SCALE, PERFORMANCE AND THE NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF LOCAL AUTHORITY SERVICES

New public management (NPM) arguments on strategy and structure suggest that performance is enhanced if large organizations are disaggregated into smaller units. the NPM perspective reflects the views of public choice theorists who claim that big organizations are unresponsive to public needs, inefficient and fail to achieve their formal goals. These arguments have underpinned many recent changes in the structure of public services at both central and local levels.
This paper uses data on six local government services to test the NPM hypothesis that there is a negative relationship between scale and performance. Five dimensions of performance are analysed: service coverage, quality, speed of provision, efficiency, and administrative effectiveness. Scale is measured through indicators of service output, caseload and needs. the impact of scale is tested in multivariate statistical models which control for other potential influences on variations in performance across local authorities.
Only around half of the statistical evidence suggests that the smallest local units are the best performers. In addition, even when performance does decline with scale, this trend is reversed in the very largest units. Thus, contrary to NPM arguments, the biggest organizations are seldom the poorest performers.     

Performance improvement decision aid systems (PIDAS) in retailing organizations using data envelopment analysis

This paper investigates the usefulness of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models to aid decision making in multi-level retail organizations. It is argued that market efficiency is a key performance measurement dimension in retail organizations. The paper proposes three variants of market efficency that correspond to different tiers of management in a multi-level setting. The disentanglement of market efficiency will lead to the development of the Performance Improvement Decision Aid System (PIDAS) which seeks to classify units on clusters of different performance profile. The method is illustrated using data from a restaurant chain in the UK.     

Estimating economic relations from incomplete cross-section/time-series data

Authors dealing with combined cross-section/time-series data usually assume that complete time-series exist for all units under observation. In the context of micro data, however, this may be a very restrictive assumption. The paper is concerned with problems of model specification and estimation when the data at hand are incomplete time-series from a sample of micro units. Particular attention is paid to a situation where the sample of micro units ‘rotates’ over time. The main results are compared with those derived by Nerlove and others for the standard specification with complete cross-section/time-series data. Some illustrative examples based on data from Norwegian household budget surveys are also given.     

Interval estimation for the two-parameter exponential distribution under progressive censoring

The interval estimation of the scale parameter and the joint confidence region of the parameters of two-parameter exponential distribution under Type II progressive censoring is proposed. In addition, the simulation study for the performance of all proposed pivotal quantities is done in this paper. The criteria of minimum confidence length and minimum confidence area are used to obtain the optimal estimation. The predictive intervals of the future observation and the future interarrival times based on the Type II progressive censored sample are also provided. One biometrical example is also given to illustrate the proposed methods.     

Stability and integrity tests in data envelopment analysis

Studies that apply data envelopment analysis often neglect testing the stability of the efficient frontier to data perturbations, and, to a lesser extent, the ability of efficiency scores to correctly discriminate between units on performance (integrity). Our primary motivation is to demonstrate methods that can help reduce the number of managerial decisions based on results that may be unreliable. To this end, we illustrate multiple tests of stability and integrity in an environment of fully units-invariant efficiency measurement. This application of tests of stability and integrity using a slacks-based measure of efficiency is the first in a peer-reviewed journal.     

National diversity and team performance: the moderating role of interactional justice climate

In this team-level study, we present and test a model in which two aspects of interactional justice climate, its level and its strength, interact to moderate the effects of national diversity on team performance. Connecting the literatures on team diversity and (interactional) justice climate, we hypothesize that a high level of interactional justice exhibited by the line manager promotes the performance of nationally diverse teams, but only when team members share this perception (i.e. when the climate is strong). Using time-lagged performance measurement, we conducted a multisource field study using data from 272 employees clustered in 45 teams who worked for a local subsidiary of a multinational enterprise. The findings confirm our hypothesis and have implications for the diversity and justice literatures, while advancing knowledge that promotes the effective management of increasingly diverse workforces in this era of globalization.     

Accountant's Truth: Knowledge and Ethics in the Financial World

Performance auditing, or value for money (VFM) auditing, has been a long-standing component of accountability in public administration. During the 1980s and 1990s performance auditing has allegedly been increasingly adopted in the new public management. While there has been much research on public management and performance auditing in central government, local government has been relatively neglected in the literature. Municipalities and counties in local government have an important role in public sector service production in most European countries, and especially in the Nordic countries. It is therefore surprising that performance auditing in this context has received so little scholarly attention. This study is aimed at filling some of this gap. The purpose of this comparative study is, therefore, to explore how performance auditing practices, including performance measurement, are used to assess and verify value for money in local government and to enhance the accountability of municipalities and counties. This study analyses how informants from both auditors and auditees in Finland and Norway perceived the efficiency of conducting performance audits in local government. Despite some problems related to the quality of the performance audit reports, the informants perceived performance audit to function as a useful, rational public management tool.     

On the simultaneous estimation of physical and monetary commodity flows

Large databases mapping commodity flows measured in various units such as currency, tons or caloric values are the backbone of many recent environmental-economic studies. Their construction typically requires combining large amounts of partial information in a series of successive steps. These include the estimation of unobserved flows, transformations between units, handling aggregation re-classification and, finally, reconciling estimates with mass, financial and/or energy balances. This paper proposes a maximum entropy model that allows for the simultaneous estimation of unobserved commodity flows as well as corresponding prices such that data constraints in various units of measurement, levels of aggregation and possibly mismatching classifications are simultaneously satisfied. Its capability is assessed through a Monte-Carlo analysis and its performance compared with a simple step-wise approach. Our results suggest that the simultaneous approach performs significantly better in a vast majority of cases.     

基于小波变换的GPS变形监测数据处理方法研究

工程实测变形信号不可避免的受到噪声的污染,为了提取真实的变形信号,要对实测数据进行降噪处理。结合武汉某大桥GPS实测变形数据介绍了小波变换阈值降噪过程,分别采用不同的小波函数和不同阈值模型进行降噪处理。根据信噪比、中误差两种降噪质量评价指标的定量比较,得出用db6小波和heursure阈值在软阈值量化作用下降噪效果较其他小波函数和阈值模型效果好。     

Production frontier estimation to measure efficiency: A critical evaluation in light of data envelopment analysis

The ranking and measurement of efficiency of decision-making units by two methods—data envelopment analysis and frontier production function—may not always lead to identical results. In this framework we attempt here a critical evaluation of the frontier production function theory in terms of theoretical and empirical implications. It is shown that under certain conditions the two approaches to effciency measurement may lead to identical results.     

Multiple Testing for No Cointegration under Nonstationary Volatility

With cointegration tests often being oversized under time‐varying error variance, it is possible, if not likely, to confuse error variance non‐stationarity with cointegration. This paper takes an instrumental variable (IV) approach to establish individual‐unit test statistics for no cointegration that are robust to variance non‐stationarity. The sign of a fitted departure from long‐run equilibrium is used as an instrument when estimating an error‐correction model. The resulting IV‐based test is shown to follow a chi‐square limiting null distribution irrespective of the variance pattern of the data‐generating process. In spite of this, the test proposed here has, unlike previous work relying on instrumental variables, competitive local power against sequences of local alternatives in 1/T‐neighbourhoods of the null. The standard limiting null distribution motivates, using the single‐unit tests in a multiple testing approach for cointegration in multi‐country data sets by combining P‐values from individual units. Simulations suggest good performance of the single‐unit and multiple testing procedures under various plausible designs of cross‐sectional correlation and cross‐unit cointegration in the data. An application to the equilibrium relationship between short‐ and long‐term interest rates illustrates the dramatic differences between results of robust and non‐robust tests.     

Improving discrimination in data envelopment analysis: some practical suggestions

In some contexts data envelopment analysis (DEA) gives poor discrimination on the performance of units. While this may reflect genuine uniformity of performance between units, it may also reflect lack of sufficient observations or other factors limiting discrimination on performance between units. In this paper, we present an overview of the main approaches that can be used to improve the discrimination of DEA. This includes simple methods such as the aggregation of inputs or outputs, the use of longitudinal data, more advanced methods such as the use of weight restrictions, production trade-offs and unobserved units, and a relatively new method based on the use of selective proportionality between the inputs and outputs.     

When methods and theories collide: Toward a better understanding of improving unit performance in a multimarket firm

Logistics research in the area of performance measurement continues to receive attention from a variety of perspectives. One well-received perspective is that of efficiency. Data envelopment analysis is a well-studied analytical tool to identify best-practicing efficient operating units of the firm. But a theoretical linkage remains absent from the literature. Drawing upon theoretical perspectives of organization search and knowledge transfer, this study identifies conditions in which suitable role models (according to reference set analysis) may be unrealistic and thus warrant refinements. Ironically, it is through the existence of these particular analytical tools that we are able to develop and then test our framework and illustrate the practical implications. Moreover, this study is ideally suited to illustrating how the methodology is widely applicable among the growing number of multi-unit multi-market (MUMM) firms around the world, particularly given the diffusion of sophisticated performance information gathering technologies widely used in today’s information age.     

Do missing values exist? Incomplete data handling in cross-national longitudinal studies by means of continuous time modeling

In cross-national longitudinal studies it is often impossible to administer the same measurement instruments at the same occasions to all sample units in all participating countries. This quickly results in large quantities of missing data, due to (a) missing measurement instruments in some countries, (b) missing assessment waves within or across countries, (c) missing data for individual sample units. As compared to cross-sectional studies, the problem of missing values is further aggravated by the fact that missing values are always associated with different time intervals between repeated observations. In the past, this has often been dealt with by the use of phantom-variables, but this approach is limited to simple designs with few missing value patters. In the present paper we propose a new way to think of, and deal with, missing values in longitudinal studies. Instead of conceiving of a longitudinal study as a study with \(T\) discrete time points of which some are missing, we propose to conceive of a longitudinal study as a way to measure an underlying process that develops continuously over time, but is only observed at some selected discrete time points. This transforms the problem of missing values into a problem of unequal time intervals. After a quick introduction to the basic idea of continuous time modeling, we demonstrate how this approach provides a straightforward solution to missing measurement instruments in some countries, missing assessment waves within or across countries, and missing data for individual sample units.     

精准建造中以质量为驱动的项目绩效持续度量体系

项目绩效度量是建设工程项目精准建造管理体系中不可或缺的组成部分,目前采用的以赢得值(EV)和计划任务完成率(PPC)尚不足以满足大型复杂建设工程绩效管理的需要,亟待进一步的系统化完善。本文紧紧围绕建设项目精准建造理念,从绩效度量的概念与本质出发,根据复杂建设工程项目绩效度量的需求特征,以质量本体论为核心,描述了以质量为驱动的项目绩效度量体系的构建过程,系统介绍了以质量为驱动的项目绩效度量体系中各要素的数据处理模型,为进一步构建以质量为驱动的项目绩效管理系统奠定了基础。     

Mixture of Truthful–Untruthful Responses in Public Surveys

When sensitive issues are surveyed, collecting truthful data and obtaining reliable estimates of population parameters is a persistent problem in many fields of applied research mostly in sociological, economic, demographic, ecological and medical studies. In this context, and moving from the so‐called negative survey, we consider the problem of estimating the proportion of population units belonging to the categories of a sensitive variable when collected data are affected by measurement errors produced by untruthful responses. An extension of the negative survey approach is proposed herein in order to allow respondents to release a true response. The proposal rests on modelling the released data with a mixture of truthful and untruthful responses that allows researchers to obtain an estimate of the proportions as well as the probability of receiving the true response by implementing the EM‐algorithm. We describe the estimation procedure and carry out a simulation study to assess the performance of the EM estimates vis‐à‐vis certain benchmark values and the estimates obtained under the traditional data‐collection approach based on direct questioning that ignores the presence of misreporting due to untruthful responding. Simulation findings provide evidence on the accuracy of the estimates and permit us to appreciate the improvements that our approach can produce in public surveys, particularly in election opinion polls, when the hidden vote problem is present.     

The benefits of non-radial vs. radial super-efficiency DEA: an application to burden-sharing amongst NATO member nations

Using radial super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA) has improved the discriminating performance across efficient decision-making units (DMUs). This paper extends the super-efficiency approach to a non-radial super-efficiency DEA (NRSE-DEA) index. NRSE-DEA is shown to be invariant to units of input (output) measurement. NRSE-DEA is illustrated here via an application to NATO burden-sharing assessment in which the DMUs are the member nations of NATO. The NRSE-DEA provides additional insights into the ranking of efficient countries, suggesting which are absorbing a particularly large share of NATO responsibilities. The NRSE-DEA generates a smaller set of efficient DMUs. This, in turn, provides more discriminatory power, a more accurate measure of super-efficiency, a more meaningful ranking of the efficient burden sharing countries, and a more reliable assessment of contributions by NATO members, amongst other policy issues.     

Using Statistics and Statistical Thinking to Improve Organisational Performance

A systematic approach to measuring organisational performance is fundamental to the pursuit of business excellence. As such, the area of organisational performance measurement, and its use of data and analysis to inform business decisions, affords statisticians a potentially high value-adding opportunity. To be effective in this area, statisticians need to appreciate the differing requirements for statistical information in various management zones of an enterprise.
This paper describes a strategy that seeks to link measurement to all facets of organisational performance, particularly to desired business outcomes, and also to mesh measurement with process improvement in a natural way. The use of statistics and statistical thinking is then discussed in this context, with particular focus on the opportunity for statisticians to have a key role at the top decision-making level of the organisation. We argue that the role requires skills in both advanced technical statistical modelling and analysis, and in statistical thinking. It also requires a preparedness to form an appreciation of the business and management imperatives faced by the leaders of an enterprise, and a willingness to work from this basis.     

Sustainability,performance and organizational strategy: an empirical analysis of public organizations

This paper presents a first time empirical analysis of sustainable management and performance in public organizations. Prior evidence from private firms on the relationship between sustainable management and performance indicates that the benefits of adopting social responsibility practices accrue across a number of dimensions of performance. Empirical analysis of English local government suggests that sustainable management is related to sustainability performance but not to other measures of organizational performance. These conclusions raise questions about the nature of sustainable management in public agencies and the measurement of performance. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The mystification of operational competitiveness rating analysis

This note examines the fault of the operational competitiveness rating analysis (OCRA) method. The premise of the OCRA method requires that a single scalar measurement must be applied to inputs and outputs to calculate the performance ratings for production units. This property renders the OCRA method worthless, since simple comparisons of the aggregated inputs and outputs can generate accurate productive efficiency evaluation results for production units if the simple aggregation can be done. To avoid this problem, the OCRA method includes subjective weighting elements for input and output categories, so called calibration constants, into the performance rating computation. This approach of the OCRA method introduces much confusion for productive efficiency evaluation, and it violates the economics axiom of output/input maximization in its application context. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.