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This chapter reports the results of an empirical study on the “gender–performance gap,” the alleged difference in business performance between firms started or owned by females and males. Although numerous studies have compared the business performance of firms started by or owned by female and male entrepreneurs, most research to date has employed financial performance metrics and has often produced inconsistent results. The present research compared gender-based business performance by examining self-perceptions of a large sample of female and male Black and Mexican-American entrepreneurs. As such, the present study overcame several limitations of prior gender–performance gap research and addressed entrepreneurial groups seldom studied. While there were no perceptual differences between female and male entrepreneurs surveyed regarding the performance of their respective businesses, Mexican-American entrepreneurs surveyed perceived the performance of their business as being better than Black entrepreneurs surveyed, and this result held for both females and males. Findings from the study provide insights into the perceptions held by Black and Mexican-American female and male entrepreneurs and provide a context for further race and gender studies.

The management control and performance measurement literature reflects a long history of discussion related to organizational, team, and individual rewards. Yet, much of the research and guidance in the academic and managerial literature has been inadequate. Reflecting work on three current research studies, this chapter examines the gaps in our current understanding of the relationship of performance measurement, rewards, and performance and suggests some research questions that are of significant interest.

Regardless of its relevance for economic development, the influence of strategic orientation by innovation orientation, and strategic marketing by marketing capability on firm performance, this interesting study focused on firms with strategic industries (defense and security) in Indonesia. It approached the gap in three ways. Initially, the examination was conducted on the role of innovation orientation, marketing capability, the interaction of innovation orientation and marketing capability on firm performance. The next step was considering the contribution of state-owned enterprise (SOE) and non-SOE. Finally, this relationship was studied in strategic industries of firms in Indonesia. The firm performance in this study, which we chose, was operational performance. The proposed conceptual model would be tested by distributing questionnaires to 41 firms in Indonesia. This study gave insight into the matters, which should be the companies’ focus, to improve their operations’ performance. By using PLS-based structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, the results of the relationship between innovation orientation, marketing capability, and the interaction between innovation orientation and marketing capability on operational performance were identified. The findings could be clarified via the variations in the characteristics of enterprises (SOE and non-SOE). Moreover, there were clear variations in the findings, which were recognized among the firms’ relatively different characteristics. The main finding was a challenge to generalize the relationship from strategic orientation and strategic marketing to performance. The results of firm characteristics also had considerable managerial relevance. The authors recommend strategic industries (defense and security) in Indonesia in achieving operational performance excellence. Management’s importance is paying attention to the relationship between innovation orientation, marketing capability, and dynamic capability in running a company organization.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss operational performance as a tool for construction project success. Specifically, the chapter examines important aspects such as the definition and meaning of operational performance, operational performance objectives, operational performance indicators and the key points to increasing operational performance. This chapter emphasises the importance of operational performance in business as it plays vital role in other aspects of business or company's variables. It concludes that investment in the improvement of operational performance is very important to any successful business. The essence of operational performance is to identify problems and provide solutions to them. It is essential to know that every difficulty that is encounter in business should be picture as a chance to become better. On this note, a mentality that embraces continual improvement should be taken graciously and adopted in order to make sure that a company continue to plan for the future.

This study investigates the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on performance related turnover. Our results indicate that smaller boards and institutional block holders are positively related to the likelihood of performance related turnover. CEOs that also hold the position of the chairman of the board or belong to a founding family face lower likelihood of turnover. CEO stock ownership is negatively related to turnover and CEOs who own 3 percent or more of their company stock face a significantly lower likelihood of performance related turnover. Moreover, protection from external control market has no effect either on the likelihood of turnover.

In this National Board-commissioned study, we examined types of feedback that teacher candidates for certification might receive along with their score reports after completing the Board's assessment process. We designed three standardized forms of feedback and interviewed 29 teachers from the 1993–1994 Early Adolescent/Generalist cohort about their preferences for each of the feedback options and about the inferences that they drew about their performance based on each type. The three feedback formats were (a) cases – extended descriptions of actual performances, annotated with scorer notes; (b) performance syntheses – brief descriptions of the scoring criteria accompanied by a variety of excerpts from candidate materials portraying performances at each level; and (c) illustrative summaries – evaluative descriptions of various candidate responses. Teachers reported that, of the three standardized formats offered to them, they preferred the cases format with its extended descriptions of an actual performance accompanied by annotated scoring notes. In terms of learning effects, candidates drew reasonably accurate inferences about their performance based on both cases and performance syntheses. The central conclusion we reached based on these findings was that feedback needs to be clearly organized around the scoring criteria for the exercise, and that examples of actual performances illustrating the application of the scoring criteria are important. However, teachers also reported that they would have preferred individualized, customized feedback on their own performance, although this option was not offered by the Board. As well, teachers indicated they would have preferred receiving the standardized feedback as “feedfront” to use in guiding them in their teaching and in preparing their assessment materials.

This study aims to examine how different uses of performance measurement systems (PMS) enable or hinder organizational ambidexterity (OA), intended as the simultaneous pursuit of exploitation and exploration.

Following a qualitative research design, we gathered data through semi-structured interviews, observations and reviews of documents at four departments of an automotive firm.

We contribute to operations management research and practice by demonstrating how PMS, which are typically associated with exploitation, can also foster exploration and enable organizations to become ambidextrous. Specifically, we show how PMS can be structured and used in more agile ways and, in relation to innovation, we identify which PM practices should be introduced and with what effects and those that should be avoided. We also contribute to organization theory by highlighting how a single management tool can promote the achievement of both exploration and exploitation.

In investigating PMS uses and their effects, we identify several positive practices. For example, we show how managers can use PMS more effectively and how targets could be deployed to stimulate creativity and innovation. We also emphasize the need for managers to opt more often for team incentives rather than individual ones to encourage the collaboration needed for OA.

We provide in-depth insight into how PM tools affect an organization’s ability to pursue exploitation and exploration, thus contributing to research in operations, innovation and organization theory.

The aim of this paper is to examine a model that combines barriers, drivers, government responses, recovery expectations, expected future changes in performance and the extent of digitalisation as a moderator in SMEs.

This study uses exploratory causal methodologies. The study employs a quantitative methodology based on utilising an electronic questionnaire to gather the opinions of home workers and entrepreneurs in Jordan. The cross-sectional data collection approach was conducted in a single time frame, and a total of 1,179 valid questionnaires were analysed using Smart PLS along with SPSS.

The findings demonstrate that the barriers lower the expectations of recovering performance, whilst the drivers and government responses raise the expectations of both performance recovery and change in performance. Concerning digitalisation, this study discovered that firms going digital had a significant positive direct impact on expectations of performance change. This paper also found that expectations of performance change are significantly positively impacted by the interaction between drivers and digitalisation. However, the moderating influence of digitalisation on the positive impact of government responses on expectations of performance change was not verified.

The study's conclusions led to the formulation of several policy recommendations aimed at easing the burden on SMEs.

This study adds something new to the body of knowledge on SMEs by investigating the effects of barriers, drivers and government responses on expectations of performance recovery and the expected future change in performance moderated by digitalisation.