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The purpose of this study is to present a discussion on the most commonly accepted benchmarking norms in the USA, the lessons learned from benchmarking experiences and see how they are translated to benchmarking projects by French managers.

A survey questionnaire is developed, based on the ten‐step Xerox benchmarking process, to identify the perceived and/or experienced benchmarking best practices amongst French managers. Large, medium and small companies are surveyed and managers who have participated in or are in the middle of a benchmarking project contributed to the information in developing the conclusions about the perceived best practices, steps and pitfalls for a benchmarking project in French companies.

The survey result showed uniformity amongst French managers from large companies and their opinion on what is important in bringing a benchmarking project to a successful conclusion. There was however lack of uniformity of opinion when it came to what is important in the benchmarking process amongst French managers from companies of different size.

Caution should be exercised when interpreting these findings since the paper only used data from an exploratory survey of French managers from companies of varying sizes. The limitation of the study is that the conclusions are applicable to French managers only. In order to compare them one would need survey data, using the same questionnaire from managers in other countries.

Indeed, the authors' findings provide a persuasive argument for what French managers consider important in a benchmarking project. It provides valuable insights into the lessons learned from the years of benchmarking experiences and how these experiences have been translated across cultures.

Based on the French experience with the benchmarking process, the critical success factors for benchmarking were identified. Importance of each step in the benchmarking process varies amongst companies, critical issues are company and industry specific. In order to compete successfully in today's global marketplace, the French managers recognize the importance of benchmarking, although their perceptions of the important steps in the process vary depending on company size.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the activities needed to meet specified requirements to assist laboratory staff running tests and calibrations and to obtain ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation.

The relevant literature that contributes to establishing activities that help laboratory staff to obtain ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation was studied. Laboratory researchers specializing in electro-medical equipment quality control were questioned about the criteria to be observed when selecting, developing and validating analytical steps.

Results revealed the analytical method criteria to be observed, which demonstrated their essentially quantitative nature.

This study presents a model that improves selecting, developing and validating analytical steps and contributes to producing reliable test and calibration results. These improvements can help laboratory testing and calibration to meet clients’ needs, satisfy specified requirements and provide reliable results.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate property investment decision making by Australian REITs.

Through an extensive literature review, a normative model of the property investment decision-making process is proposed. Based on semi-structured interviews with senior Australian REIT decision makers, a descriptive model of the property investment decision-making process by Australian REITs is developed. The normative model and descriptive model are compared and a prescriptive model of the Australian REIT property investment decision-making process proposed.

With the four stage, 20-step process proposed in the normative model found to be generally supported by the descriptive model developed, this may potentially comprise an effective prescriptive model for the Australian REIT property investment decision-making process.

Further research is required to investigate if the prescriptive model is generalisable across other property investment decision-making groups or over time and whether it may lead to “good” decisions.

The prescriptive model proposed may contribute consistency and transparency to the decision-making process, if adopted by Australian REITs, potentially leading to better decisions.

Greater consistency and transparency in property investment decision making by Australian REITs may lead to the optimal allocation of capital and greater investor confidence in the sector.

The findings comprise the first prescriptive model of the Australian REIT property investment decision-making process, forming a basis for comparative investigation of that process adopted by other property investment decision-making groups.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the ethical implications of treating new employees with high consideration and respect for their needs and to explain how this expectation honors the psychological contract between employers and their incoming employees. By providing a specific model for improving the onboarding process, this paper also provides helpful information for practitioners in addressing this important task.

The process for onboarding and assimilating new employees in the modern organization is often ineffective – despite the fact that this important task is acknowledged to be vital to the success of those employees and important to their organizations. This conceptual paper addresses the problems of new employee orientation from an ethical and psychological contract perspective and suggests a ten-step model to improve the onboarding process.

The paper confirms that onboarding is not done well by organizations, that employees expect that they will be treated with appropriate concern for their interests as part of their assumptions in coming into a new organization, that onboarding new employees is fraught with ethical implications, and that the process can be greatly improved by following the ten-step model provided.

The paper provides opportunities for practitioners to apply their proposed model and enables scholars to test the impact of incorporating the steps of the ten-step onboarding model.

Ineffective onboarding has significant ramifications not only for the efficiency of organizations but also for the effectiveness of incoming employees. Understanding the implicit ethical issues in the onboarding process enables organizations to improve the employer-employee relationship and honor their responsibilities to incoming employees.

In a world where trust in leaders and organizations has declined, understanding the implications of the psychological contract expectations of incoming employees and honoring an organization’s obligations to those employees is likely to increase employee trust and commitment while benefiting the organizations that apply the proposed model.

The topic of onboarding employees has not been fully understood by busy organizations and this paper addresses the ethical and psychological implications of effective onboarding and its contributing value for both the organization and the new employees affected by the onboarding process. The ten-step model provides a useful checklist for human resources staff and for the organizational leaders who oversee them.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how an organized framework for risk management called Risk Navigator SRM^© can be practically applied to common risk management problems.

The program makes complex risk principles easier to understand and access by linking together disparate and difficult risk management concepts into a single strategic risk management (SRM) framework. The strategic framework is organized into ten steps in order to organize and develop a practical and applied risk management plan. This paper demonstrates the SRM process in a crop insurance example. A simple version of the program, called Risk Navigator Lite^©, is also applied to crop insurance to demonstrate how robust the framework is for adaptation to field settings, where data may be limited or where decision makers might have limited capacity to understand complicated principles necessary for risk management.

This manuscript elaborates upon how the SRM process may be effectively implemented by agricultural producers. The information herein should also help students of risk management better comprehend how to apply what they learn.

The contribution of Risk Navigator is to make underused, sophisticated risk management concepts and tools more available to farm and ranch managers, and others, by putting them into a framework that is both easy to use and comprehensive.

An archive is a file containing several related files. Many Internet resources, such as freeware, shareware and trail software, are often packaged into archives for easy installation and taking. Additionally, thousands of users search for archives and download them from different sources everyday. In this paper, previous research on archive downloading is extended via proxy cache to support archive searching. Internet proxy cache servers are used to gather a significant number of Web pages, detect those that contain archive links, and then use the obtained data to search archives by description or filename. Two schemes, iterative and backtracking, are proposed to obtain Web pages with archive links. The experimental results indicate that the precision that both of the schemes can achieve is about the same; however, the backtracking scheme reduces the number of checked pages by a factor of 26. Finally, a real system was implemented to demonstrate the proposed approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the property investment decision-making process of Australian unlisted property funds.

Drawing on previous research into property investment decision making by Australian REITs, a normative model of the unlisted property fund investment decision-making process is proposed. Based on exploratory investigation through semi-structured interviews with senior Australian unlisted property fund decision makers, a descriptive model of the property investment decision-making process by Australian unlisted property funds is developed. The normative model and descriptive model are compared and a prescriptive model of the Australian unlisted property fund investment decision-making process proposed.

A four-stage, 20-step process proposed in the normative model was found to be generally supported by the descriptive model developed, potentially comprising a possible prescriptive model for the Australian unlisted property fund investment decision-making process.

Further research is required to investigate risk-return issues, whether the prescriptive model is generalisable across other property investment decision-making groups or over time and whether it may lead to “good” decisions.

The prescriptive model proposed may contribute consistency and transparency to the decision-making process, if adopted by Australian unlisted property funds, potentially leading to better decisions.

Greater consistency and transparency in property investment decision making by Australian unlisted property funds may lead to the optimal allocation of capital and greater investor confidence in the sector.

The findings comprise the first possible prescriptive model of the Australian unlisted property fund investment decision-making process, forming a basis for comparative investigation of that process adopted by other property investment decision-making groups such as Australian REITs and Australian retail property funds.

The purpose of this study is to survey knowledge management (KM) practices and to examine the applications and technologies adopted when developing the knowledge management system (KMS) in build‐to‐order supply chains (BOSC).

This paper uses a literature review of research articles from 1996 to 2007 with keyword indexes to survey the KM practice, KMS technology and its application in BOSC. Such keyword indexes include: BOSC, SCM, KM, KMS, expert system, knowledge‐based system and information system on the Elsevier online database, ScienceDirect, EBSCO, Proquest, Emerald, DOAJ, and Wiley Inter Science. A total of 1,500 articles were found but only 149 articles related to the keywords of KMS application and KM practices within SCM and BOSC.

The important findings indicate that the KMS application is solely focused on single knowledge problem for enabling individual SC members to attain operational excellence. There is a need for further research into the development of KMS with features of knowledge coordination that cross organizational borders in attaining the BOSC integration.

Perhaps, the limitation of this study was the narrowness of the scope of the paper based on the keywords used for searching.

Validation of the multi‐disciplines of KM practices and KMS applications provides enterprises with useful guidelines for implementing KM‐ and KMS‐related projects within their current BOSC practices.

This paper provides useful knowledge by highlighting the characteristics of KMS technology within BOSC and empirical insights into the relationship between KM and BOSC practices.

This preliminary investigation has shown that the programme load method of testing provides more useful information than single load level tests enabling a more reliable estimate of a structural joint fatigue life to be obtained.

This paper deals with the optimisation of engineering problems using genetic algorithms. The process is discussed and the various stages of the genetic algorithm described. In conjunction with a finite element analysis program the process is then applied to a realistic problem of extraction of a pollutant from an aquifer. The genetic algorithm suggests sensible solutions for optimum extraction well positions and pumping rates to minimise the overall cost, based upon the results of a series of finite element analyses. The discontinuous nature of the problem is handled easily. The conclusions drawn are that a genetic algorithm optimiser, in conjunction with a finite element analysis program, generates solutions to engineering problems that are sensible and efficient.