The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment.

By Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton. Harvard Business School Press, 379 pages. $29.95.

Sequels are still more popular in movies than in the business book game, so The Strategy Focused Organization is notable as a follow-on to the authors' 1996 book, The Balanced Scorecard. In effect, this new book is an empirical study of how the theory has been applied, conducted by the team that coined the term.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the inventors/authors find that the companies they looked at are thriving under their system -- "putting strategy at the center of their change and management processes." With more than 200 companies having adopted BSC methodologies, there is a rich vein of examples to draw from, including such stalwarts as Mobil (now Exxon Mobil), Cigna and Nova Scotia Power. There are even government and nonprofit entities represented.

Focusing in depth on each example and summarizing ideas with charts and diagrams, The Strategy-Focused Organization has more than a soupcon of Harvard Business School's case-study approach. Some of the diagrams are very detailed, but most are readily accessible, and the authors' readable prose, short on jargon, serves them well. For companies that have implemented or are considering a BSC approach, this is a valuable addition to the library.