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This article presents an evaluation tool that is designed to assess 12 spatial and managerial qualities of public parks. The tool is applied in evaluating public parks in Cairo to reveal common management practice issues.

Features and factors of the qualities were defined and evaluated. The tool was then tested by conducting an evaluation of 48 public parks in Cairo and consulting local experts regarding the assessment criteria. These contributed to enhancing the tool, making it more comprehensive and contextualised to Cairo.

Application of the tool confirms that the tool has the capacity to provide a comprehensive evaluation of a variety of features and can detect key differences between evaluated parks. Analysis highlights that parks in Cairo are not maintained at optimum level and many exhibit serious deterioration that can have negative influences beyond the boundaries of the parks themselves. The majority of these parks also share problems of heavy commercialisation, wasted potentials, fragmentation and separation of uses.

The evaluation tool provides a new and alternative perspective for the evaluation of the built environment. The tool considers the relationships between the different factors of evaluation, rather than reducing the factors to simple checklists. Managers and other practitioners can use the tool to evaluate existing parks or when designing proposals to achieve better standards in the qualities.

This paper aims to explore users' perceptions of whether the Leadership Development Impact Assessment (LDI) Toolkit is valid, reliable, simple to use and cost-effective as a guide to its quality improvement.

The Canadian Health Leadership Network codesigned and codeveloped the LDI Toolkit as a theory-driven and evidence-informed resource that aims to assist health-care organizational development practitioners to evaluate various programs at five levels of impact: reaction, learning, application, impact and return on investment (ROI) and intangible benefits. A comparative evaluative case study was conducted using online questionnaires and semistructured telephone interviews with three health organizations where robust leadership development programs were in place. A total of seven leadership consultants and specialists participated from three Canadian provinces. Data were analyzed sequentially in two stages involving descriptive statistical analysis augmented with a qualitative content analysis of key themes.

Users perceived the toolkit as cost-effective in terms of direct costs, indirect costs and intangibles; they found it easy-to-use in terms of clarity, logic and structure, ease of navigation with a coherent layout; and they assessed the sources of the evidence-informed tools and guides as appropriate. Users rated the toolkit highly on their perceptions of its validity and reliability. The analysis also informed the refinement of the toolkit.

The refined LDI Toolkit is a comprehensive online collection of various tools to support health organizations to evaluate the leadership development investments effectively and efficiently at five impact levels including ROI.

Relative performance evaluation (RPE) is a widely practiced employee appraisal process in the services industry. In a global delivery model, teams are spread across different geographical locations. The team members work on various tasks under the guidance of different managers and at times under more than one manager for performing the same task. Such complexities make RPE of the team members quite challenging. The paper proposes a methodical step-by-step approach to simplify the evaluation process without compromising on the rigour.

RPE has followed three different approaches. First is the traditional way, wherein evaluators had a common meeting to discuss and arrive at relative evaluation and ranking of members of the peer group employees. In the second, the number of evaluators and employees in a peer group were split in to 2 subgroups. The evaluators provided independent ratings and rankings. Simple mathematical tool then derived the combined ranking. In the third approach, each evaluator evaluated each employee in the peer group and provided the relative ranking for each employee. Again, mathematical tools provided the final ranking considering inputs from all evaluators. All the three evaluation approaches were analysed through an inter-rater agreement method.

All the three approaches for evaluation provided similar results giving confidence that less time-consuming methods could be adopted by evaluators without compromising on the rigour of the evaluation. The outcome of the exercise proved effective as the complaints reaching the ombudsmen reduced as compared to the earlier years. Considerable evaluation time was also saved. The study described in this paper is carried out in a non-unionized, Indian private sector services firm. Its effectiveness in other set ups is yet to be tested.

The research is carried out in the Indian Engineering services firm operating in the Knowledge based sector. Though study results are encouraging, the adaptability of methodology across different sectors and geographies is yet to be tested. More broad based studies are needed to evaluate suitability across firms and regions.

Relative evaluation exercise is challenging for evaluators. Although openness in evaluation is desired, it also makes evaluators uncomfortable in appearing to be taking sides or being opposing a candidate's ranking. The proposed approach brings in anonymity to each evaluator without scarifying individual evaluation.

The proposed methodology can be deployed across different services industries as the proposed methodology is business domain agnostic. It can be easily ported and tailored to align with an individual organization's evaluation philosophy. The suitability and effectiveness of the method can be studied under various types of firms like manufacturing, private, public, NGO, labour oriented, etc. As the proposed method reduces efforts, the stake holders can focus on understanding the relation between employee performance measurement, employee engagement, and long-term outcomes related to employee performance evaluation.

The proposed employee evaluation method leverages inter-rater reliability and agreement tool as a consensus approach to the relative performance ranking exercise. Such an approach to relative performance ranking is original as no prior studies with such an approach are found in the existing Literature.

The research is based on the analysis of recent experiences of participative processes in the reuse and maintenance of contexts considered as “urban waste,” focusing on their role in smart sustainable development processes. The recognition of discarded urban spaces/buildings as regeneration opportunities opens up new perspectives on the communities’ commitments and responsibilities, in new governance models. These experiences, better known as “commons,” highlight the active role of communities in establishing new unconventional forms of value creation and production based on circular processes and interdependences between city and communities. Circularization and synergies are the fundamental precondition for smart sustainable development. Assuming the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach as general framework, the phenomenon of commons represents an opportunity to make it operational through an integrated methodology based on the recovery of the environment built according to an inclusive and hybrid approach, configured by culture and shared with local communities. In this perspective, this contribution proposes an evaluation framework not only to monitor the results and impacts produced by these experiences, but also to stimulate and improve awareness, self-learning and self-evaluation processes of the actors involved in regeneration processes toward a smart sustainable development.

To address the absence of Lean in transportation logistics in the digital era, this study aims to investigate the application of Lean transportation (LT) tools to reduce waste and facilitate the digital transformation of dedicated road transportation in the offshore industry.

The study adopts action research with a multimethod approach, including a scoping review, focus groups (FG) and participant observation. The research is conducted within the offshore supply chain of a major oil and gas company.

Implementing LT’s continuous improvement tools, particularly value stream mapping (VSM), reduces offshore transportation waste and provides empirical evidence about the intersection of Lean and digital technologies. Applying techniques drawn from organisational learning theory (OLT), stakeholders involved in VSM mapping and FGs engage in problem-solving and develop action plans, driving digital transformation. Waste reduction in loading and unloading stages leads to control actions, automation and process improvements, significantly reducing downtime. This results in an annual monetary gain of US$1.3m. The study also identifies waste related to human effort and underutilised digital resources.

This study contributes to theory and practice by using action research and LT techniques in a real intervention case. From the lens of OLT, it highlights the potential of LT tools for digital transformation and demonstrates the convergence of waste reduction through Lean and Industry 4.0 technologies in the offshore supply chain. Practical outputs, including a benchmarking questionnaire and a plan-do-check-act cycle, are provided for other companies in the same industry segment.

Educators strive to develop and implement high impact educational experiences, which are critical to ensuring university courses and curricula serve as memorable and transferable learning experiences for students. It is not clear, however, which experiences are exceptional from a student perspective, or what kinds of illustrative examples exist in applied disciplines. In this chapter, we ground our discussion of high impact educational experiences in the field of program evaluation, contextualize it as organized at the University of Minnesota, describe three experiences that have been repeatedly described as impactful by students, and engage in a collective dialogue as teachers and learners.

Environmental behavior research has shown that environmental characteristics may have a big impact on people's behavior. This paper is part of a doctoral dissertation on evaluating the building performance of residential hostels in Centrally Funded Technical Institutes (CFTI) in India, an appropriate methodology was developed using the relevant attributes of environmental behavioral research to conduct post-occupancy evaluation (POE) for a pilot survey that identified unique ground conditions. The approach aids in comprehending the state of residential surroundings from the perspective of students, and the conclusion will allow the ongoing research to inquire about and suggest parameters for a student-friendly and inclusive residential hostel design in India, through its primary user, the students. The study aims to employs POE as a significant research method.

The methodological approach includes literature review (building performance evaluation/EBS); ground scenario in India; ground investigations outcome of ground scenario and investigations to frame further research processes; and discussions and conclusions.

Development of a methodology for studying residential environments in the CFTI in identifying variables in the Indian context and developing requisite tools for POE. The methodology also aids in communication between stakeholders and creates mechanisms for quality monitoring, providing knowledge when buildings fail to meet design intent and providing data and knowledge for future designs and key decisions. It will assist in the development of design and planning guidelines with respect to residential hostels in the Indian scenario.

Research work is carried out only in CFTI in India where Architecture is one of the branches.

Development of a methodology for studying residential environments in the CFTI in identifying variables in the Indian context and developing requisite tools for POE. The methodology also aids in communication between stakeholders and creates mechanisms for quality monitoring, providing knowledge when buildings fail to meet design intent and providing data and knowledge for future designs and key decisions. It will assist in the development of design and planning guidelines with respect to residential hostels in the Indian scenario.

This study identifies the specific difficulties and determined the research direction in this situation. It emphasized the need of paying attention to students' perceptions and contentment in residential hostels as a neglected component of Indian residential hostels that needs to be addressed. It aided in the creation of a bespoke research technique. The evaluation process of the main users of residential hostels on campuses is largely impacted by their cultural background and level of environmental awareness of their built environment. The survey also revealed the level of environmental awareness among hostel students in particular and Indian society in general. Finally, this study underlines the importance of rethinking the design and development of residential environments on campuses, particularly from the perspective of student welcoming.

The paper is a part of ongoing research in VNIT, Nagpur, India.

During the 1990s, Italian healthcare organisations (HOs) underwent a process of corporatisation, and the most innovative HOs introduced the balanced scorecard (BSC) to address the need for broader accountability. Currently, there is a limited understanding of the dynamics and outcomes of such a process. Therefore, this study aims to explore whether the BSC is still considered an effective performance management tool and analyse the factors driving and hindering its evolution and endurance in public and non-profit HOs.

We conducted a retrospective longitudinal analysis of two pioneering cases in the adoption of the BSC: one in a public hospital and the other in a non-profit hospital. Data collection relied on accessing institutional documents and reports from the early 2000s to the present, as well as conducting semi-structured interviews with the internal sponsors of the BSC.

We found evidence of three main categories of factors that trigger or hinder the adoption and development of the BSC: (1) the role of the internal sponsor and professionals’ commitment; (2) information technology and the controller’s technological skills; and (3) the relationship between the management and professionalism logics during the implementation process. At the same time, there is no evidence to suggest that specific technical features of the BSC influence its endurance.

The paper contributes to the debate on the key factors for implementing and sustaining multidimensional control systems in professional organisations. It emphasises the importance of knowledge-based assets and distinctive internal capabilities for the success of the business. The implications of the BSC legacy are discussed, along with future developments of multidimensional control tools aimed at supporting strategy execution.

The research on sustainable campus is related to environmental protection and the realization of global sustainable development goals (SDGs). Because the sustainable campus development in China and Japan is carried out around buildings, this paper takes Kitakyushu Science and Research Park as a case to study the characteristics and typical model of sustainable campus in Japan by combined with the characteristics of Chinese sustainable campus.

This study compares the evaluation standards of green buildings between China and Japan, then compares the assessment results of the same typical green building case and finally summarizes the development mode and main realization path by discussing the implications of green buildings on campus sustainability.

The results show that (1) the sustainable campus evaluation in Japan mainly pays attention to the indoor environment, energy utilization and environmental problems. (2) Buildings mainly affect the sustainability of the campus in three aspects: construction, transportation and local. (3) The sustainable campus development model of Science and Research Park can be summarized as follows: taking green building as the core; SDGs as the goals; education as the guarantee; and the integration of industry, education and research as the characteristics.

It mainly provides construction experience for other campuses around the world to coordinate the contradictions between campus buildings and the environment based on sustainable principles in their own construction. It proposes a new sustainable campus construction path of “building–region–environment” integrated development.

This study provides theoretical framework for the development of sustainable campuses that includes long-term construction ideas and current technological support greatly improving the operability of practical applications. It not only enriches the sample cases of global sustainable campuses but also provides new ideas and perspectives for the sustainable development research of the overall campus through quantitative evaluation of building and environmental impacts.

The overall aim of this chapter is to focus on the process of, and issues warranting consideration for, the evaluation of educational interventions. In particular, to outline some key considerations for educators to follow when assessing the evidence-base for interventions they might be considering for use in their practice. Also, important considerations for those wishing to evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention they have initiated, as well as a useful checklist which summarises this all. Recognising that some readers of this chapter might be practitioners rather than researchers, it has been written with the practitioner in mind in, hopefully, a simple and practical way. There are, however, further opportunities for additional reading and resources signposted throughout for those who wish to read up on any of these areas more. In addition to those cited throughout and referenced in the Reference List at the end. There is also a section that provides the author’s Additional Recommended Readings and Resources to follow-up on. Readers might also want to refer to Chapter 3 in this book which discusses Single versus Multiple PPI approaches.