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The purpose of this paper is to present findings from an action research intervention in the outpatient department of a National Health Service (NHS) Hospital. It investigates the perceived and actual problems of measuring capacity at a UK hospital.

An action research methodology was adopted: relevant literature on capacity measurement and performance was reviewed; the motivation behind its usage explored. Systems requiring improvement were identified and the adoption and implementation of new working methods initiated and explored. In addition to considering capacity measurement and performance issues, the authors examined the effects this may have on the long‐term potential of the organisation.

The research identified gaps in the capacity and activity measures used and in the dissemination of performance information. To address these problems and meet the changing needs of the department a new performance measurement and reporting tool was implemented.

The methodology applied was appropriate, generating data to facilitate discussion and draw specific conclusions from. A perceived limitation is the single case approach, however, Remenyi argues this can be enough to add to the body of knowledge.

The paper gives details about the introduction of new performance measures and the development of a performance measurement tool for the Outpatient Department of the Hospital. The conclusions drawn add substantially to previous commentaries, and develop interesting questions for future research.

Specific recommendations for the implementation of a new performance tool for healthcare organisations are made.

The objective of the research, and paper, is to determine first whether or not the accounting abstraction appears to dominate the manager’s perceptions of the physical reality of the firm’s utilization of its physical assets, and second, whether changes in the accounting abstraction (e.g. the addition of Capacity cost management reports and measurements) lead to changes in how managers perceive, and use, their physical assets. Using a cognitive decision-making structure developed by Wagenaar et al. (1995), this study explores the interplay between the structure and nature of capacity reporting (the surface structure of the decision) and the subsequent analysis and choice of managers within the firm (the deep structure of the decision). A five-site field research methodology was used to gather data from companies across a multitude of industry contexts and situations. Results suggest that the nature of capacity measurement and reporting does shape manager’s perceptions of current and potential future performance (the cognitive surface structure), with major implications for the nature and type of decisions and trade-offs made (the deep structure). Specifically, managers appear to make decisions that are illogical when considered in light of the physical reality of their operations based on the representations of this reality (e.g. the capacity measures and reports). Analysis and interpretation of these results suggest that what accounting makes visible appears to drive decision-making and performance in organization.

Two reasons are identified for studying the impact of capacity measurements on organizations. First, firms which make the best use of their resources can be expected to outperform their competitors. The second arises from the potential structuration effect of capacity metrics. Such an investigation makes capacity a visible, and hence an actionable, construct. This paper aims to address these issues.

To explore these issues, a combination of analytics and qualitative field research methodology was used. The measurement dimensions were developed by analyzing the different reports, baseline measures, and metrics included in the various capacity models as suggested by the literature. These analytics were enriched with observations obtained from field research.

Maximizing the value created within an organization starts with understanding the nature and capability of all the company's resources. The outcome is the identification of capacity systems specifically suited for particular types of operations, both manufacturing and service.

Such frameworks would allow organisations in developing economies, to make visible, the drivers of waste and productivity and to identify the primary assumptions and implications of various capacity limits.

This paper fills the gap between defining and measuring the productive limits of a machine or system, and the impact of various assumptions about the productive potential of the nature and informativeness of capacity cost management systems. The authors focused on the various ways in which multi‐dimensional limits (for example, time, space, volume and/or value‐creating ability) can be used to define productive capacity. Specifically, the research suggests that the limits used in establishing the capacity cost management system restrict the amount and nature of the information the system is capable of providing to management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of capacity utilisation (CU) in the Nigerian economy over the last 12 years (1991‐2003) with the view to determining if there has been significant improvement in CU despite changes in government policies initiated to boost the productive capacity level.

The methodology is basically descriptive and analytical. Planned and systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of secondary data are adopted to explain CU situation in Nigeria.

The paper shows that CU trends in Nigeria from 1993‐2003 ranges between 30 and 60 per cent.

The government and organised private sector organisations have a monumental role to play for positive changes and sustainable improvement of CU level in Nigeria through boosting aggregate demand, improved employment, low interest rate, improved export drive, cheap fuel and power supply, creation of enabling environment for businesses.

The results of this paper support the finance‐economics view that the relatively low level of CU across the sectors analysed suggests that firms in Nigeria are subject to economic constraints.

The dynamic capability view reshaped the understanding of how firms can achieve a sustained competitive advantage through innovation. However, studies based on national innovation surveys have not incorporated this vision when measuring absorptive capacity, especially the evolutionary aspects of dynamic capabilities. This study addresses this gap.

We empirically validate a scale using a national innovation survey based on the Oslo Manual standards. Using a five-wave survey, we demonstrate the scale's reliability, convergent and discriminant validity and stable structure across industries and over time.

This research integrates the dynamic capability literature with absorptive capacity measurement to propose and validate a multi-item and bidimensional scale for national innovation surveys.

We provide a measurement model that captures an evolutionary conceptualization of absorptive capacity as a dynamic capability. Hence, our contribution enhances the quality and validity of studies on absorptive capacity and advances the understanding of how firms develop and deploy absorptive capacity to drive performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate absorptive capacity and dynamic capabilities dilemma in high dynamic market IT small medium enterprises (SMEs). Absorptive capacity and dynamic capabilities have a conflict in theoretical stance. Those in favor of dynamic capabilities regard absorptive capacity as a part of dynamic capabilities, and there are many arguments regarding treating absorptive capacity as a part of dynamic capabilities. One major deficit of dynamic capabilities is that it requires adjusting the firm’s dynamic resources when responding to change, requiring some investment and time. Thus, dynamic capabilities then have a problem in instantaneously responding to a highly dynamic market. With the requirement to adjust organizational resources, absorptive capacity, as a part of dynamic capabilities, cannot have direct impact on a firm’s performance.

To show that absorptive capacity, by itself, can have a direct impact on a firm’s performance in a highly dynamic market, quantifiable variables are identified to measure the level of effort in developing absorptive capacity. The relationships between the absorptive capacity development effort and the firm’s financial performance is then explored and evaluated.

It is confirmed that absorptive capacity in a high dynamic market such as IT SMEs have direct and positive impact to the firm’s financial performance, without having to configure its resource to interact with changes.

The study discusses the paradoxical dilemma of the role of absorptive capacity under the light of dynamic capability. The finding indicates that in high dynamic market when the spontaneous respond to market change is crucial to firm's survival, absorptive capacity can direly deliver the result to leverage the firm's performance without having to reconfigure its resources as indicated in the theoretical stance of dynamic capability.

The purpose of this paper is to build a working definition of public administration's management capacity (PA‐MANCAP) aiming at empirically testing the existence and size of an implementation gap in public management reforms in Italy.

A confirmatory factor analysis is developed to assess the validity of the proposed operational measure. Data are taken from a survey administered on 204 local governments in Italy.

The validity of the measure is assessed for all the attributes that conceptualize PA‐MANCAP except for the information and communication technology dimension. Findings from a survey of 102 major Italian municipalities indicate a situation with areas of light and shadow with regard to the implementation of public management reforms in Italy.

The paper presents a valuable insight for both academics and practitioners in order to benchmark the managerial capacity of various local governments and to develop additional quantitative research into the determinants of the implementation gap of public management reforms in Italy and abroad.

The purpose of this paper is to address the development of a conceptual framework to drive and assess the quality of software production in the digital ecosystem domain.

This research used action research paradigm, the soft methodology SSM and the framework PRO2PI-MFMOD. The methodologies were applied at Brazilian Public Software Ecosystem.

The results of this research shows: the dimension of the capacity, as suggested by ISO/IEC 15504, is insufficient for quality treatment in certain domains; SSM methodology is suitable for scope and domain clarification in digital ecosystems; and PRO2PI-MFMOD framework is suitable to create a reference model process for digital ecosystems software production.

A complete SSM cycle was conducted, but with only one research cycle. In that sense, the results obtained in this research can be interpreted as boundaries to reflections regarding the learning occurred in the system.

The research offers an empirical contribution, mapping and defining maturity framework elements that can be used by the software production digital ecosystems, aiming the description and understanding of the phenomenon through the theoretical views of complexity theory, systemic thinking, digital ecosystems and maturity models.

The contributions can be summarized in the following aspects: the maturity models evolution, shifting from command and control basis to cooperation and connection basis; the maturity models scope, drifting from organizational units to collaborative networks of software production; the assimilation and broadcast of digital ecosystems concept by MCTI; and the maturity levels introduced in the research can be used as a particular case of capacity dimension of the further ISO/IEC 33000 standards.

Through the results obtained with systematic revision of the literature, one can notice the absence of publications that approach all the four axes that ground this research simultaneously. The proposed subject is original and relevant to the software community in the matter of software process improvement and to the current and further public digital ecosystems of software development.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how absorptive capacity mediates the relationship between ambidextrous organizational learning and performance among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Based on the resource-based view (RBV) and the dynamic capability approach, this paper uses the resource-capability-performance framework to construct the theoretical model of this study and tests the theoretical model with the questionnaire survey data of 189 SMEs in mainland China.

Ambidextrous organizational learning has different effects on SMEs' performance in terms of survival performance and growth performance. Both exploitative learning and exploratory learning have positive effects on absorptive capacity, and absorptive capacity has positive influences on both the survival performance and growth performance of SMEs. Absorptive capacity plays different mediating roles in the relationships between ambidextrous organizational learning and SMEs' performance: absorptive capacity plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between exploratory learning and SME growth performance, while absorptive capacity plays complete mediating roles in other relationships.

Managers must stress the use of exploratory learning in order to promote SMEs' growth performance. However, to foster both absorptive capacity and SME performance in terms of survival and growth, managers must pay more attention to take advantage of ambidextrous organizational learning. Government as policymakers should create a favorable environment that enable SMEs to benefit much more from the deployment of ambidextrous organizational learning and absorptive capacity.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to theorize and test the mediating role of absorptive capacity in the linkage between ambidextrous organizational learning and SME performance in terms of survival and growth. Additionally, this study also is the first to provide empirical support for the impact of ambidextrous organizational learning on absorptive capacity among SMEs.

Considers the value of work measurement. Examines the process of management and identifies the tasks carried out in that process. Provides examples that each illustrate one facet of the planning process that can be improved through the use of work measurement. Claims that decision making is dependent upon reliable information – the kinds of information provided by comprehensive programme of work measurement.