Effectiveness in the small enterprise state grant-funded programme performance – a balanced scorecard application

ABSTRACT

This article presents and discusses theoretical and conceptual models to measure the effectiveness of a state grant-funded programme. The models were used to formulate the perspectives and strategic objectives a state programme can consider to implement and evaluate performance. The behavioural experiments method was adopted to test the validity of the study assumptions. The methodological contribution of the study is the development and application of balanced scorecard perspectives broken down into key performance objectives and key performance indicators evaluated in terms of an effective level scale. The lowest effectiveness level implies that the overall performance is very low while the highest effectiveness level implies that the performance of the programme is optimised. The study contributes to the current debate and a deviation from previous research. The fact that there is a direct link between expectations of performance, effectiveness and the objectives of publicly-funded programmes is another empirical contribution worth pursuing.

KEYWORDS:

• Effectiveness
• performance
• measurement
• balanced scorecard
• BBSDP

JEL CLASSIFICATION CODES:

• G3
• O2

Acknowledgment

This paper is derived from the thesis: Timothy Olaniyi Aluko. 2018. The effectiveness of small enterprise cost-sharing and cooperative grant incentive schemes in South Africa. Doctoral Dissertation, Stellenbosch University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.