Abstract

The balanced scorecard has been considered the most contemporary approach for evaluation of strategic performance, It helps to provide a more comprehensive view of business performance , which in turn helps to act according to its best strategic interest .many researchers and practitioners in the field of strategic management have shown increasing interests in balanced scorecard since litertur indicates the excellence of balanced scorecard on the traditional approaches of analyzing strategic performance and control. That excellence is represented by its core assumptions, these assumptions are: the strategic alignment between vision and strategy and strategic performance areas, Financial, internal business processes, customer, learning and growth, balanced view for the expectations of stakeholder and the causal relationship between targets performance measures. The research aims to re-examining the main assumptions of balance scorecard according to the following questions: How can we employ balanced scorecard to analyze the bank performance? What level of integration can it achieve between strategic performance areas? how can it contribute to translate a bank vision and strategy in to operational standards and objectives? What role can it play in balancing stakeholder expectations? and finally what is the nature of causal relationships between target performance measures? The research results show a strong support to accept the main assumptions of balanced scorecard approach, related to its high ability to align and integrate bank strategic goals and the positive relationship between target performance measures and their effects on bank strategic performance and competitiveness.