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The purpose of this paper is to propose a practical framework to measure the safety performance of workers in the Indian construction industry. The key safety performance indicators are identified and ordered on the premise that the higher order assignment of an indicator implies a strong indication of an effective safety performance.

Various indicators of safety performance in the construction industry were identified from extant literature review combined with author's personal viewpoint. The identified variables were inquired for appropriateness for the Indian construction scenario by consultation with experts. Fuzzy Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) technique was considered for the ranking of the indicators from most to least important.

The most important highlight of the study was the importance of the role of management by participating in informing workers about the safety rules and compliance toward safety measures. Proper and timely safety training to the workers and equipping them with sophisticated safety equipment for daily activities is perceived to be highly important in ensuring a safe and healthy workplace environment. Controlling the absenteeism rate reduces the burden of extra work on the employees, thereby, encouraging safe work-related behavior.

Senior management should make safety induction programs compulsory at the time of joining of the employees. The guidelines for safety practices, rules and information about the safety equipment should be properly documented and arranged in safety manuals. Periodical drills involving visual demonstration of the safety practices should be followed to ensure safety at workplace.

Performance measurement, especially at the enterprise level, requires intense consideration of experts and managers in organizations from both theoretical and practical aspects. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the overall organizational performance by developing a performance evaluation model, based on integrating two methodologies of balanced scorecard (BSC) – a multiple perspective plan for performance assessment – and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) – a structured technique for organizing and analyzing complex decisions.

The method was conducted in Isfahan Telecommunications Company (ITC), in 2013. In total, 27 managers of ITC were invited to participate. First, according to overall firm goals, key performance indicators (KPIs) were established with respect to four perspectives of BSC framework. Then pairwise comparisons were done, through standard AHP questionnaires, to determine the preference weights of each indicator and perspective and give precedence to them.

Organizational performance can be measured by the proposed model in a telecommunications industry. According to the adopted method, company KPIs, relative importance of BSC perspectives and performance evaluation of functional areas were identified.

This study provides guidance regarding strategies for improving organizational performance beyond the financial perspective.

Previous studies illustrate various applications of joint BSC and AHP. However, this study applies the integrated framework throughout an organization in a new application field and shows not only company’s features but also telecommunications industry features.

Proposes an empirical analysis of regional convergence in Canada based on the growth model of Barro et al. In an open economy with perfect capital mobility, if domestic residents cannot borrow abroad with human capital as collateral, the dynamics of human capital accumulation is the driving force of per capita income growth. Empirical results indicate that, as predicted by the theoretical model, various indicators of the stock of human capital did converge at the same speed as per capita income during the 1951‐1996 period. A substantial part of the relative growth of per capita income indicators across Canadian provinces since the early 1950s could be explained by the convergence process of human capital indicators based on the percentage of the population, both sexes and males, who have at least a university degree. The estimates of the human capital share in national income based on those indicators are in the neighbourhood of 0.5, a number consistent with other measures of the implicit income share of human capital. The convergence speed of per capita income at the regional level might have been two to three times faster, if all persons had invested in education at the same rate as the young.

The chapter examines the relationship between social inclusion patterns and economic development in selected EU countries. This research has two objectives: (i) to reveal whether there are similarities among the EU countries in nation’s social inclusiveness of three demographic groups, namely the entire population, immigrants, and Roma communities; and (ii) to analyze the influence of social inclusion indicators on sustainable economic development and prosperity for the EU countries by accounting for the ethnicity impact. The chapter presents the results of a cluster analysis approach, which indicates best-positioned countries and emphasizes vulnerabilities in terms of social inclusiveness both in a broad demographic sense (the entire population) and a narrow sense (immigrants and respective Roma population). The chapter then employs a panel data regression approach to investigate which social inclusion indicators might have the potentially influencing role on economic development. Seven alternative proxies for sustainable economic development and prosperity measures were used. The social inclusion indicators, as explanatory variables, are represented by the education-related indicators and labor market-related indicators. The robustness and stability of the estimates are validated by including several interaction terms in the baseline regression model to account for the occurrence of the financial crisis. Overall, improving both population as well as immigrants’ inclusion is shown to have an important impact on sustainable economic development in the EU countries.

This paper aims to evaluate and prioritize the key supplier selection indicators and to establish the relationship between available alternatives and selected indicators by using step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) and weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS).

Authors have extracted the supplier selection criteria from literature and used a combined SWARA-WASPAS method to evaluate and rank the criteria’s. SWARA is applied for evaluating and weighting selection criteria, whereas WASPAS helped in evaluating different available alternatives based on supplier selection indicators.

Finding from SWARA suggests that supplier management is the high weighted criteria followed by information sharing and joint actions. WASPAS was used to evaluate the available alternatives and supplier A1 got the highest priority. Additionally, sensitivity analysis indicates the different scenarios for the best supplier selection.

Working executives can use the SWARA for assessment of weights of finalized indicators for their firm in the cement industry. Further, the calculated weights can be used for product and sum weightage through WASPAS to finalize the best supplier.

The originality of the manuscript lies in the sector and methodology. Author(s) applied the SWARA and WASPAS method for supplier selection in the Indian cement industry that will help working executives to evaluate their supply chain partners.

Hicks et al. (2015) have formulated the so-called Leiden manifesto, in which they have assembled the ten principles for a meaningful evaluation of research on the basis of bibliometric data. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this work the attempt is made to indicate the relevance of the Leiden manifesto for altmetrics.

As shown by the discussion of the ten principles against the background of the knowledge about and the research into altmetrics, the principles also have a great importance for altmetrics and should be taken into account in their application.

Altmetrics is already frequently used in the area of research evaluation. Thus, it is important that the user of altmetrics data knows the relevance of the Leiden manifesto also in this area.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) play a pivotal role in evaluating the level of success of an organization in achieving its business objectives. The objective of the current research is to identify and prioritize effective KPIs in branding products and construction projects, which contribute to the success of construction companies in a competitive environment.

The present research is of an inferential, descriptive and survey nature. In this study, we identified the influential key performance indicators of construction companies in branding products and construction projects for success in a competitive environment through a literature review and expert opinions. The data were collected using a questionnaire, and a combination of the one-sample t-test method with a 95% confidence level and the fuzzy multiple attribute decision-making (FMADM) method was employed for analysis.

The results indicate that the most influential key performance indicators for construction companies in branding products and construction projects for success in a competitive environment are, in order of significance, the following indices: “Marketing and Advertising,” “Financial,” “Creativity,” “Technical and Operational” and “Social and Political.”

The present research examines the importance of branding construction products and projects for the success of construction companies by improving their business objectives and utilizing key performance indicators throughout the product lifecycle (production and construction). This study provides solutions on how construction companies can increase their competitive advantage through branding and achieve long-term success in the global construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the awareness and practice responsible lobbying in the EU. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which responsible lobbying criteria are fulfilled and to investigate whether responsible lobbying yields concrete benefits in the political arena.

The study takes a quantitative approach combining descriptive and multivariate partial least squares (PLS) analysis based on data gained from an online survey among lobbyists in the EU. A new measurement instrument for responsible lobbying is used that grasps the multidimensional phenomenon with a formative-formative higher-order construct.

The study reveals that criteria of responsible lobbying are fulfilled to a large extent according to the lobbyists. The PLS analysis confirms the applicability of the multidimensional model of responsible lobbying, although there is only a weak link between Dimension (1), referring to the company’s stated corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment and coherence with lobbying and the second-order construct responsible lobbying. Based on the information given by respondents, the analysis provides evidence for a positive impact of responsible lobbying on both lobbying success and corporate reputation, but also for the dependence of these two variables on additional factors.

Responsible lobbying as an aligned approach to CSR and lobbying is a long neglected research topic, which has been gaining interest recently. This study contributes to empirical knowledge on the awareness and practice of responsible lobbying in the EU by taking a quantitative approach based on a solid theoretical foundation.

The study explores how banks design their financial structure and asset portfolio in response to monetary policy changes.

The authors conduct the research design for the Vietnamese banking market during 2007–2018. To ensure robust findings, the authors employ two econometric models of static and dynamic panels, multiple monetary policy indicators and alternative measures of bank leverage and liquidity.

Banks respond to monetary expansion by raising their financial leverage on the liability side and cutting their liquidity positions on the asset side. Further analysis suggests that larger banks' financial leverage is more responsive to monetary policy changes, while smaller banks strengthen the potency of monetary policy transmission toward bank liquidity. Additionally, the authors document that lower interest rates induce a beneficial effect on the net stable funding ratio (NSFR) under Basel III guidelines, implying that banks appear to modify the composition of liabilities to improve the stability of funding sources.

The study is the first attempt to simultaneously examine the impacts of monetary policy on both sides of bank balance sheets, across various banks of different sizes under a multiple-tool monetary regime. Besides, understanding how banks organize their stable funding sources and illiquid assets amid monetary shocks is an innovation of this study.