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The link between supply chain agility (SCA) and performance has been tested in previous research with different samples and results. The present paper quantitatively analyses and summarises the impact of SCA on performance found in previous empirical papers and determines the influence of several identified moderators.

Using a meta-analysis approach based on a systematic literature review, a total of 63 empirical papers comprising a sample of 14,469 firms were meta-analysed to consider substantive (type of performance and SCA operationalisation) and extrinsic (economic region and industry) moderators.

Results confirm a significantly large, positive correlation between SCA and performance. None of the analysed moderators has enabled the identification of any significant differences between the SCA and performance correlations by subgroup. However, high heterogeneity in total variance, both in the full sample and the subgroups by moderator, demands further rigorously reported empirical research on this topic with clearly conceptualised variables and frameworks and the use of validated scales.

Several research gaps and best practice recommendations have been indicated to improve future empirical research on this topic.

Practitioners in different economic regions and industries will find consistent evidence of improvements in performance through SCA.

No meta-analysis has been found in previous research to estimate the value of the correlation between SCA and performance and the influence of moderating variables.

The Chinese Telecoms Industry has been rapidly growing over the years since 2001. An analysis of financial performance of the three giants in this industry is very important. However, it is difficult to know how many ratios can be used best with little information loss. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

A total of 18 financial ratios were calculated based on the financial statements for three companies, namely, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom for a period of 17 years. A principal component analysis was run to come up with variables with significance value above 0.5 from each component.

At the end, the authors conclude how financial performance can be analysed using 12 ratios instead of the costly analysis of too many ratios that may be complex to interpret. The results also showed that ratios are all related as they come from the same statements, hence, the authors can use a few to represent the rest with limited loss of information.

This study will help different stakeholders who are interested in the financial performance of each company by giving them a shorter way to analyse performance. It will also assist those who do financial reporting on picking the ratios which matter in reflecting the performance of their companies. The use of PCA gives unbiased ratios that are most significant in assessing performance.

This paper investigates the performance assessment of liner shipping industry and presents a multi-dimensional evaluation framework to ensure both financial and non-financial monitoring. The traditional performance assessment approach is based on the financial indicators such as ratio analysis, but it is limited to the fiscal perspective. The meaning of performance has dramatically changed and non-financial (and intangible) assets increased their importance in recent years. Under these circumstances, the multi-attribute performance assessment methods play a critical role to combine many aspects of the business. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is originally developed for the multi-attribute performance assessment and its philosophy on business process evaluation pioneered the importance of key performance indicators and the quality management issues including the internal customer. Service quality and the business performance assessment are some of the hot issues in the liner shipping industry and the long term competitiveness is a critical concern in the recent liner shipping business. The BSC method is utilized to ensure a cumulative analysis of the short/long and tangible/intangible indicators of performance and computes the weight of each criterion by using Fuzzy-AHP method in the liner shipping industry.

The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of knowledge visualization and its connection with performance measurement from an epistemological point of view, considering quantification and measurement not just as technical questions but showing their relevant implications on the management decision-making of knowledge-based organizations.

This study proposes a theoretical contribution that combines two lines of research for identifying the three main meta-choices problems that arise in the multidimensional benchmarking of knowledge-based organizations. The first is the meta-choice problem related to the choice of the algorithm used (Iazzolino et al., 2012; Laise et al., 2015; Daraio, 2017a). The second refers to the choice of the variables to be included in the model (Daraio, 2017a). The third concerns the choice of the data on which the analyses are carried out (Daraio, 2017a).

The authors show the interplay existing among the three meta-choices in multidimensional benchmarking, considering as key performance indicators intellectual capital, including Human Capital, Structural Capital and Relational Capital, and performances, evaluated in financial and non-financial terms. This study provides an empirical analysis on Italian Universities, comparing the ranking distributions obtained by several efficiency and multi-criteria methods.

This study demonstrates the difficulties of the “implementation problem” in performance measurement, related to the subjectivity of results of the evaluation process when there are many evaluation criteria, and proposes the adoption of the technologies of humility related to the awareness that we can only achieve “satisficing” results.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of motivation on job satisfaction and organizational performance in the context of container shipping companies in Taiwan. Four motivation dimensions were identified based on an exploratory factor analysis, including remuneration, job achievement, job security and job environment. In addition, five job satisfaction dimensions were identified, namely: job policy, job autonomy, job workload, job performance and job status. Organizational performance dimensions included financial and non-financial performance.

Factor analysis was used to summarize a large number of motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance attributes to identify the crucial factors. Reliability tests based on Cronbach’s alpha and corrected item-total correlation coefficients was used to test the internal consistency of questionnaire responses. ANOVA tests were subsequently used to test for differences in respondents’ perception of these factors according to selected demographics. Finally, a multiple regression model analysis was conducted to examine the relationships between motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance.

Results indicated that remuneration and job performance had a positive effect on financial performance dimensions such as return on assets, turnover growth rate and profitability while job environment and job autonomy had a positive effect on non-financial performance dimensions, such as customer service, employee productivity and service quality.

This study has drawn attention to the importance of the relationships between motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance in the container shipping context. The findings have significant implications for researchers and shipping practitioners. Despite the existence of research on the inter-relationships between motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance in other disciplines, no empirical study was discussed in previous shipping or transportation-related research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine performance change in the Irish state-owned port sector over the 2000-2016 period using a case study approach.

For analysis, qualitative sources are used to construct an explanatory account for the quantitative measures of productivity, profitability and traffic shift-share change across the major ports within the system.

The results show that overall change in performance largely follows that of the macro-economic performance of the region, characterised by pre-recession growth, decline during the recession and post-recession recovery. Across the ports, however, there was a notable divergence in performance post-recession. Identified factors affecting performance change across the period include demand-side structural change, labour rationalisation and degree of private sector participation.

This study addresses a gap in the formal evaluation of port performance in Ireland. The study further demonstrates the potential of in-depth case study analysis for uncovering insights into the drivers of performance across a number of dimensions, thus allowing for the contextualisation of results. The study of a small number of cases enables the use of rich qualitative sources to create strong narratives, which combined with quantitative measures of performance, can lead to new insights.

Port performance and port choice have been treated as separate streams of research. This hampers the efforts of ports to anticipate on and respond to possible future changes in port choice by shippers, freight forwarders and carriers. The purpose of this paper is to develop and demonstrate a port performance measurement methodology, extended from the perspective of port choice, which includes hinterland performance and a weighting of attributes from a port choice perspective.

A review of literature is used to extend the scope of port performance indicators. Multi-criteria decision analysis is used to operationalize the context of port choice, presenting a weighted approach using the Best-Worst Method (BWM). An empirical model is built based on an extensive port stakeholder survey.

Transport costs and times along the transport chain are the dominant factors for port competitiveness. Satisfaction, reputation and flexibility criteria are the other important decision criteria. The results also show how the availability of different modal alternatives impact on the position of a port. A ranking of routes for hinterland regions is done.

The paper focuses on two extensions of port performance measurement. So far, not all factors that determine port choice have been included in port performance studies. Here, first, factors related to hinterland services are included. Second, a weighting of port performance measures is proposed. The importance of factors is assessed using BWM. The approach is demonstrated empirically for a case of the European contestable hinterland regions, which so far have lacked quantitative analysis.

The field of scientific research on small and medium-sized family businesses has been growing exponentially and the aim of this paper is to systematize the body of knowledge to develop an agenda for the future.

Adopting comparative bibliometric analyses on 155 articles (from 1989 until 2018) the authors provide a systematic assessment of the scientific research about small family firms, unveiling the structure and evolution of the field. Bibliographic coupling, co-citation analysis and co-occurrence analysis are adopted to identify the most influential studies and themes.

Four clusters of research are reviewed: succession in family SMEs, performances of family SMEs, internationalization of family SMEs and organizational culture of family SMEs.

This paper contributes to the field of family SMEs by providing a systematic analysis of the scientific knowledge. Reviewing those clusters allows to providing avenues and reflections for future research and further practice.

Previous research reports mixed results regarding the performance impact of servitization in manufacturing firms. To resolve this, the purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptually consistent and comprehensive measurement framework for both dimensions, servitization and its performance effect, and apply in a configurational analysis to reexamine previous evidence, arriving at a configurational theory of the relationship between servitization and firm performance.

Combining systematic literature review (SLR) and inductive reasoning, the existing indicators for servitization and performance are identified and clustered into groups that adequately represent both dimensions. The dataset is reanalyzed against the resulting framework to identify the configurational patterns and to formulate the theoretical propositions.

Financial and nonfinancial indicators of servitization and its performance impact are organized into a comprehensive measurement framework grounded on existing research. The subsequent meta-analysis shows that the positive or negative impacts of servitization on performance depend on how firms implement servitization strategies and which performance aspects are examined.

The results explain when servitization can be successful and confirm the existence of the so-called servitization paradox. The meta-analysis identified patterns that explain the previous mixed results, shaping a configurational theory of servitization. Thus, the measurement framework is conceptually robust and has sufficient detail to capture servitization and its performance outcome as it feasibly distinguished between different organizational configurations.

The framework provides a comprehensive portfolio of indicators for both managers and scholars to measure servitization intensity and performance. This supports managers of servitizing firms in leading this organizational transformation while avoiding its organizational and financial paradoxes.