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1 – 10 of over 39000Acceptance and benchmark tests will provide important assurances that an automation system will meet defined performance requirements. Three acceptance tests should be required by…
Abstract
Acceptance and benchmark tests will provide important assurances that an automation system will meet defined performance requirements. Three acceptance tests should be required by a library and performed by the vendor: 1) a system reliability acceptance test, 2) one or more functional performance acceptance test, and 3) a full load response time acceptance test. Additionally, a library may require that benchmark tests be conducted after a vendor has been selected, but before a computer is installed in the library, if the vendor does not have installed systems comparable to the library's requirements, or if other similar systems have not previously met the library's performance objectives.
Necia C. France and Graham A.J. Francis
This paper sets out to evaluate the potential of financial performance benchmarking as an expenditure control tool for a national pathology service comprising both public and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper sets out to evaluate the potential of financial performance benchmarking as an expenditure control tool for a national pathology service comprising both public and private service providers.
Design/methodology/approach
Primary data were provided by direct consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, whose experience and perspectives were sought primarily through informal face‐to‐face interviews. The authors analyse these informant contributions alongside official reports and the published literature on dual public‐private health service provision.
Findings
Informants identified potential advantages and pitfalls in comparative pathology benchmarking for expenditure control. They also identified some significant negative implications for health service quality and suggested related compromises. Often misunderstood cost benchmarking issues are clarified in the paper.
Research limitations/implications
Several areas of importance for further investigation are suggested.
Practical implications
The paper concludes that appropriate performance benchmarking can be applied to New Zealand pathology services as a useful service rationalisation tool and a realistic price‐signalling device, provided that certain safeguards on health service quality are in place.
Originality/value
General issues complicating financial performance benchmarking across sectors in a mixed economy for health service provision are identified for the guidance of researchers, decision‐makers and planners.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the use and effect of benchmarking in manufacturing companies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the use and effect of benchmarking in manufacturing companies.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 23 companies were interviewed longitudinally in 1993, 2004 and 2010. For the study a standard questionnaire was used, and the questions asked concerned the best practices used in the companies and their operational performance.
Findings
The use of benchmarking has changed a lot over the last 15 years. It grew a lot after the first study was made, but by the time of the third study it had shrunk to the same level as in 1993. There may be several reasons for that, but, as the data indicates, there is no clear relation between the use of benchmarking and operational results, which may be one reason.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the small sample size the results are only indicative and more research is needed in this area. Furthermore, there may also be several other reasons affecting the performance of companies. It is always risky to claim that the use of a certain best practice is the only reason for a performance improvement. One implication is that certain best practices may not be suitable at all levels of operation and that therefore they need to be applied and used carefully.
Originality/value
This study is the only longitudinal study in this field using data from three different periods of time. This gives a unique perspective to critically study the changes in, and consequences of, the use of certain practices.
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John S. Howe and Scott O’Brien
We examine the use of relative performance evaluation (RPE), asymmetry in pay for skill/luck, and compensation benchmarking for a sample of firms involved in a spinoff. The…
Abstract
We examine the use of relative performance evaluation (RPE), asymmetry in pay for skill/luck, and compensation benchmarking for a sample of firms involved in a spinoff. The spinoff affects firm characteristics that influence the use of the identified compensation practices. We test for differences in the compensation practices for the pre- and post-spinoff firms. We find that RPE is used for post-spinoff CEOs, but not pre-spinoff CEOs. Post-spinoff CEOs are also paid asymmetrically for luck where they are rewarded for good luck but not punished for bad luck. Both pre- and post-spinoff CEOs receive similar levels of compensation benchmarking. The study provides additional evidence on factors that influence compensation practices. Our spinoff sample allows us to examine how compensation practices are affected by changes in firm characteristics while keeping other determinants of compensation constant (i.e., the board and, in many cases, the CEO). Our findings contribute to the understanding of how the identified compensation practices are used.
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C.A. Voss, V. Chiesa and P. Coughlan
Sets out to examine two questions: first, can an academic‐based approachcontribute to benchmarking and self assessment and, second, can tools bedeveloped for use in manufacturing…
Abstract
Sets out to examine two questions: first, can an academic‐based approach contribute to benchmarking and self assessment and, second, can tools be developed for use in manufacturing, in particular those to do with technology management. Proposes and tests a procedure for developing and evaluating benchmarking tools and frameworks. Illustrates this with the development of an overall technology management framework and detailed frameworks and tools for process technology and innovation management.
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Jan Frederick Hausner and Gary van Vuuren
Using a portfolio comprising liquid global stocks and bonds, this study aims to limit absolute risk to that of a standardised benchmark and determine whether this has a…
Abstract
Purpose
Using a portfolio comprising liquid global stocks and bonds, this study aims to limit absolute risk to that of a standardised benchmark and determine whether this has a significant impact on expected return in both high volatility period (HV) and low volatility period (LV).
Design/methodology/approach
Using a traditional benchmark comprising 40% equity and 60% bonds, a constant tracking error (TE) frontier was constructed and implemented. Portfolio performance for different TE constraints and different economic periods (expansion and contraction) was explored.
Findings
Results indicate that during HV, replicating benchmark portfolio risk produces portfolios that outperform both the maximum return (MR) portfolio and the benchmark. MR portfolios outperform those with the same risk as that of the benchmark in LV. The MR portfolio weights assets to obtain the highest return on the TE frontier. During HV, the benchmark replicated risk portfolio obtained a higher absolute risk value than that of the MR portfolio because of an inefficient benchmark. In HV, the benchmark replicated risk portfolio favoured intermediate maturity treasury bills.
Originality/value
There is a dearth of literature exploring the performance of active portfolios subject to TE constraints. This work addresses this gap and demonstrates, for the first time, the relative portfolio performance of several standard portfolio choices on the frontier.
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Christopher A. Voss, Pär Åhlström and Kate Blackmon
Investigates the link between benchmarking and operational performance using a sample of over 600 European manufacturing sites. Benchmarking is linked to the identification and…
Abstract
Investigates the link between benchmarking and operational performance using a sample of over 600 European manufacturing sites. Benchmarking is linked to the identification and adoption of improved operational practices, an increased understanding of competitive positioning, and the larger context of the “learning organization”. Shows that benchmarking may indeed contribute to improved operational performance, first through improving the firm’s understanding of its competitive position and its strengths and weaknesses, and second through providing a systematic process for effecting change. Learning organizations were more likely to benchmark than other firms.
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Joan Parker Webster and Jerry Lipka
As early as 1928, Lewis Meriam’s research report to the Secretary of Interior indicated that American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) schools were understaffed, had irrelevant…
Abstract
As early as 1928, Lewis Meriam’s research report to the Secretary of Interior indicated that American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) schools were understaffed, had irrelevant curricula, and employed under qualified teachers. There continues to be a categorical need for professionally developed curriculum materials that reflect the local culture and language of AI/AN students. There is an equivalent need for instructional strategies that can succeed with AI/AN students. Over the past decade, reports (Deyhle & Swisher, 1997; Pavel, 1999; Swisher & Tippeconnic, 1999) have reinforced the need for educational programs for AI/AN schools and communities that are based on local culture and employ a group’s vernacular language as a part of schooling. This is a reversal from earlier more assimilationist models of education, which have been promulgated by the federal government through its policy on first language (other than English) and cultural exclusion. This call for programs based on culture and vernacular language is due, in part, to the persistent nationwide gap in the academic performance of AI/AN students and their non-native peers (Berlak, 2001).
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how benchmarking affects transparency and economic performance in the public sector.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how benchmarking affects transparency and economic performance in the public sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper applies a quasi‐experimental method to 1989‐2000 time series data on benchmarking and non‐benchmarking water utilities in The Netherlands.
Findings
Benchmarking immediately enhanced transparency, but only affected utility economic performance after benchmarking information entered the public domain. This confirms that benchmarking enhances transparency and performance. The findings do not support the yardstick regulation hypothesis that utility managers will only tighten financial discipline when benchmarking is embedded in a regime of managed competition.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of this study is its single‐industry scope. Further testing of benchmarking effects in other public services is needed to validate its findings.
Originality/value
The paper presents evidence from the Dutch water supply industry focusing on transparency and performance in collaborative benchmarking.
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Brette Garner, Jennifer Kahn Thorne and Ilana Seidel Horn
Though test-based accountability policies seek to redress educational inequities, their underlying theories of action treat inequality as a technical problem rather than a…
Abstract
Purpose
Though test-based accountability policies seek to redress educational inequities, their underlying theories of action treat inequality as a technical problem rather than a political one: data point educators toward ameliorative actions without forcing them to confront systemic inequities that contribute to achievement disparities. To highlight the problematic nature of this tension, the purpose of this paper is to identify key problems with the techno-rational logic of accountability policies and reflect on the ways in which they influence teachers’ data-use practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper illustrates the data use practices of a workgroup of sixth-grade math educators. Their meeting represents a “best case” of commonplace practice: during a full-day professional development session, they used data from a standardized district benchmark assessment with support from an expert instructional leader. This sociolinguistic analysis examines episodes of data reasoning to understand the links between the educators’ interpretations and instructional decisions.
Findings
This paper identifies three primary issues with test-based accountability policies: reducing complex constructs to quantitative variables, valuing remediation over instructional improvement, and enacting faith in instrument validity. At the same time, possibilities for equitable instruction were foreclosed, as teachers analyzed data in ways that gave little consideration of students’ cultural identities or funds of knowledge.
Social implications
Test-based accountability policies do not compel educators to use data to address the deeper issues of equity, thereby inadvertently reinforcing biased systems and positioning students from marginalized backgrounds at an educational disadvantage.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills a need to critically examine the ways in which test-based accountability policies influence educators’ data-use practices.
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