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This study aims to conduct a literature review on factors that influence the implementation and design of performance measurement systems in nonprofit organizations.

The research strategy is conceived through a literature review focused on the analysis of authorship, supported by bibliometric techniques such as citation, co-citation and co-authorship social networks.

Models and theories proposed for measuring performance in non-profit organizations are being researched, starting to form an intellectual structure related to performance measurement systems and nonprofits. Three main research topics have been given more attention: strategic performance and public service performance, health-care performance and nonprofit operations strategy and performance measurement.

The study is limited to scientific journal papers and could benefit from the addition of new sources of information such as conference papers, books and standards. The body of knowledge of this topic could also benefit from an in-depth investigation through a comprehensive review of models and theories, as a proposal for a future research agenda.

As practical applications are identified, groups of researchers in different countries and subjects that can generate research agendas, scientific communities used to investigate issues related to performance in nonprofit activities.

Performance measurement in nonprofit organizations is a topic of study that has been receiving considerable attention in recent years, to the point that the literature is revealing specific models for measuring performance in this type of organizations. Particular models and theories are being conceived, specializing existing models and theories related to performance measurement and management.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of Work Study is split into six sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Operational research and statistics; Project management, method study and work measurement; Business process re‐engineering; Design of work; Performance, productivity and motivation; Stock control and supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between management education, the performance of German engineering enterprises and the strategic knowledge status of the executives running those enterprises.

The paper is based upon the results of an online/posted self‐administered questionnaire conducted within Germany, augmented by micro case studies.

Findings suggest that the curricula in German Engineering Faculties fail to fully embrace business and management studies, in particular strategic management which has virtually no presence. Engineers dominate senior management positions within the German machinery and equipment sector yet they display limited knowledge of strategic management tools. There is also evidence that links performance with the application of management knowledge.

The study is limited to senior executives within German SMEs from the machinery and equipment sector. It is likely that the findings would be applicable throughout the German engineering industry; however, generalisability to other countries may be limited. Only a single year's performance (2007) was considered and this is also a limitation of the study. This was mitigated by a request that anomalies be noted, such as extraordinary write offs or a windfall profit, within the year in question, this was then taken into account during the analysis.

Based on the findings it is suggested that German faculties of engineering should enhance and expand management education, particularly strategic management, thus enhancing future performance potential within German SMEs.

This paper examines the level of management education attained by senior engineering executives with a key economic industrial sector in Germany, as such it is one of few such studies which investigates the link between management education and performance.

Business process re‐engineering (BPR) is certainly one of the latest buzzwords and is the subject of great interest and also great controversy. Organizations need to shake themselves out of complacency to close competitive gaps and achieve superior performance standards ‐ the reason why many have embarked on huge BPR projects. In view of the high risks associated with radical change, there are, however, many problems associated with BPR. For some BPR is going off the rails before it is properly understood, and many BPR exercises are not delivering the goods. Sometimes, organizations are expecting “quick fixes”, thus displaying their lack of understanding of a complex system. It is unreasonable to expect quick results when so much change is involved, especially when these business processes involve not only machines, but also people. Many believe, such as Mumford, that the management of change is the largest task in re‐engineering. Many people perceive re‐engineering as a threat to both their methods and their jobs. Owing to this recognition, many authors concentrate on the need to take account of the human side of re‐engineering, in particular the management of organizational change.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of organizational environment on engineering project cost management.

Taking China Railway Engineering Corporation 2nd Bureau (CREC 2nd Bureau for short) as an example, the authors conduct lots of semi‐structured interviews in its group corporation, company limited, two subsidiaries and two project departments, and finally collect textual data which include 30 paragraphs and more than 120,000 words. The authors then encode those interview data step by step for further analysis under the research paradigm of grounded theory.

Based on these encoded data, the paper builds concept, basic categories, main categories, which could be the factors affecting the engineering project cost management, the evidence chain and the complete story clue among these categories. Then finally constructs a theoretical framework called “3S” for short, which is comprised of the organizational structure supporting system, the control procedure supporting system and the social relation supporting system.

Because of the insufficient importance placed on engineering project cost management by academics and few theoretical papers, this paper provides a new method for exploring the engineering project cost management and a theoretical reference for further research.

In this paper, the authors discuss the action mechanism of organizational environment in the engineering project cost management and provide for Chinese construction enterprises more explicit guidance on their cost management practice.

There is little research on determinants of engineering project cost by Chinese scholars, which is mainly shown as normative research. There is no perfect theoretical framework on the determinants of engineering project cost management, which is not beneficial to the knowledge of engineering project cost management and is not comprehensive and in depth enough for academics and practitioners. This paper conducts a field study in CREC 2nd Bureau based on grounded theory. At last, “3S” theoretical framework is established. This paper is embodied in using reality as the accordance, scientifically carding and spreading the theory and translating the practical experience into theory, so that it is beneficial for the engineering project cost management.

The purpose of the work presented here is to assess the cost management practices of civil engineering organisations in Nigeria, with an overall aim of developing a generic cost management process map. The first objective is to compare existing frameworks theoretically to highlight their strengths and weaknesses. The second objective is to use the findings of the first objective to assess or benchmark the developed process map obtained from the multiple cases. The third objective is to compare the generic process map with the traditional building cost management process map to evaluate the strengths and shortcomings of the generic process map, which resulted in conclusions and recommendations made at the end of the research.

Data for the work was collected via semi-structured interviews, review of literature and official documents of the civil engineering organisations visited. To achieve the stated objectives, comparative analysis technique was used to compare existing frameworks on cost management to obtain the basis to benchmark the generic process map. The single case narrative technique was used to present each case; and the cross-case synthesis technique was used to present the multiple cases on each cost management process examined. Then, process maps were deployed to represent the homogeneous sets of civil engineering organisations, out of which the generic process map was developed. Comparative analysis was again deployed to compare the generic process map with the traditional building process map of cost management practice to evaluate the findings.

It was found out that the generic civil engineering process map is not as detailed and effective as the building process map in providing best value for money, accurate early cost estimates, accurate cost certainty and post-contract cost control.

This research study provides an industrial impetus to push for the involvement of more quantity surveyors (QS) as cost management process owners in the procurement of civil engineering projects in Nigeria, hence encouraging government’s efforts in the enforcement of more accurate project cost estimates and promoting the QS’s project-specific advice on capital, operational, maintenance and life cycle costs.

The paper examines the operational impact of project management systems on the management of human resources and the practical implications of this for practitioners in two project‐led engineering contractors

The paper achieves these objectives through semi‐structured interviews in two in‐depth case studies.

The paper examines specific human resource practices, for example, staff appraisal and efforts at work re‐structuring. The paper finds that in project‐led organizations, such as those in engineering contracting, embedded sectoral characteristics such as portfolio training limit the capacity of HR practitioners to actively change employee perceptions of their development.

The paper reports on sector‐specific research. However, the paper does illustrate the lack of engagement between project management literatures and personnel/HR literatures on the role of HR practitioners in project‐led organizations

The paper draws out the impact of embedded sector effects on the management of HRs and the effects of this on the role played by practitioners.

The value of this paper for the academic community is that it emphasizes a lack of engagement between project management literatures and HR/personnel literatures when it is likely that “project management” systems are a core managerial mechanism for the deployment of staff.

This paper aims to explore the information needs and information-seeking behaviours of the new generation of engineering designers. A survey study is used to approach what their information needs are, how these needs change during an engineering design project and how their information-seeking behaviours have been influenced by the newly developed information technologies (ITs). Through an in-depth analysis of the survey results, the key functions have been identified for the next-generation management systems.

The paper first proposed four hypotheses on the information needs and information-seeking behaviours of young engineers. Then, a survey study was undertaken to understand their information usage in terms of the information needs and information-seeking behaviours during a complete engineering design process. Through analysing the survey results, several findings were obtained and on this basis, further comparisons were made to discuss and evaluate the hypotheses.

The paper has revealed that the engineering designers' information needs will evolve throughout the engineering design project; thus, they should be assisted at several different levels. Although they intend to search information and knowledge on know-what and know-how, what they really require is the know-why knowledge in order to help them complete design tasks. Also, the paper has shown how the newly developed ITs and web-based applications have influenced the engineers' information-seeking practices.

The research subjects chosen in this study are engineering students in universities who, although not as experienced as engineers in companies, do go through a complete design process with the tasks similar to industrial scenarios. In addition, the focus of this study is to understand the information-seeking behaviours of a new generation of design engineers, so that the development of next-generation information and knowledge management systems can be well informed. In this sense, the results obtained do reveal some new knowledge about the information-seeking behaviours during a general design process.

This paper first identifies the information needs and information-seeking behaviours of the new generation of engineering designers. On this basis, the varied ways to meet these needs and behaviours are discussed and elaborated. This intends to provide the key characteristics for the development of the next-generation knowledge management system for engineering design projects.

This paper proposes a novel means of exploring the future engineers' information needs and information-seeking behaviours in a collaborative working environment. It also characterises the key features and functions for the next generation of knowledge management systems for engineering design.

In 2000, the Hong Kong Government commissioned the Construction Industry Review Committee (CIRC) to provide a thorough review of the strengths/weaknesses of the Hong Kong construction industry and to recommend improvement measures. The CIRC’s report, released in 2001, recommended many improvement measures related to total quality management (TQM) principles. Despite many of these improvement recommendations being fulfilled in the ten years following the release of the report, there is a lack of literature documenting these achievements and the corresponding level of TQM application. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of TQM application by engineering consultants in Hong Kong using a questionnaire survey.

A literature review was conducted and a survey questionnaire was then designed for a full-scale survey. The data collected from the survey were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Correlations between the respondents’ scores on the survey questions were established.

The survey findings indicate a moderately high level of application of TQM principles, reflecting a moderately high achievement in implementing the CIRC’s intended improvements. The survey findings further suggest that as a short-term need, focussing on top management leadership and supplier management is necessary for current and scheduled projects, and that organizational learning and people management are the two other major TQM principles that engineering consultants should focus on to sustain their long-term business.

The Hong Kong experience should be of interest to other countries, both regionally and globally, in search of an improvement framework to enhance their quality culture.

This paper is an original contribution. The content of the paper is unique. No one has done this before.

Re‐engineering is the latest in a long line of performance improvement programmes with which US industry has experimented during the last decade. The radical approach taken by re‐engineering is the main characteristic setting it apart from any of its predecessors. Re‐engineering is based on the premiss that the best way for a corporation to make significant improvements is to take a clean sheet of paper and ask itself “if I were to start this company over from the beginning, what would I do?” Now, two years after the introduction of this unusual approach, many corporations are finding their efforts have failed. By analysing these case studies, several key topics have arisen which explain why some organizations have completed their re‐engineering programmes without meeting their expectations. First discusses re‐engineering in detail, and then addresses several of these recent developments.