Editorial

Citation

Heap, J. (2010), "Editorial", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 59 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2010.07959caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 59, Issue 3

This is the first editorial of the new editorial team, but 50 per cent of the team remains the same – so there will be continuity! Tom Burgess, from Leeds University Business School, takes over from Zoe Radnor as the new co-editor to work with John Heap. Tom has published in IJPPM and previously was a member of the editorial board. We would like to thank Zoe (again) for her sterling work in support of the journal over the last few years. Apart from her editorial role, Zoe has authored some of the more popular papers in the IJPPM. Zoe has moved on to her new appointment in April 2009 as an Advanced Institute of Management Research[1] (AIM) Fellow and will devote her time and energies to this new initiative. We wish her well in this important and prestigious endeavour.

We will shortly be moving to full electronic submission and monitoring of articles, proving also that we take our own productivity “medicine”. So, the technology is changing and the editorial team has changed, and no doubt this will result in changes to the journal as we continue our quest for continuous improvement. However, the key message is that IJPPM will continue on the same, basic (successful?) course that has already been set. Let’s hope we all enjoy the journey!

In this edition we have three academic papers and a lengthy reflective piece. All three academic papers focus on multivariate analysis of organisational performance but each takes as their context a different continent (Europe, Asia and North America). In the first paper, José M. Prado-Lorenzo and Isabel M. García-Sánchez present a data envelopment analysis (DEA) of municipal sewerage services in Spain. Their results show that operation size and the environmental context have significant impact on efficiency of the service provision; while the impact of private vs. public management has no discernible impact. Given the privatisation of utility companies in recent years, this latter point is particularly interesting.

Güler Aras, Asl Aybars and Ozlem Kutlu use regression in the second paper to look at the links between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance of forty firms quoted on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The lack of substantial connections could be taken as worrying or intriguing – depending on your point-of-view. Their interpretation is that the lack of a connection cannot be attributed to conducting their research in Turkey, i.e. it is not related to the emerging economy context. Perhaps their results point to some problematic aspects of linking CSR to the functioning of firms in a global capitalist economy? There surely is room for a reassessment of this whole area given the global economic collapse we have recently witnessed, fuelled by some not-so-socially-responsible behaviour on the part of financial corporates. The authors do find a positive connection between firm size and CSR, which might suggest that adopting CSR is simply a large-company fad.

In the third paper Mohamed M. Mostafa uses non-parametric DEA to examine how efficiency connects to profitability in a sample of 45 US specialty retailers and food stores. A positive link is affirmed between the factors and room for improvement identified in several retailers. Among the firms identified as “could do better” are big names – which raises the question what would investors and investment managers have to say about these results? If you are in the audience why not let the editors know?

As we go to press, President Obama has concluded a three-day visit to China. The president of the world’s number one superpower has been in talks with Hu Jintao, the president of the country that is on track to be the next pre-eminent global superpower. Many see that China has played a key role in assisting the USA to recover from a global recession that was sparked by problems in the US economy. Whether you agree with the analysis that the USA will soon hand the leadership of the global economy over to China, the global economic impact of China surely cannot be denied. It is therefore timely that we publish the reflective piece by one of your co-editors and collaborators (Thomas C. Tuttle, Chen Shengchang, John Heap and Tiano Yan) where they examine how leaders, particularly Western business leaders, can learn from the differences and similarities, between East and West.

For those who have not come across AIM before then we suggest that you have a look at its website (www.aimresearch.org). AIM is an important initiative that is funded by the ESRC and EPSRC to drive up the quality of management research in the UK. One of its important themes is productivity and performance, so its output is relevant to readers of this journal.

John Heap, Tom Burgess