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The purpose of this research is to present an alternative to the vast majority of studies on chief executive officer (CEO) compensation practices in the USA which have relied on multiple regression analysis and its variants.

The paper points out the shortcomings of traditional parametric approaches (such as regression analysis) to the analysis of CEO compensation practices and suggest non‐parametric alternatives.

Using tests for concurrent validity, the paper demonstrates how non‐parametric assessment may be successfully applied to the analysis of CEO compensation practices.

Because of the novelty of this approach, the findings should be of value to those academics and practitioners interested in the evaluation of CEO compensation practices.

Relative performance evaluation (RPE) involves board comparisons of firm performance to that of a peer group when evaluating CEO performance. To date, research on RPE in the USA has typically relied on models where RPE is implicitly assumed. In contrast, Bannister and Newman provide some direct evidence on the explicit RPE usage by US firms showing that it is limited and there is significant inter-industry variation in its use. The authors aim to focus on why boards in some industries employ RPE to a greater extent than those in other industries do using measures of industry discretion, industry homogeneity, industry competition.

The authors utilize the sample use in the Bannister and Newman study of RPE usage in industries (160 firms from the 1992 Fortune 250 with proxy statements for 1992 and 1993). The authors compile measures of industry membership (using SIC codes), industry discretion, industry homogeneity, and industry competition from Compustat a well. Multiple regression is used to test the hypotheses.

The authors find that the use of RPE at the industry level is significantly related to industry discretion (i.e. the degree of latitude that managers have over strategic and operational choices in the particular industry environment) and industry homogeneity, but not to industry competition.

The study is limited in terms of a dated sample (necessary to be consistent with the Bannister and Newman paper). It would bear updating. In addition, multi-year panel data could be used to generate more robust results. It would also be useful to replicate the study in other national (and hence governance) contexts.

The findings should help boards when deciding how to reward or punish CEOs and top managers for their firm performance by filtering out relative performance in a more rational manner (e.g. by taking relevant industry context into account).

In terms of originality, this is the first study, to the authors' knowledge, that investigates RPE at the industry level. It is valuable because industry discretion is an important contextual variable that a board of directors will find useful in evaluating managers since this type of discretion is beyond managerial control.

The purpose of the research is to study how Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO’s) ownership, CEO’s structural and expertise power and underwriters’ reputation affect the initial public offering (IPO) lockup period.

The study uses the multivariate regression method to test the hypothesis on a sample of 1,071 US IPOs, which comprise 80 per cent of the total population of IPOs over the 1998-2002 period.

It was found that CEO equity ownership had a direct positive impact and two indicators of CEO positional power (CEO duality, founder status) and underwriter reputation had a direct negative impact on the length of the lockup period that results from IPO negotiations between the issuing firm and the underwriter. It was also found that underwriter reputation negatively moderates the impact of equity ownership (likely due to a substitution effect) and positively moderates the impact of CEO duality on lockup period length (by offsetting the impact of CEO positional power).

Previous studies have exclusively studied the affect of economic factors on IPO lockup. This paper extends the extant literature by studying the insider’s characteristics like CEO’s power and underwriter’s reputation on IPO lockup periods.

Flexibility in manufacturing has aroused considerable interest among researchers and professionals. However, the vast body of literature on flexibility does not adequately address the kind of flexibility a company needs to meet its strategic objectives, nor how this flexibility can be achieved. An overview is provided of different types of flexibility, a classification scheme based on the strategic positioning and goals of the firm is provided, and suggestions are made on how these goals may be achieved. The importance of such a classification in the design and investment justification of flexible manufacturing is also discussed.

We explore: (1) the effects of work unit pressure on employees’ satisfaction with work–family balance (S-WFB); (2) the effects of individual-level job and family pressures on S-WFB; and (3) the extent to which schedule control moderates the negative influences of work unit pressure and other demands on employee S-WFB – among employees in a large healthcare system.

The data come from employee responses to the baseline survey (n = 3,950) administered in September 2012, and from administrative unit-level data (445 units) showing the extent to which units were “on-budget” (within 5 percent), “over-budget,” or “under-budget.”

Practices associated with cost containment in a healthcare system of 10,000 employees in the United States appear to have a negative impact on employee S-WFB. Working in a unit that is “under-budget” is negatively associated with individual S-WFB. Employees with high job demands, longer hours, responsibilities for children and/or adults, also reported lower S-WFB than employees without these characteristics.

Research is limited by lack of measures specific to healthcare workers, the use of baseline data only, and sample size for some of the analyses.

Schedule control makes a difference even under high work pressure. The lack of interactions among variables that typically moderate relationships between work pressures and S-WFB suggests the need for more support for healthcare workers under the strain of cost containment.

We include an objective indicator of unit-level job pressures on individual employees, thus identifying specific ways that work stress affects S-WFB.

Division of motor vehicle (DMV) offices serve a wide swath of Americans in all states and can therefore serve as excellent vehicles to study the quality of public services in the country. However, relatively little attention has been devoted in the academic literature to studying operations in DMV offices, especially as it relates to service quality and productivity. In an attempt to address the same, this paper aims to present the results of a study of DMV offices across the USA through a nationwide survey about vehicle titling and registration services, that received response from 31 of the 50 states and District of Columbia.

The authors use a mixed methods approach – a sequential unequal weight mixed methods approach starting with a quantitative analysis of DMV operational data followed by a qualitative case study approach. The primary data collected for this study were with a nationwide survey of the highest DMV office in each state, conducted through the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. Out of the 50 states, 31 states and District of Columbia responded to the survey. In addition to descriptive statistical analysis performed to glean nationwide findings, Data Envelopment Analysis was used to determine efficiency of operations. Finally, extensive in-person interviews with senior managers of DMV offices in Ohio and Indiana were conducted to get more in-depth information for case studies and identification of best practices.

States exhibit significant variations in labor and capital productivity and based on Data Envelopment Analysis, Texas and Minnesota DMVs are the most efficient in terms of using their labor and capital inputs to maximize the number of transactional services rendered. The authors also find that while operational performance of vehicle titling and registration services is monitored by most DMV offices across the nation, assessment of customer satisfaction received much less attention. Among the states that do well on both are Indiana and Ohio; the case studies presented based on interviews with their officials that also identify best practices.

This research was limited to the USA as are its findings. Additionally, it focuses only on vehicle titling and registration at DMV offices because that represents the bulk of services performed by a DMV and the output is standard across all states. Nonetheless, a future study should be extended to other DMV services.

Given the finding that assessment of customer satisfaction is not widely practiced in DMV offices, DMV officials should address this by putting appropriate systems in place. Additionally, practitioners and state officials can use the findings of this study to develop best practices for their operations and also determine the most appropriate ways to structure the provision of those services that result in enhanced efficiencies and customer satisfaction.

DMV services are among the most widely used services offered by the government in the USA and the overall size and scope of services provided by them across the country is immense. Thus, any improvements in productivity and service quality has significant implications in terms of improving public satisfaction with government services.

To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first nationwide comparative study of DMV offices in the USA that focuses on service quality and analyzes productivity across the states. Additionally, the case study provided at the end of the paper identifies best practices from two states that have received national recognition for service quality which could be adopted by all DMV offices across the USA. The findings also conform/strengthen numerous hypotheses espoused in existing models and theories from service operations literature by providing evidence in their favor.

This chapter traces the author's journey of change research from positivism to pragmatism and how different types of “engaged scholarship” shape how we know and do change. It takes readers through the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of different types of research and how these were expressed in studies of planned change interventions, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), cynicism and its consequences, “soul work” and community building in business, organizational transformation, and the development of more socially and environmentally conscious people, purposes, and practices. The paper reflects on the author's research as it relates to regulatory versus radical change and whose interests are and might be served by change research.