Search results

Researchers, policymakers and hospital managers often encounter numerous quality measures when assessing hospital quality. The purpose of this paper is to address the challenge of summarising, interpreting and comparing multiple quality measures across different quality dimensions by proposing a simple method of constructing a composite quality index. The method is applied to hospital administrative data to demonstrate its use in analysing hospital performance.

Logistic and fixed effects regression analyses are applied to secondary admitted patient data from all hospitals in the state of Victoria, Australia for the period 2000/2001–2011/2012.

The derived composite quality index was used to rank hospital performance and to assess changes in state-wide average hospital quality over time. Further regression analyses found private hospitals, day hospitals and non-acute hospitals were associated with higher composite quality, while small hospitals were associated with lower quality.

The method will enable policymakers and hospital managers to better monitor the performance of hospitals. It allows quality to be related to other attributes of hospitals such as size and volume, and enables policymakers and managers to focus on hospitals with relevant characteristics such that quantity and quality changes can be better understood, monitored and acted upon.

A simple method of constructing a composite quality is an indispensable practical tool in tracking the quality of hospitals when numerous measures are used to capture different aspects of quality. The derived composite quality can be used to summarise hospital performance and to identify factors associated with quality via regression analyses.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether first level measures in the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) declaring a cause-effect relationship by design are composite indices of lower measures, and if they converge into a single factor as is traditionally accepted in the BSC literature.

This study reports results of a quantitative case study that focusses on an Ontario (Canada) community hospital that has been using the BSC.

The results of this study challenge the cause-effect assumption of the BSC, particularly in a cascading context, and suggest that a lack of attention of how composite indices of lower measures converge into a single higher level measure may be the reason for ineffective use of the BSC.

The BSC is a dynamic tool; as such there are several measures that have a very short history, thus limiting the observations available to be used in statistical models.

A key recommendation for practice that emerges from this study is the need to test if lower level metrics do merge naturally in the upper level measure of the BSC; if not, the upper level measure might not be linked to other measures rendering the BSC ineffective in the context of causality.

Although several studies have argued in favour of the cause-effect relationship of the BSC, none of those found in the literature have paid attention to the way in which first level measures are constructed. This may explain why certain measures are linked, while others are not, to those that are calculated as composite indices of several lower level indicators.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the findings of articles appearing in European Journal of Marketing’s special section on covariance-based versus composite-based structural equations modeling (SEM).

This is an editorial which uses literature review to draw conclusions regarding areas of agreement, areas for further research, and changing the discussion around composite-based SEM methods.

There are now four new areas of agreement regarding composite-based SEM. Researchers should adopt a toolbox approach to their methods and know the strengths and weaknesses of the research tools in their toolbox. Partial least squares (PLS) SEM and covariance-based SEM are not substitutes, and it is inappropriate to use the language of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in reporting measurement estimates from PLS SEM. Measurement matters and researchers need to devote effort to using reliable and valid multi-item measures in their investigations.

This postscript article outlines recommendations for authors, reviewers and editors regarding the analysis of data and reporting of results using structural equations models.

The purpose of this paper is to construct, for the first time, composite index for Egypt that measures the economic and social rights fulfillment (ESRF) based on socioeconomic surveys at the household/individual levels.

The paper highlights some of the statistical debatable issues about composite indices and focuses mainly on six of them. Those issues are indicators selection, handling missing data, identification of and dealing with outliers, scale of measurement, computing the margin of error, weights assigned for indicators and domains and aggregation method. Handling these problematic issues gave rise to a rigorous index.

The quality of economic and social rights fulfillment index (ESRFI) is judged by its bootstrap standard error. Based on these margin of errors, confidence intervals can be computed and rigorous comparisons across all disaggregation levels of the ESRFI can be made. The results shows that the overall index is accurate and representative in measuring the ESRF in Egypt. Comparisons between rural and urban regions indices show that the rural areas are always worse than the urban areas in all levels of dimensions, especially for the Right to Education and Adequate Housing.

The ESRFI is not very current because it is based on the 2010 Egyptian Household Conditions Observatory Survey (EHCOS), which is the latest published version of the survey with complete variables for the index data. When the next EHCOS becomes available, an updated ESRFI can be easily and quickly constructed.

The ESRFI could strengthen policy formulation that takes into account ESRF, especially by highlighting the situation in different regions and disaggregation levels.

The proposed ESRFI would strengthen policy formulation that takes into account ESRF, especially by highlighting the situation in different regions and different disaggregation levels.

The paper emphasizes the importance of recognizing and handling of the six problematic issues that arise when constructing composite indices. The paper presents the first ESRFI for Egypt and demonstrates the rigor of its construction.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

When comparing and evaluating performance, decision-makers are concerned with providing a range of effective, efficient, and fair measures that can yield representative relative rankings for the units being evaluated. In this chapter, we apply three multicriteria benchmarking modeling techniques – weighted linear combination, data envelopment analysis (DEA), and ordered weighted average (OWA) – to an example dataset to provide a quantitative assessment of performance. Evaluation of the results demonstrates that each of these techniques has relative strengths and shortcomings. To take advantage of the relative strengths, and avoid some of the shortcomings that we observed, we develop and assess a promising new methodological approach, the order rated effectiveness (ORE) model. ORE uses the OWA unit ratings within a DEA optimization framework to provide an overall relative performance assessment.

The purpose of this paper is first, to overview the current research situation on job embeddedness (JE), including the theoretical underpinning of JE, the definition and dimensions of JE, its comparisons with similar constructs, and its global and composite measure; second, to intergrate the unfolding model, JE and image theory to better understand voluntary turnover – and indicate future research directions.

An extensive literature search covering several separate electronic databases, including ScienceDirect, EBSCO, Kluwer and Emerald, was conducted. Most of the articles can be acquired online from The University of California Riverside. The validity and reliability are compared between global and composite scales. The authors summarized and categorized the findings of current research.

JE can be differentiated from those similar constructs and measures already in the literature. Almost all of the studies on JE have found that it predicted voluntary turnover better than job attitudes and perceived ease of movement from traditional models of turnover. Along with extended research on it, JE was disaggregated into two major sub‐dimensions, namely, on‐the‐job and off‐the‐job embeddedness, and it has been extended to occupational and career level.

In this paper, the authors use qualitative methods to evaluate the current studies on JE, only. Meta‐analysis, as a reviewing method, should be used in future research on clarifying the relationships between JE and other constructs in organizational behavior.

This research reviews almost all of the studies on JE from 2001 to 2009 and organizes and categorizes them into three kinds: cause, consequence and theoretical extension. The authors also summarize its relationships with other constructs (e.g. turnover, turnover intention, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior) in various settings. Finally, based on discussion, the authors indicate future research directions.

As an economic development strategy, entrepreneurship policies should target innovative activities – those which Schumpeter described as leading to new goods, production methods, markets, input sources, or new industries. However, popular entrepreneurship proxies, such as firm births (<500 employees) and sole proprietorships, capture multiple types of entrepreneurship which may have conflicting qualities. To address the need for more accurate measures of Schumpeterian activity, indices are constructed to specifically measure the relative amount of Schumpeterian activity among US states. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Four composite indices of Schumpeterian activity are constructed using different methods to combine variables related to innovative activity into single indicator, since there is uncertainty about the weighting of dimensions: principal component analysis (PCA), factor analysis (FA), data envelopment analysis and equal weights. Robustness checks were used to compare state rankings across indices. These indices were also compared to common entrepreneurship proxies and real GDP to demonstrate and justify their measurement of Schumpeterian activity.

The results show that the Schumpeterian Activity Indices (SAIs) similarly rank states and measure phenomena different from the common proxies of entrepreneurship. Furthermore, these indices better predict GDP than the common proxies. Lastly, state rankings based upon the SAIs support previous research suggesting that innovation and agglomeration economies are interrelated.

The paper demonstrates a methodology for constructing a measure of innovative activity, which is necessary to develop and evaluate entrepreneurship policy for economic development.

Research on international marketing usually involves comparing different groups of respondents. When using structural equation modeling (SEM), group comparisons can be misleading unless researchers establish the invariance of their measures. While methods have been proposed to analyze measurement invariance in common factor models, research lacks an approach in respect of composite models. The purpose of this paper is to present a novel three-step procedure to analyze the measurement invariance of composite models (MICOM) when using variance-based SEM, such as partial least squares (PLS) path modeling.

A simulation study allows us to assess the suitability of the MICOM procedure to analyze the measurement invariance in PLS applications.

The MICOM procedure appropriately identifies no, partial, and full measurement invariance.

The statistical power of the proposed tests requires further research, and researchers using the MICOM procedure should take potential type-II errors into account.

The research presents a novel procedure to assess the measurement invariance in the context of composite models. Researchers in international marketing and other disciplines need to conduct this kind of assessment before undertaking multigroup analyses. They can use MICOM procedure as a standard means to assess the measurement invariance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the tensile strength, Young’s modulus, dimensional stability and porosity of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS)–oil palm fiber composite filament for fused deposition modeling (FDM).

A new feedstock material for FDM comprising oil palm fiber and ABS as a matrix was developed by a twin screw extruder. The composite filament contains 0, 3, 5 and 7 Wt.% of oil palm fiber in the ABS matrix. The tensile test is then performed on the fiber composite filament, and the wire diameter is measured. In this study, the Archimedes method was used to determine the density and the porosity of the filament. The outer surface of the wire composite was examined using an optical microscope, and the analysis of variance was used to assess the significance and the relative relevance of the primary factor.

The results showed that increasing the fiber loading from 0.15 to 0.4 MPa enhanced tensile strength by 60%. Then, from 16.1 to 18.3 MPa, the Young’s modulus rose by 22.8%. The density of extruded filament decreased and the percentage of porosity increased when the fiber loading was increased from 3 to 7 Wt.%. The diameter deviation of the extruded filaments varied from −0.21 to 0.04 mm.

This paper highlights a novel natural resource-based feedstock material for FDM. Its mechanical and physical properties were also discovered.