Future Prospects in Balanced Scorecard Research: Sustainability Perspective

This paper reviews the state of the research on a balanced scorecard (BSC) and sustainability balanced scorecard (SBSC) from 1990 to 2020. It aims to address the research question, “What are the future prospects in the BSC research from the perspective of sustainability?” using an integrative literature review method with bibliometric analysis. This study also reports the evolution and synthesis of published materials, citation analysis, themes, theories, and the literature gap and future research agenda, including the post coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) sustainability crisis. The findings of this study, which aim to advance the knowledge in the field, include the developed future research framework matrix and the proposed research questions regarding the research gap in the multidimensional, multi-disciplinary, and multi-cultural empirical research. This study is considered unique owing to its comprehensive, holistic, and up-to-date structure. Furthermore, such a research design facilitates interdisciplinary, theory-driven research with the review in multiple disciplines, which is new to the accounting literature. One limitation of this study is that it is a conceptual study; however, it can pave the way for future empirical and mixed-method studies in this field.


INTRODUCTION
The root of environmental management accounting (EMA) can be traced back to the 20th century. Environmental management was first initiated into management accounting to minimize waste and environmental pollution and to reduce the corporations' environmental impact while increasing financial profitability (Bouma & Veen, 2004). The alarming evidence of the emerging environmental issues and coronavirus disease 2019  crisis have proved that minimizing waste and pollution are not adequate but optimal solutions for the environment and limited natural resources are needed. We need environmentally benign systems to prevent, protect, enhance, and improve the condition of our natural world (Birkin, 1996; METHODS This paper has followed the methods by Martens et al. (2016), Linnenluecke et al. (2020), Snyder (2019), and Torraco (2005) to conduct an integrative review through bibliometric analysis. The integrative review allows diverse methodologies to contribute to future research avenues in the new and emerging themes of the phenomenon (Perkumiene & Pranskuniene, 2019). In other words, there is no single agreed-upon approach for conducting integrative reviews (Torraco, 2005). However, the integrative review is useful when the aim of the research is not to cover all articles ever published on the topic, but to critique, synthesize, narrow, or broaden the themes to create a framework or classification for the sake of the future research in the field or to create new theoretical models. Thus, an integrative review's search strategy is not systematic (Snyder, 2019). In this paper, similar to the research approaches of Martens et al. (2016), Linnenluecke et al. (2020), and Zha et al. (2020), the bibliographic analysis was conducted to seek the previous literature on BSC and SBSC, and then, they were synthesized and the emerging themes and future research agenda were presented. Bibliometric analysis is a tool to identify the journals dedicated to the theme, the gurus and most-cited scholars and studies in the field, evolution of the topic, and identification of the key themes (Martens et al., 2016). The search and review process of this study is depicted in Figure 1 in detail.
As three stages illustrated in Figure 1, after the initial search attempt with the terms "Balanced Scorecard," "Sustainability Balanced Scorecard," "Sustainable Balanced Scorecard," "Green Balanced Scorecard," and "Eco-balanced Balanced Scorecard," "Environmental Balanced Scorecard," and "Balanced Scorecard for sustainability" between 1990 and 2020, the richer and wider range of publications are collected (stage 1). Then, in stage 2, the sample is refined by reviewing the titles, abstracts, and full texts to concentrate on the articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, and proceedings that are explicitly, directly, and precisely connected to the topic. It was refined to 1,153 publications for BSC in the Web of Science and 70 (203) publications for SBSC in the Web of Science (in Google Scholar). In the final stage, the results are presented through the analyses of the evolution, citation, journals, and publications. Then, the indicators and key themes are mapped. Finally, future research agenda and relevant theories to develop new theoretical models are provided for the SBSC and BSC research.
In this review, the Web of Science database, including all databases and all materials in all languages, is utilized for BSC and SBSC publications. Besides, for the SBSC, the Google search engine is also used to locate the additional publications on SBSC with the help of the Publish and Perish software program.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The evolution, frequency distribution, citation analysis, and influential scholars are illustrated for the BSC as a field of interest for scholars. The evolution of the scientific production by years (from 1992 to 2020) in the Web of Science database (total of 1,153 publications) is illustrated in Figure 2, which yields a clue to the scholars about the demand in the field. There is an increasing trend in BSC research from 1992, when Kaplan and Norton developed BSC, to 2017. It reached a peak state in 2017 with 117 publications per year, which is evidence of remarkable interest in this field and the importance of the topic for academia and practice ( Figure 2). After the peak state in 2017, the reasonable amounts of manuscripts were published in 2018 (82 publications) and 2019 (71 publications). The average publication per year between 1992 and 2020 was 41. The majority (75%) of these publications was in English and were focused mainly on American and British settings. It means that there is still a need for multi-cultural studies in this field. Table 1 discloses the top 10 most cited publications in the BSC field. These articles are the main reference points for the researchers who want to publish in this area in the future. The citation analysis indicates the gurus  (2000), Kaplan and Norton (1992), Kaplan and Norton (1996b), Kaplan and Norton (1996a), Ittner et al. (2003), Lipe and Salterio (2000), and Banker et al. (2004) examined the association among BSC, organizational strategy and performance measures, and strategic management systems. On the contrary, Bhagwat and Sharma (2007) proposed BSC for supply chain management that evaluates day to day business operations, maps, and analyzes supply chains. Norreklit (2003) approached the BSC concept from another point of view and conducted the rhetorical analysis of BSC. In computer and engineering sciences, Ravi et al. (2005) proposed a model in which the dimensions of reverse logistics for the end-of-life (EOL) computers were taken from the four perspectives (financial and non-financial) of a BSC. The purpose was to combine reverse logistics, EOL, ANP, and BSC approaches to provide a holistic framework and system. Scientific journals with more than five articles on BSC are shown in Table 2. Sixteen journals out of 25 are ranked in either Social and Science Citation Information (SSCI) list or AJG (Academic Journal Guide or ABS) list. The top three most dedicated (ranked) journals to BSC research are Expert Systems with Applications, Total Quality Management Business Excellence, and Sustainability.
The research areas, main themes, and the synthesis of the prior research on BSC are outlined. The major research areas and themes studied in the BSC research are summarized in Tables 3 and 4, respectively. The distribution of BSC publications by major research areas is shown in Table 3. More than half (56%) of the prior research is in the business and economics area, and the rest are in computer science and engineering (18%), health science (14%), and social sciences (other than business and economics, 12%). We should push the BSC research forward to the computer science sub-field of artificial intelligence, information management, and computational intelligence. There is very scarce research in these sub-fields, so the prospective research has a higher chance to get published in the high-ranked journals. Table 4 illustrates the cluster of themes in BSC research. The majority of the prior research has focused on performance measurement and key performance indicators (KPIs; 29%), linking BSC to firm strategy and  strategic planning (18%), and the adaptation, implementation, application (case studies) of BSC in various sectors and governmental and non-governmental institutions (21%). This analysis points out the further research avenues in the emerging themes of SBSC, green BSC, artificial intelligence, information systems, employee and management performance dimension, and cause and effect links between the BSC four perspectives and corporate strategy.
The most cited recent studies on BSC research between 2015 and 2020 are illustrated based on the areas of research and year in Table 5. As depicted in Table 5, decision making (MCDM and DEMATEL), analytical hierarchical process (AHP), and fuzzy-based BSC, actor-network theory (ANT)-based BSC, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and cloud computing in BSC are popular topics in computer science. On the contrary, in the business domain, the most cited articles between 2015 and 2020 are on the topic of BSC and stakeholder value maximization, innovation, total quality management (TQM), ethics, merit-based incentive payment, and implementation of BSC in the hospital and automotive industries.
In addition to the most cited articles in Table 5, Zhao et al. (2020), Zawawi and Hoque (2020), Yildiz et al. (2020), Yang and Lee (2020), Sharma and Sharma (2020), Rompho (2020), Montequin et al. (2020), Lin and Cheng (2020), Kober and Northcott (2020), Gao and Gurd (2020), Dudic et al. (2020), Benkova et al. (2020), de Sousa et al. (2020, and Boskovic and Krstic (2020) investigated mainly the following topics in 2020: (1) synergy (2) BSC implementation in sport and marine sectors, higher education institutions, financial software factory, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), banks, government agencies, and private companies; (3) innovation and BSC; (4) BSC for the development of educational programs; (5) fraud risk and integrated BSC-based decision model; (6) cause and effect relationships and performance evaluation; (7) supply chain and BSC; (8) fuzzy AHP-based BSC, and (9) Bradley-Terry model-based BSC. These recent studies in 2020 prove that there is a still high demand for BSC research, and the focus is shifting from management and accounting topics to social sciences and computer science topics, e.g., information technology, artificial intelligence, decision making, innovation, and risk. Besides, the research gap concerning BSC in economicssocial and political perspective-still exists as of today.  The evolution, frequency distribution, citation analysis, and influential scholars are discussed for the SBSC. The evolution of the scientific production by years (from 2001 to 2020) in the Web of Science database and Google Scholar is illustrated in Figure 3, which holds a clue to the scholars about the demand in the SBSC field. Figure 3 starts with the year of 2001 because the SBSC has entered the literature by Epstein and Wisner (2001).
To provide a broader and holistic perspective for the SBSC research, Google Scholar has included a bibliometric analysis in addition to the Web of Science database. From 2001 to 2020, there was only 70 SBSC research reported in the Web of Science database. On the contrary, Google Scholar has reported a holistic picture with 203 publications, which also includes these 70 publications from the Web of Science. Figure 3 shows the distribution of publications in the area of SBSC by year. The most prolific years were 2001, 2011, and 2018 with 16, 20, and 18 publications, respectively. The reasonable amount of manuscripts, on average 10 manuscripts per year, has been published between 2001 and 2020. Ninety-one percent of these publications were in English. Table 6 reveals the top 10 most cited studies and influential scholars in the field of SBSC. Figge et al. (2002a) are one of the doyens of the SBSC research, and their article has been cited 1,348 times. Other influential scholars are Epstein and Wisner (2001) because they initiated research on a BSC for sustainability. The majority of the publications in SBSC was about how to link the sustainability to business strategy, how to evaluate the sustainable performance of the organizations through the BSC approach, and how to use BSC for eco-efficiency analysis (Dias-Sardinha & Reijnders, 2005;Dias-Sardinha et al., 2002;Möller & Schaltegger, 2005). Furthermore, the publication of Hansen and Schaltegger (2016) was about the architecture of the SBSC. They have discussed the frameworks of SBSC and future research agenda on the architecture of the SBSC. Even though not disclosed in Table 6, Nikolaou and Tsalis (2013) and Butler et al. (2011) published noteworthy articles on integrating sustainability measures into BSC and the development of SBSC architecture. In the literature, there are three approaches for the SBSC architectures regardless of the sector of the firm. Approach 1 is integrating the sustainability concerns into the four standard perspectives; approach 2 is adding fifth sustainability or stakeholder perspective to the conventional BSC; and approach 3 is developing a separate BSC only relevant to environmental or social issues (Butler et al., 2011;Eklund & Kutuk, 2020;Epstein & Wisner, 2001;Figge et al., 2003;Journeault, 2017;Nikolaou & Tsalis, 2013). Scholars have not reached a consensus on the best architecture of SBSC. Each architecture has its own pros and cons. Due to the lack of universal and single "one-fits-all" approach, the companies should select the most suitable architecture of SBSC for their     organization, which serves the best for their objectives, strategies, corporate structure, and the sector. One of the emerging multi-disciplinary themes in SBSC is the green supply chain, the multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) method, and the fuzzy ANP-based BSC (Bhattacharya et al., 2014;Tsai et al., 2009) and currently, in 2020, the scholars have intensely researched on these topics. The most dedicated scientific journals to the SBSC research are listed in Table 7. Nine journals out of 12 are ranked in the SSCI, AJG (or ABS), or ABDC (Australian Business Deans Council) list. The most dedicated (ranked) journals to SBSC research are Sustainability, Journal of Cleaner Production, and International Journal of Hospitality Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Management Accounting Quarterly, Accounting Education, Expert Systems with Applications, Journal of the Operational Research Society, and Issues in Social & Environmental Accounting. This list (Table 7) guides the scholars through respected and dedicated journals to submit their scholarly research in SBSC. Table 8 illustrates the overview of SBSC publications according to the major research areas. The majority of the prior research is in business and economics (65%) and environmental science (23%). The rest are in computer science and engineering (9%), social sciences (other than business and economics, 2%), and health science (1%). The SBSC research in health science, social sciences, e.g., sociology, psychology, and computer science is overlooked. Table 9 exhibits the thematization of SBSC research. The majority of the prior research has focused on the general guidelines and concepts of SBSC (28%), linking the sustainability to business strategy, and evaluating the sustainable firm performance (20%). Even though 13% of the previous literature was about the adaptation and  application (case studies) of SBSC in various sectors, there are still some environmentally malignant sectors that have not been investigated from the perspective of implementation of SBSC. These sectors are discussed in the future research agenda section below. Another two themes studied by the scholars are the corporate strategy management through BSC utilization (11%) and the architecture of the SBSC (10%). The thematic analysis of the SBSC papers indicated that SBSC or green BSC relation with sustainable indicators and eco-efficiency, sustainable supply-chain, computational intelligence, information management, corporate governance, and managerial performance have been scarcely researched so far. For instance, as Onder and Baimurzin (2020) and Anazonwu et al. (2018) reported, organizations' corporate governance structures have a significant impact on their sustainability performance and reporting. Thus, SBSC is a useful tool for corporate governance, human capital management, and executive compensation.
The most cited recent studies on SBSC research between 2015 and 2020 are listed based on the areas of research and year in Table 10. As noted below, decision making (MCDM), ANP, and fuzzy-based SBSC are popular topics in computer science. On the contrary, in the business discipline, the most cited articles between 2015 and 2020 are in the areas of reverse logistics, sustainable supply chain, the architecture of SBSC, and implementation of SBSC in different sectors, such as higher education, SMEs, and family-owned hotels.
If the current literature on (S)BSC is critically evaluated, it is evident that most of the scholars have intensely focused on the business discipline, including the topics of performance measurement indicators, sustainable performance, strategy management, SBSC architecture, and application of (S)BSC into environmentally malignant sectors.
Moreover, from the methodological point of view, the majority of the articles are conceptual without any qualitative or quantitative methodology. Even though theory-driven empirical studies are very scarce, some studies have utilized surveys and interviews. Specifically for the SBSC literature, Hansen and Schaltegger (2016)   stated that only 13 and 2% of the studies have used surveys and interviews, respectively, and 35% is only conceptual and descriptive without theory and methodology. It means that theory-driven empirical research lacks in this field. There was no dominant or mostly applied theory in BSC research. Scholars referred to theories in various disciplines, but mainly in the areas of economics, business, and psychology. For instance, agency theory, stakeholder theory, institutional theory, organizational behavior theory, economic theory, grounded theory, contingency theory, game theory, actor network theory, resource dependence theory, technical rational choice theory, and psychology theories (social and cognitive psychology) were the examples from the previous literature (Barter & Bebbington, 2013;Hoque, 2014;Leksono et al., 2019;Stas et al., 2015). On the contrary, the dominant theories discussed in SBSC research were as follows: environmental and ecological theories, especially in the business and ethics field. For example, contingency theory, legitimacy theory, institutional theory, stakeholder theory, and positive agency theory were the five dominant theories in the prior SBSC literature (Bouma & Veen, 2004;Hansen & Schaltegger, 2016;Jensen, 2002;Johnsen, 2001;Nankervis & Compton, 2006;Nikolaou & Tsalis, 2013).
For the evaluation of the case studies in SBSC literature, it is noted that SBSC has been applied to the following sectors: oil and gas sector and oil-producing companies, semi-conductor, furniture, chemical, pharmaceutical, fishing, manufacturing, finance industries, service sectors, such as hotels, hospital, universities, etc., wineries, SMEs, local public enterprises, and state-owned enterprises. On the contrary, as further conceptual research, academics can develop sustainable BSC architecture or case studies for the sectors that have not been analyzed yet and that are under the scrutiny of environmentalists, such as mining, technology hardware and telecommunication, food, beverages, and tobacco, automobiles, transportation, personal products, and packaging. Moreover, it is also noted that there is still no consensus on the "best architecture" for SBSC although three different approaches were discussed in the literature. In other words, there is still a lack of standard instructions on how to integrate sustainability concerns into the BSC perspectives. As a further study, as also addressed by Nikolaou and Tsalis (2013), the limited number of studies has provided standard procedures to select sustainability KPIs, so the researchers may investigate this subject further and come up with some generally accepted sustainability KPIs for each perspective of SBSC. Post COVID-19, the topics of dynamic, resilient, and agile framework for SBSC, SBSC in turbulent times, risk-based SBSC, and HCM-based BSC are the other promising research themes.
After the critical evaluation, Figure 4 graphically presents the research gaps with emerging themes and relevant theories on (S)BSC to guide the scholars to multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural, and theory-driven future research avenues. Figure 4 (future research framework matrix) is developed by the author with the help of the bibliometric analysis and integrative review, and it serves as a tool to help scholars to develop new theoretical models for future prospects in (S)BSC. Figure 4 reveals multi-disciplinary overlooked research paths on the topic. For instance, in the area of social sciences, the ethical and normative perspective of SBSC, the cultural and sociological impacts on SBSC, internal actors, psychological and behavioral aspects of SBSC can be investigated from the assumptions of normative theory, business ethics and virtue ethics theory, accountability, legitimacy, socio-cultural, and psychology theories, respectively. Moreover, the economic and socio-political aspects of SBSC, such as the implementation of SBSC in the public sector and its impact on public sector reforms and economy in developing and developed countries, can be researched further in line with economic and socio-political theories. In the discipline of business and management, theory-driven and mixed-method studies can be performed in the areas of institutional entrepreneurship, corporate governance structures, executive compensation, management and employee motivation and synergy, community-driven success, organizational culture, and value creation for Future Prospects in Balanced Scorecard Research stakeholders. The relevant theories for the aforementioned themes in the business and management field could be institutional theory, contingency, resource-based, grounded, stakeholder, positive agency, organizational, instrumental, and strategic management theories. Finally, last but not least, the multi-disciplinary studies in business and computer science, such as SBSC and decision making (game theory and judgmental  decision-making theory), SBSC and artificial intelligence, information management, computational intelligence, etc. (IT and information system theories and actor-network theory), etc., could be interesting future research areas.

CONCLUSION
SBSC is a relatively contemporary topic and a new tool of management accounting, compared to the BSC, and it can be debated further due to the existing gap in the literature. This paper answered the research question of "what are the future prospects in the balanced scorecard research from the perspective of sustainability" by critically analyzing the content of the (S)BSC literature, recognizing the emerging themes and research gaps, and, finally, recommending future research directions through the developed framework matrix. The future prospects in BSC research from the sustainability perspective were discussed based on the bibliometric analysis and integrative review in the previous sections. In summary, it is noted that there is a gap for multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional, and multi-cultural empirical research on SBSC, which will advance the knowledge in the field and be appreciated by the respected publishers. For the further empirical quantitative and qualitative research, the following research questions are suggested: "how the architecture of the SBSC revised to reach sustainable, resilient, and agile businesses"; "how the SBSC utilization impacts the corporate financial performance"; "whether SBSC has any effect on the sustainable growth or the corporate Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) performance or the Social and Environmental (CSR) performance"; "what is the stakeholders' perception on the utilization of SBSC"; and "how the SBSC utilization impacts the corporate governance structure of the organizations or the CEO's variable compensation." This paper has practical and academic implications because it provides the readers with a holistic picture and theoretical background of BSC and SBSC research and exhaustive analysis of current literature and it motivates the local governments and businesses to use more environmentally benign systems and tools. It is also noted that in 2020, the publishers are from more diverse disciplines, and more publishers have interest in publishing (S)BSC research. (S)BSC is not anymore the topic of only accounting and management domain; it is an interdisciplinary topic. The limitation of this study is that it is a conceptual study, so it does not test any hypotheses through statistical methods. However, with the proposed future research questions, it opens door to empirical and mixed-method studies.