSC perspectives.Key Words:Balanced Scorecard, Private Institution of Higher Learning, Performance Measurement System, Strategic Performance Measurement Syste