Abstract
Increase of complexity and scale of medical corporations promotes delegating authority to division managers. Therefore, it becomes important to monitor and align divisions and to encourage managers to make decisions by themselves. As a result, management by business plan has more importance. This study shows that most medical corporations adopt a business plan. In this management system, most corporations manage financial matters by objectives (plans), and at the same time, many corporations manage quality matters by objectives. In addition, many medical corporations sufficiently consider most causal relationships between planed matters. In other words, many medical corporations have a business plan as ‘balanced scorecard’ in terms of either many perspectives or considering causal relationships, although few business plans are ‘balanced scorecard’ in terms of both.
Most business plans are currently used for analytical purposes, but utilization for encouraging managers will have more importance in the near future with delegation of authority to managers. This study shows that business plans are used for encouragement purposes more heavily in medical corporations with a business plan as a ‘balanced scorecard’ in terms of both many perspectives and considering causal relationships. In addition to this fact, the importance of integrated management from many perspectives and intangible asset management in healthcare organizations increases the necessity of developing business plans as a balanced scorecard.
