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The purpose of this chapter is to develop the indicators that are necessary for monitoring and controlling the efficiency of the process of implementation of information economy’s optimization model. For this, the authors used general scientific research methods – systemic, problem, structural, and functional analysis to determine the key components of balancing, along with a specific method of economics – the balance method – for determining the method of balancing of indicators.

On the basis of the complex analysis performed with the application of the above methods, the authors determined the main indicators of efficiency of the process of implementation of information economy’s optimization model essential for its successful monitoring and control. These indicators are systematized in connection to the noosphere levels and are presented in this work. The offered indicators of efficiency of the process of implementation of the information economy’s optimization model are recommended for systemic national and international monitoring and control during model implementation. The indicators for the current year, in comparison with the dynamics of previous years, could be used. The balance coefficients pose the largest value and provide the highest level of information as they reflect the results of analysis of intermediary indicators and offer information in the form that is ready for regulators. The offered indicators have to supplement the indicators used for evaluating the efficiency of economy’s formation according to the its old model.

The indicators offered in this chapter focus on the balance model of information economy, however to compile a complete picture on the progress of its formation requires consideration of the values of the indicators used within the old model.

Purpose – The accounting literature has demonstrated increased concern over issues of sustainability. One of the most critical issues that corporations face at the moment is climate change. This especially concerns companies that are substantial consumers of materials and energy. Corporations have increasingly acknowledged that to address this issue the existing ways of managing business must be changed.

This study examines the challenges posed by measurement of energy efficiency performance in an energy-intensive industry. It covers the challenges encountered with respect to the energy efficiency indicator and its use as a management tool.

Methodology – The case study method was used to conduct the research, which took place in a single firm in an energy-intensive process industry.

Findings – The results indicate that the current energy efficiency indicator, specific energy consumption (SEC), does not meet the criteria for good performance measurement. In particular, the controllability of energy efficiency seems problematic. Another major challenge is target setting. Measurable targets are needed to identify and prioritise areas where consumption and emission can be reduced.

Practical implications – The study provides practical knowledge on what is happening in organisations that pursue sustainable development and in particular, environmental efficiency.

Originality/value – Although the conceptual challenges in energy efficiency measurement are well known in the technical literature, discussions dealing with its management have been few in number. This study is a cross-disciplinary work and combines technical energy efficiency literature and management accounting research on performance management.

This study aims to explore the nexus of equality and efficiency by considering public hospitals' development dynamics, capacity and technology indicators.

Data was collected from the Ministry of Health Public Hospital Almanacs from 2014 to 2017. The Gini index (GI) is used to estimate the inequality of distribution of hospital performance indicators. A bias-corrected efficiency analysis is calculated to obtain efficiency scores of public hospitals for the year 2017. A path analysis is then constructed to better identify patterns of causation among a set of development, equality and efficiency variables.

A redefined path model highlights that development dynamics, equality and efficiency are causally related and health technology (path coefficient = 0.57; t = 19.07; p < 0.01) and health services utilization (path coefficient = 0.24; t = 8; p < 0.01) effects public hospital efficiency. The final path model fit well (X²/df = 50.99/8 = 6; RMSEA = 0.089; NFI = 0.95; CFI = 0.96; GFI = 0.98; AGFI = 0.94). Study findings indicate high inequalities in distribution of health technologies (GI > 0.85), number of surgical operations (GI > 0.70) and number of inpatients (GI > 0.60) among public hospitals for the years 2014–2017.

Study results highlight that, hospital managers should prioritize equal distribution of health technology and health services utilization indicators to better orchestrate equity-efficiency trade-off in their operations.

This study aims to deal with the evaluation of institutional development and effectiveness of regional parliaments; it provides a scientific contribution to the development of the field of parliamentary studies by developing a set of indicators to present a parameter for evaluating regional parliaments with application to the Arab Parliament. The study concluded with the development of a parameter of 35 indicators to measure institutionally, efficiency and effectiveness of the institution, with application to the Arab Parliament, as well as developing an integrated assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in the institutional aspects and organizational efficiency.

The study is predicated on the principle of institutional approach and the systems analysis. The curriculum is applied to the Arab Parliament as an institution to quantify efficiency and efficacy according to the implementation of a set of proposed practical indicators. The study additionally applies both Huntington’s institutional standards such as Adaptability, Involution, Autonomy and Coherence, as well as the indicators of institutions efficiency according to PrePanti such as Openness, Reception (R), Autonomy (A), Balance (B), Congruence (C), Internal Efficacy (I), Reformulation (R) and Roles (R), which refer to the first seven Latin letters “First RABCIRR”.

The researcher endeavored to answer the main questions; How to quantify the degree of institutionalization, its impact on the efficiency and efficacy of regional parliaments. The researcher’s approaches and the standards of efficiency and efficacy figured a comprehensive set of indicators that composed an integrated parliamentary standard to assess the degree of institutionalization, efficacy and efficiency of regional parliaments as a scientific contribution based on the Arab Parliament that can be applied to all regional parliaments.

This research is an attempt to create a Parliamentary Index to complement the previous scientific initiatives and efforts in developing such an index, which consists of 35 indicators and its application to the Arab Parliament. This research uses the principles of institutional approach, system analysis methodology and efficiency. The approach is applied to the Arab Parliament as a regional parliament to measure efficiency and effectiveness by applying a set of the proposed indicators.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodological framework that combines several data envelopment analysis (DEA) models to deal with the problem of evaluating and ranking advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) without introducing any subjectivity in the analysis.

The methodology follows a two-phase procedure. First, the relative efficiency of every technology is calculated by implementing different DEA cross-efficiency models generating the same number of high-order indicators as efficiency vectors. Second, high-order indicators are used as outputs in a SBM-DEA super-efficiency model to obtain a comprehensive DEA-like composite indicator.

The framework is implemented to evaluate a sample of flexible manufacturing systems. Comparing it to other methods, results show that the methodology provides reliable information for AMTs selection and effective support to management decision-making.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge about the utilization of DEA to select AMTs. The framework has several advantages: a discriminating power higher than the basic DEA models; no subjective judgment relative to weights necessary to aggregate single indicators and choice of aggregation function; no need to perform any transformation normalizing original data; independence from the unit of measurement of the DEA-like composite indicator; and great flexibility and adaptability allowing the introduction of further variables in the analysis.

Demands for accountability in education are not a new phenomenon, however, they have increased significantly in the recent past and have encompassed not only educational outcomes but also efficiency. In this study, ratio measures, similar to those recommended by the GASB, were compared to measures of relative efficiency determined through the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA). The consistency of the two approaches in distinguishing between relatively efficient and inefficient school districts was examined. It was found that compared to the DEA approach, the ratio measures, may be unable to provide reliable information for educational decision making.

This study aims to evaluate the effects produced by a strategy aimed at neutralising one of the “disturbance factors” that may impede the focalisation on “real (in)efficiency” in relative efficiency assessments within the health‐care sector: the exclusion of indirect costs from these comparative analyses.

The empirical analysis is based on the statistical elaboration of data from a sample group of hospital sub‐units within Italian health‐care trusts. The analysis isolates the effect on efficiency indicator variability (dependent variable) of excluding indirect costs (independent variable).

The analysis conducted has uncovered the likely manipulation of indirect costs to create the impression of having achieved approximately average levels of efficiency performance. The case analysed in this study shows how a defensive orientation in public organizations may arise even without the application of some form of compulsory benchmarking.

The results observed highlight how the exclusion of indirect costs – potentially allocated to attain cross‐subsidization among cost objects – may help to uncover actual cases of (in)efficiency and thus aid in identifying “true” best practices.

Literature has presented a variety of strategies aimed at neutralising some of the “disturbance factors” that impede the focalisation on “real (in)efficiency” in inter‐trust efficiency comparisons. However, until now no studies have supplied evidence of the efficacy of the strategies in question in isolating “real (in)efficiency”.

The purpose of this study is to measure and analyze the national innovation efficiency of organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) countries. This is to determine to what extent OECD countries efficiently use the elements that enable innovation activities possible in generating innovation outputs.

An input–output model was constructed to measure efficiency. The inputs and outputs in the research model are the input and output sub-indices of the Global Innovation Index. Data envelopment analysis was used to measure the national innovation efficiency levels of OECD countries.

The results show that national innovation efficiency is generally high in OECD countries. However, some countries lag behind in innovation efficiency. OECD countries’ ability to create and provide the elements that enable innovation activities is higher than their ability to create innovation outputs. OECD countries have a good innovation environment and a high level of resources, but they should focus on how to create more innovation outputs.

This study presents a measurement of national innovation efficiency of OECD countries which contributes “Innovation Strategy” agenda. The results empirically show that overall innovation indices cannot be the only indicator of the performance of national innovation systems. In this study, an innovation efficiency/performance matrix is constructed to present the relative positions of the countries to help in examining countries’ strengths, weaknesses and potentials based on innovation efficiency and innovation performance simultaneously. This study contributes to the literature by presenting a broader perspective and measurement of national innovation efficiency by taking an extensive number of indicators into account.

The purpose of this paper is to present and evaluate the performance of innovation systems by considering two indicators of efficiency and effectiveness. The scope of the evaluation is globally and due to the situation of each country, the suggested strategies are proposed to maintain the status quo or move toward the desired situation for countries.

The approach is to compare and benchmark the countries in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of their innovation system. The Global Innovation Index report’s input-to-output ratio and the global competitiveness report are used for the assessment.

The findings indicate that countries such as China, Switzerland and the USA have an efficient and effective innovation system. However, the innovation systems in countries such as Brazil and Zimbabwe are not only inefficient but also ineffective. The findings also indicate that the innovation systems of countries such as Iran, Armenia and Egypt are efficient but ineffective. Finally, the authors can name Australia, Qatar and Russia as countries with effective but inefficient innovation systems.

Assessment of national innovation system using efficiency and effectiveness performances is done for the first time at the global stage.

The cost-to-asset ratio is a vital efficiency ratio for any financial institution, as it measures its operating expenses to its asset base. This study uses this ratio to evaluate the efficiency of defined benefit pension plans (DBPPs) in the Republic of Congo using financial and macroeconomic indicators.

Under the financial indicator, the authors apply vector autoregression (VAR) to a dataset covering 120 months from 2011 to 2020. In addition, the authors use 12 years of data from 2009 to 2020 and the random effects model under macroeconomic indicators.

Assets and costs together Granger cause the efficiency of the DBPP. However, there is no Granger causality from the combination of assets and costs on the DB public and industry PP efficiencies. The random effects model results show that macroconnect level variables significantly lower the cost-to-asset ratio, thereby improving the PP's efficiency. Macrodisconnect level variables significantly increase the cost-to-asset ratio, thereby deteriorating PP efficiency.

The study is limited to a developing economy in sub-Saharan Africa, which may hinder the generalization of the results. Future studies could use panel samples from sub-Saharan Africa so that inferences could be drawn for the continent and comparisons made with others.

To the best of the authors knowledge, this study is the first in sub-Saharan Africa to assess the efficiency of DBPPs using financial and macroeconomic indicators.