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Metrics, data, algorithms and numbers play an unmistakably powerful role in today’s society. Over the years, their use and function have expanded to cover almost every sphere of everyday life so much so that it can be argued that we are now living in a ‘metric culture’, a term indicating at once the growing cultural interest in numbers and a culture that is increasingly shaped by numbers, as Beer (2016) also argues. At the same time, metric culture is not only about numbers and numbers alone, but also links to issues of power and control, to questions of value and agency and to expressions of self and identity. Self-tracking practices are indeed a manifestation of this metric culture and a testimony to how measurement, quantification, documentation and datafication have all become important tropes for managing life and the living in contemporary society. In this introductory chapter, I provide a general contextualisation of the topic of this edited collection along with an overview of the different chapters and their key arguments.

Safety performance indicators are a major research concern globally in the construction sector, so this study aims to systematically analyse construction safety performance indicators from some top research publications from 2000 to 2019.

Systematic review was performed using Scopus search engine and relevant publications were compiled. Visual and far reaching search in all publications were performed. Final analysis was done to evaluate selected attributes.

The outcome of the analysis showed growing interest in research on construction safety performance indicators since 2000. From the review, 48 safety performance indicators are identified from 41 selected publications. The most reported safety performance indicators were safety climate, safety orientation, management commitment to safety, near-miss and job site audits. It was noted further that USA, Australia, Canada and China have been international locations of attention for most research on construction safety performance indicators. The 48 safety indicators are classified into six categories, namely people indicators, culture indicators, processes indicators, infrastructure indicators, metrics indicators and technology indicators

The findings identified provide researchers and practitioners a summary of the safety indicators in the construction sector through a vision to streamline future applications and increase the safety performance in the construction sector.

A safety performance indicators' list has been established for the adoption of future empirical research. The findings will make a significant contribution to current but limited knowledge on safety performance indicators in construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the significance of the notion of food safety and quality culture as an important element in the practice of food safety management. It is the concluding article in a special themed edition of the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, discussing the importance of measuring food safety and quality culture.

This paper provides a review and discussion of the findings outlined throughout the papers in this special themed journal edition.

Food safety and quality culture are important yet intangible; measurement tools are available and can add value to organisations in assessing and improving their culture.

This paper brings together literature, research, case studies and viewpoints to examine the significance of food safety and quality culture. It will be of value to food safety and quality practitioners, trainers, auditors and other stakeholders involved in the food industry.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the concept of framing in the field of risk governance and risk management research.

A five-constituent approach to framing – cognitive, strategic, action, emotional and institutional framing – is applied to contrastively analyze the multifaceted character of the two concepts of risk governance and risk management.

This paper analyzes the multifaceted utilization of risk governance framing and the conscious demarcation between risk governance and risk management. Risk governance framing strengthens the proactive control of strategic risks with regard to business model adaptation to changing risk landscapes. The verbal imagery of risk governance already sets the agenda for the sustainability-oriented as well as value-oriented steering of the risks of a business model. Following the analysis of the different framing areas, propositions are presented.

Although framing is applied in various academic disciplines, there is limited research relating to corporate risks. While risk governance provides companies with a concept to ensure the sustainability of their business models in the complex risk landscape, the related framing brings the appropriate interpretation and the deliberate tone into focus.

To show how the key to successfully managing alliances is developing and implementing alliance metrics.

The case of “Acme Manufacturing” (a composite of several firms) is used to illustrate the theory and reasoning behind the creation and tracking of alliance metrics appropriate to the life cycle of the partnership. These ideas are then applied to the ongoing Avnet/HP alliance.

Understanding and applying unique metrics at each stage allows management to anticipate alliance challenges and increase flexibility and adaptability when faced with changing economic and market conditions. Across the life cycle stages the partners must learn to monitor two types of measurements – development metrics, commonly employed in the start‐up and high growth stages, and implementation metrics, engaged throughout the professional, mature, decline, and sustain stages of the life cycle.

This is a case study produced by a consultant specializing in alliance management. It has been peer reviewed but has not been subjected to independent audit.

Proactively managing alliances helps partners ensure value extraction, financial and non‐financial. Development metrics and implementation metrics can help alliance stakeholders understand and plan for the stages of the alliance life cycle while considering their knowledge transfer.

As the cases of Acme Manufacturing and Avnet/HP show, an understanding of alliance life cycles, cultures, and metrics can lead to successful planning, launching, and maintenance of a company's alliances.

This paper aims to report new research into how small groups of people – officers, directors and managers – are guiding the governance, design and delivery of conduct and culture programmes at UK listed banks.

The research spanned two whole years between 2014 and 2015. The method involved some 30 face-to-face semi-structured meeting interviews. A pre-agreed template was used to score and write detailed notes. From many repetitions, themes and cross-interview commonalities, a rich set of findings evolved.

Banks that made the most improvement during the investigation activated culture predominantly within the business. Centring the culture programme within the business was associated with a focus on the middle and the grassroots level of the organisation. Banks that made least improvement activated culture principally “from the top”. Centring the culture programme at the top was associated with a focus on control, conformance and structure. The finding of relatively greater performance when culture programmes were activated within the business contrasts sharply with recommendations from regulators and conventional wisdom that the establishment of corporate culture is necessarily a top down exercise.

Culture is intangible, and as such often overlooked, and this research contributes to that gap in knowledge through insight and evidence based on direct empirical analysis. This work ranks banks differently than published corporate governance and sustainability ranking from third-party service providers, suggesting a focus on culture performance contributes a different perspective to that based on more available public information for corporate governance.