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This paper is based upon the initial findings of a CIMA research project into the way in which corporate performance measurement systems are influenced by the use of shareholder value management techniques. It compares and contrasts the techniques in use in a sample of 10 companies that either explicitly use shareholder value techniques also known as Value‐Based Management (VBM), or explicitly do not use such techniques. The analysis undertaken is based upon the finding of semi‐structured interviews with company representatives which formed the first part of the data collection process of the project. The analysis traces the interactions between corporate objectives, decision making criteria, performance measurement systems and executive incentive schemes in order to develop an understanding of the effects of such shareholder value techniques upon corporate behaviour. The literature reviewed suggests that the other aspects of the planning and control system should be aligned with the corporate objectives whether a company has adopted VBM or not. Therefore this research contributes new evidence on the use of VBM techniques in the UK and also more generally on whether VBM and non‐VBM companies internal planning and control systems are aligned.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of 19 requirement engineering (RE) techniques in Kuwait in term of three criteria “awareness,” “use,” and “perceived value generated over past system development projects.” Also, this paper aims to examine possible relationships between these RE techniques and two information system development success factors.

This paper develops a questionnaire and tests with a sample of respondents from 175 organizations in Kuwait.

Results show that: Arab culture influence perception of RE techniques; most companies have good knowledge of different techniques; several different techniques for identifying and analyzing customer requirements are used; the most highly valued RE techniques are decision trees, goal oriented, prototyping, data flow diagram (DFD), and interviews; six techniques (tree analysis, role playing, unified modeling language, Kawakita Jiro method, flow charts, and Ishikawa) are found to have the least perceived value; and only two techniques (prototyping and decision tree) are highly correlated with the statement “Obtaining the right requirements is a critical success factor for system development,” while other three techniques (quality function deployment, DFD and role playing) are correlated with “We experienced problems during past system developments projects because of wrong requirements collection.”

The study sheds light on perceptions on RE techniques perception in Kuwait where less is known about the subject from Western researchers.

This paper suggests re‐examining university curriculums in order to prepare students for familiarity with techniques that have proven their effectiveness elsewhere and call for more collaboration between academia and practitioners in order to appropriate research outcomes. In addition, this paper is of benefit to foreign consulting companies willing to penetrate the Gulf Cooperative Council.

This is the first Arab study that sheds light on system development practices in the Arab world.

Current economic conditions have identified a complication if not conflict in the application of valuation analysis assumptions with the free fall in asset prices observed since 2007. Discrepancies in debt obligations (from prior periods) with underlying collateral value have been opined to be an unforeseen anomaly. This investigation aims to observe an alternative perspective using data from 1900 to the present.

This 110‐year period of observation shows that return (value) volatility is the characteristic norm of the market system. Showing volatility as a fundamental characteristic of economic and property performance supports conjecture by definition, observation and rationality that valuation analysis had to be successfully employed in prior down cycles and across divergent economic regimes. A systematic literature search was conducted to identify the application of specific value theory, premises and concepts with appropriate valuation techniques in given economic regimes. The variables derived from the literature and practices observed and designated as operating across time emphasizing recorded recessions are then tested for statistically significant associations using χ² tests.

The findings show that traditional value techniques are successfully applied in stabilized and even accelerated growth periods, but weaken and even break down during down markets. Alternative approaches and techniques are emphasized and developed during these periods that address specific problems but are befitting more general issues. The alternative perspectives are then observed to operate, generating much debate for extended periods. They are then incorporated as orthodox or disappear as issues. This study identifies a statistical link between the economic and valuation concerns of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the current Great Recession of 2007‐2009. The more relevant finding, however, is that the period following the depression of the 1930s, which shows a period characterized as using innovation and alternative valuation techniques, was continued into a period that ran from the 1950s into the mid‐1990s. This was a period of stabilization, at least into the early 1980s. The deregulation of the 1980s generated a period of fewer cycles but major magnitude shifts in the less frequent measures of volatility. Unfortunately, the sophistication in debate concerning valuation procedure and valuation premises, as statistically measured, declined from the 1990s into the present period. The present economy reflects statistical measures similar to those observed from 1900‐1930.

Given the 110 years considered in the study, the findings should not be considered original with regard to assisting the general welfare or professional decision making. However, given that the market shifted from being a useful institution to assist in the allocation and distribution of property to being a religious caveat that could only result in perfect solutions to solve all social needs, wants and ills, the findings emphasizing valuation techniques based on rational value premises that can operate to assist inference of future events subject to divergent and cyclical operations might be calmed to offer very useful assistance with procedure based on fundamentals and expression of behaviour that has long been vilified. The uses of the patterns identified in this study need to be incorporated into causal analysis.

The real estate development processes involves complex sets of decisions that are related to both technical and financial issues. Some of these decisions could be made simultaneously where the others would be made sequentially. Sequential decisions, especially at early stages of the process, are the most critical for the success of any project. Reliable information at early stages is hard to be found, which makes these decisions rather risky. Budget overruns is also a real risk, which usually appears at last stages of developments especially at tender phase.

Developers apply cost saving and/or value engineering / management exercises to reduce the expected cost in order to re-meet the budget again. Value management is preferred since it maintains the same planned quality, provides needed functions and reduces cost. Some of developers succeed where the others are obliged to cancel their developments after wasting a lot of time and money.

In order to mitigate some of those risks, enhance development process and optimize the product, developers need to apply a systematic approach in the form of a Heuristic Model as a pro-active tool to assist them performing better. The main objective of this research is to re-utilize the core principle of the value management, which is eliminating unnecessary functions and costs in order to develop this model. Thus, a descriptive analytical approach was applied as a methodology for doing the targeted synchronization and integration between the value management tools and techniques within the real estate development process. The heuristic model proposed a certain order of the development process and selected tools and techniques to achieve the value management philosophy. It is designed to be strategic and flexible in order to guide the developers to create their own model according to their vision and surrounded circumstances.

The purpose of this study is to build a database of digital Chinese painting images and use the proposed technique to extract image and texture information, and search images similar to the query image based on colour histogram and texture features in the database. Thus, retrieving images by this image technique is expected to make the retrieval of Chinese painting images more precise and convenient for users.

In this study, a technique is proposed that considers spatial information of colours in addition to texture feature in image retrieval. This technique can be applied to retrieval of Chinese painting images. A database of 1,200 digital Chinese painting images in three categories was built, including landscape, flower and figure. The authors develop an image-retrieval technique that considers colour distribution, spatial information of colours and texture.

In this study, a database of 1,200 digital Chinese painting images in three categories was built, including landscape, flower and figure. An image-retrieval technique was developed that considers colour distribution, spatial information of colours and texture. Through adjustment of feature values, this technique is able to process both landscape and portrait images. This technique also addresses liubai (i.e. blank) and text problems in the images. The experimental results confirm high precision rate of the proposed retrieval technique.

In this paper, a novel Chinese painting image-retrieval technique is proposed. Existing image-retrieval techniques and the features of Chinese painting are used to retrieve Chinese painting images. The proposed technique can exclude less important image information in Chinese painting images for instance liubai and calligraphy while calculating the feature values in them. The experimental results confirm that the proposed technique delivers a retrieval precision rate as high as 92 per cent and does not require a considerable computing power for feature extraction. This technique can be applied to Web page image retrieval or to other mobile applications.

This research aims to identify lean tools and techniques that are needed to be implemented to improve the performance in the fabrication industry. The objective is to find the wastes in manufacturing processes using value stream mapping (VSM) and prioritize the lean tools suitable to enable the attainment of leanness and streamline the processes.

VSM tool is applied in the industry to construct the current state map, identify improvement proposals and implement in future state. Fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS), a multi-criteria decision-making technique (MCDM), is used to prioritize the identified improvement proposals. This study observed that mistake-proof processing and layout organization are the two techniques with the top priority that needs further improvement to enhance the leanness of the organization.

Upon successful implementation, the cycle time is reduced by 14.97%, and total inventory is reduced by 45.67% which leads to the improvement of value addition from 5.88 to 9.21%. Although lean has been adopted for many years, implementation of lean in the fabrication industry has been limited.

This study addresses the challenges in terms of implementing lean in fabrication industries and practical implications of lean tools and techniques and the prioritization of lean concepts against various lean criteria to enable leanness.

The deployment of improvement prioritization tool integrated with VSM in the context of a fabrication industry is the original contribution of the authors.

This paper focuses on customer value analysis and measurement, framing customer value management as one of the main antecedents of the company value-creation process. The paper builds on three main pillars. First, the paper highlights the critical role of customer value in business-to-business markets, focusing on the links between the company's ability to manage customer value-creation processes and the positive financial and economic outcomes generated by loyalty effects. Secondly, the paper develops key analytical stages for an understanding of customer value. The focus is on the customer value-chain concept, including consideration of the customer information and acquisition process and its decision rules. Third, the paper illustrates the measurement process, offering an organizational framework for selecting the most suitable method for measuring perceived customer value. The methodological alternatives range from desk measures (e.g., technical computation of the total cost of ownership (TCO)) to field analysis, like those considered under both compositional and the decomposition approaches (e.g., conjoint analysis). The paper concludes with remarks on the managerial implications of these measures, as well as offering suggestions for further research on value for the customer.

The construction industry in many developing countries is reluctant to apply value engineering (VE) due to uncertainty of outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the existing practices of VE techniques and make recommendations to organisations and national construction regulatory bodies, to standardise VE practices. A decision-making formula is introduced to determine profitability of VE applications prior to implementation.

A broad literature review and six case study projects that applied VE were selected. Thirty-nine semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather data within cases. Six expert interviews were conducted as confirmatory interviews to clarify and validate research outcome. Content analysis and cognitive mapping were used to analyse data among case studies.

Application, knowledge and experience on VE techniques among construction professionals are unsatisfactory. Recommendations include reducing contractor’s design responsibility, introducing proper VE guidelines and statutory regulations. A framework is introduced to assist authorities to standardise application of VE techniques. A decision-making formula is suggested to determine margins of contractor’s portion due to VE techniques and original profits gained.

The formula can be used as a decision-making tool by construction industry practitioners to determine successfulness of proposed VE techniques, and the proposed framework can be used to guide construction professional bodies to standardise VE practices.

Traditional return on investment analysis techniques like discounted cash flow (DCF) and net present value (NPV) fall short of providing adequate decision support in today’s turbulent environment. New techniques, grouped under the concept called “business value analysis” (BVA), show promise. These techniques include intellectual capital, real options valuation, business model dynamics, and synthetic markets. They extend DCF to include intangibles and other factors common to the digital economy. These techniques are just now emerging from research, and they are undergoing further development, refinement, and testing on the way to becoming widespread in practice. It’s unlikely any of these techniques will be a “silver bullet” that makes investments a sure thing, but they can improve business performance and the chances of success.

This is the second part of a two-part paper. The purpose of this paper is to report the results on the application of the methods that use the Response Surface Methodology to investigate an evolutionary algorithm (EA) and memory-based approach referred to as McBAR – the Mapping of Task IDs for Centroid-Based Adaptation with Random Immigrants.

The methods applied in this paper are fully explained in the first part. They are utilized to investigate the performances (ability to determine solutions to problems) of techniques composed of McBAR and some EA-based techniques for solving some multi-objective dynamic resource-constrained project scheduling problems with a variable number of tasks.

The main results include the following: first, some algorithmic components of McBAR are legitimate; second, the performance of McBAR is generally superior to those of the other techniques after increase in the number of tasks in each of the above-mentioned problems; and third, McBAR has the most resilient performance among the techniques against changes in the environment that set the problems.

This paper is novel for investigating the enumerated results.