Accountability and performance management: citizens’ willingness to monitor public officials

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, the operating mechanisms of states and societies have transformed from traditional hierarchical relationships into a more horizontal structure. In this new setting, citizens may have a critical role in monitoring public accountability. This article explores citizens’ willingness to monitor public officials’ accountability and the factors that may influence it. Using a survey distributed in Israel in 2016, the analysis indicates that citizens view these interactions in terms of collective action problems aimed at minimizing freeriding. Government policy in these areas is irrelevant to citizens’ calculations.     

Can performance appraisals motivate employees to improve performance? A Mexican study

In this study of Mexican employees, we examined the relationship between performance appraisal characteristics (appraisal source, appraisal purpose and feedback richness) and perceived reactions of employees to the appraisal characteristics (perceived fairness and perceived accuracy of appraisals) and appraisal outcomes (appraisal satisfaction and motivation to improve). We hypothesized that multisource appraisals, appraisals used for administrative and developmental appraisals (multipurpose appraisals) and appraisals that have a high degree of feedback richness would lead to more perceived accuracy and perceived fairness of appraisals. We further hypothesized that higher levels of perceived fairness and accuracy would lead to higher levels of employee appraisal satisfaction and motivation to improve performance in the future. Results based on a survey of Mexican employees provide support for most of the hypothesized relationships. We discuss implications of the findings for research and practice of performance appraisals in the Mexican context.     

The role of the seller’s stock performance in the market reaction to divestiture announcements

Divestitures have the potential to create shareholder value. However, the extent of the market reaction should depend on the likelihood of finding more valuable uses for the divested assets or the ability on the part of the seller to eliminate negative synergies. We hypothesize that strong performers have less scope to achieve substantial improvements compared to poorly performing firms. Using the seller’s stock return in excess of the market return in the 1-year and 2-year periods preceding the divestiture announcement to expose the divesting firm’s inefficient use of its assets, we show that the market reaction to divestiture announcements is significantly higher for underperforming firms. The difference in abnormal returns can be as high as 4 %. In contrast, none of the accounting-based variables that have been used in previous studies are found to be significantly related to the announcement returns. These results suggest that the firm’s stock performance is a more useful indicator of the wealth effect associated with divestitures.     

Can beneficial antecedents to self‐employment be detrimental to entrepreneurial performance?

We hypothesize that risk aversion, plasticity, stability, and locus of control have different effects on a person's decision to enter entrepreneurship and the person's entrepreneurial performance. Empirical results reveal that plasticity and risk tolerance have positive effects on selection but negative effects on income derived in entrepreneurship. Stability, on the other hand, deters entry but has an inversely u‐shaped relation with income. Locus of control has a positive impact on the decision but an insignificant effect on entrepreneurial income. These new insights may guide policy makers on how to help aspiring entrepreneurs overcome the negative effects of their personality traits.     

Forecasting Australia’s economic performance during the Asian crisis

During the Asian economic crisis of 1997–98, published forecasts from a Bayesian vector autoregressive (BVAR) model consistently indicated that the crisis would have little or no effect on Australia’s economic performance, despite the deterioration in the trade balance. The worsening trade deficit led many other forecasters to predict a sharp fall in Australia’s GDP growth rate, as the countries most severely affected by the crisis represent over 60 percent of Australia’s export markets. This paper argues that the more pessimistic forecasts attached too much weight to the links between Australia’s external accounts and GDP growth. In particular, I show that forecasts for the period September 1997 to December 1998, conditional on the actual path of the merchandise trade balance, predict higher inflation and interest rates than unconditional forecasts from a model without the trade balance. There does, however, appear to be useful information in the individual components of the trade deficit. Conditioning on the actual paths of both exports and imports generally produces more accurate forecasts than conditioning on net exports. In particular, conditioning on the trade balance results in the least accurate forecasts for inflation and interest rates of any of the models considered here. On the other hand, conditioning on the individual trade flows produces the most accurate forecasts for inflation, and the second-most accurate for interest rates. Taken together, the results presented here lend support to the argument that Australia’s trade flows represent the outcomes of optimizing decisions, rather than defining constraints on economic growth.     

Firms and universities—do spillovers enhance firm’s performance?

This paper aims to assess if geographic proximity from universities enhances small firms’ performance, by means of knowledge spillovers. A sample of micro data is used on 390 manufacturing firms and 11 public universities in Portugal. Performance is measured by labour productivity. The estimation was made using OLS as well as Quantile Regression. Results seem to confirm that both domains of knowledge do produce distinct effects, but there is no evidence that a firm’s performance improves with the proximity to a university. Likewise, the quality of universities does not seem to influence the labour productivity of firms.

The productivity and performance of Australia’s major banks since deregulation

The aim of this study is to present some measures of the performance of banks operating in Australia since the deregulation of the Australian financial system in early 1980s; including the periods of financial market instability (the early 1990s and mid to late 2000s). In undertaking this measurement two approaches will be used. The first simply applies standard financial indicators. The second approach applies data envelopment analysis (DEA), to determine Malmquist indices of the levels of and the changes in the efficiency and productivity of Australian banks. The empirical results demonstrate the effect of deregulation and periodic financial crisis’s on the performance of individual banks, and the major part of the Australian banking sector. Overall the productivity performance of the Australian banks tended to improve considerably in those periods of strongest economic growth (i.e. the mid 1980s and 2000s).     

Women’s entrepreneurship: A model of business-family interface and performance

Recently, there are renewed calls to develop new models addressing the intricacies of women-owned businesses and the women that head them. A new conceptual model of women’s entrepreneurship that involves relationships between business-family-interface and firm performance is introduced in our paper. We test the model based on data from countries around the world and show that the model’s links depend on the country context. As a result, we identify new boundary conditions to the domain of female entrepreneurship. Implications are discussed.     

Using DEA for measuring teachers’ performance and the impact on students’ outcomes: evidence for Spain

This research contributes to the ongoing debate about differences in teachers’ performance. We introduce a new methodology that combines production frontier and impact evaluation insights that allows using DEA as an identification strategy of a treatment with high and low quality teachers within schools to assess their performance. We use a unique database of primary schools in Spain that, for every school, supplies information on two classrooms at 4th grade where students and teachers were randomly assigned into the two classrooms. We find considerable differences in teachers’ efficiency across schools with significant effects on students’ achievement. In line with previous findings, we find that neither teacher experience nor academic training explains teachers’ efficiency. Conversely, being a female teacher, having worked five or more years in the same school or having smaller class sizes positively affects the performance of teachers.     

Analysis of Korean IT startups’ initial public offering and their post-IPO performance

Since the financial crisis in Korea, by focusing on core technology, IT startups have played an important role in the recovery of Korea’s economy through innovating technologies and creating new jobs. Even though there are many startups, it is not very common to reach the point of the initial public offering (IPO) and the post-IPO performance of the firms is mostly declining. Since it is rather difficult to apply conventional performance measures to very young firms, IPO has been used as a tool for performance evaluation. This study adopts the IPO as an early-stage measure for the performance of high technology startups. It is important to find out whether an earlier IPO of firms leads to a better performance and capability of firms. We investigate the relationship between the time to IPO of firms and their post-IPO performance for 3 years after their IPO by adopting samples of 79 information technology hardware firms founded after 1996 and listed between 2000 and 2004 in the KOSDAQ. Four determinant factors, including entrepreneurs’ experience, venture capital investment, startups’ technology sourcing, and technology portfolios which determine the firm’s time lag to getting to the IPO, are identified. The findings contain several results. First, the patent has positive effects on the firms’ performance after an IPO and on the firms’ growth before the IPO. Second, a faster technology acquisition via technology alliance has a positive influence on the firms’ IPO regardless of internal technologies. Third, concentrating on core technology, instead of diversifying can mature the startup firms faster. These indicate that a startup’s efficient initial strategy is critical for its performance and it enhances the credit and confidence of the market.     

Organizational structure characteristics’ influences on international purchasing performance in different purchasing locations

This study contributes to the understanding of how firms should structure their purchasing organization to improve their performance. While the research into structural characteristics’ impacts on purchasing performance is evolving, it is still incomplete, especially concerning the contingencies on different purchasing environments. Drawing on ideas from the organizational information processing and contingency approaches as well as the international business literature, the present study proposes a model in which three key organizational structure characteristics – centralization, standardization, and specialization – are associated with purchasing performance. This study posits that the relationships are contingent on a purchasing location’s formal and informal institutional context. Based on a sample of 195 German manufacturers, the model is empirically tested using structural equation modeling. The findings support the relevance of organizational structure characteristics for international purchasing and firm performance and they also support the notion that the effects are contingent on the purchasing location’s institutional context.     

How to foster collaborative performance management? Key factors in the US federal agencies

ABSTRACT

Public employees are urged to be tireless collaborators and skilled performance managers, but can they be both at the same time? We describe two approaches to collaborative performance management observed in the US federal performance system: interagency collaboration to achieve cross-agency goals, and intra-agency collaboration to achieve agency goals. We find that some factors that reinforce intra-agency collaboration – accountability to agency goals, investment in the agency performance system – fail to support, or even undercut, interagency collaboration. However, other factors – seniority, participation in goal-setting, and goal salience – can encourage both types of collaborative performance management.     

Alarm the quickly changing of performance evaluation decisive indexes—qualitative to quantitative?

This paper research about a special phenomenon and what is the main fators which is decided the evaluation total scores of local government in diferent years of China. The contents of the paper included introduction, hypothesis and research methodology, data and quantitative model, editing data, analyzing data, data showed and conclusion. The paper tests the new hypothesis of the quantitative evaluation, and it is right that new public policy and its tools of public management are effectively in China, so the situation is changed that the quantitative evaluation becomes the decisive factor in the performance total score by the model of original evaluation data analysis. The following public policy is effective in the year of China local government: the new public policy increases strength of evaluation; the new public policy deal with the weakness of evaluation before 2009; make new public policy to fight threats of evaluation; and make new policy for opportunities of evaluation. The paper also tests the hypothesis of the quantitative evaluations and which fator is positive correlated with results of performance, the quantitative evaluation is the decisive factors of evaluation scores in local governments of China by the years of changing. This paper research about the ratio of quantitative scores and the relationship between different fators of Chinese-style performance evaluation, and the data showing that the caves of related fators are almost the same level, it is proved that the reason of the qualitative scores become the negative correlation factors of performance score after 2009. At last, the paper builds the evaluation model by econometrics and thinking about performance evaluation practice of Chinese local governments as following: $${\begin{array}{ll}Y=0.23+0.81_{1} Y_{1} -0.18Y_{2} +0.44Y_{3} +0.01Y_{4} +e_{t2}\\ \hspace*{2.7pc}(0.35) \hspace*{1.2pc}(0.07) \hspace*{1.2pc} (0.05)\hspace*{1.2pc} (0.06) \hspace*{1.2pc} (0.0003)\\ \hspace*{6pc}{N}={12\quad R^2}=0.99\end{array}}$$ The value of constant 0.23 means Y = exp 0.23 × 10⁹ while every variable goes back to zero. The value of Y will be increase 0.81%, ?0.18%, 0.44%, 0.01% while Y ₁, Y ₂, Y ₃, Y ₄ increase 1%, and the prefer condition is that the other variables are not change. The article shows a changing map of performance evaluation in China.     

Public managers’ perception of performance information: the evidence from Polish local governments

ABSTRACT

Performance management requires wise utilization of performance information to generate expected results. The framework of Performance Information Utilization (PIU) explains why and how performance information is used in the public sector, although it does so without recognizing the role of the information user’s perception. This article adapts the information system theories to conceptualize perception of performance information (PPI). Statistical analysis confirmed the validity of the construct and showed a significant relationship between quality and usefulness of performance information, and usefulness of multiple performance information systems. Tested model offers new insights in explaining the use of performance information in local governments.     

Commitment to total quality management: Is there a relationship with firm performance?

Much has been written about Total Quality Management (TQM) but, to date, there has been relatively little empirical investigation. Therefore, this work addresses the overarching question of whether or not TQM measurably improves firm performance. For a sample of sixty firms, that have demonstrated a commitment to TQM for a period of at least five years, we find that the strategy is associated with superior stock-market performance (on a market- and risk-adjusted basis) and improved profit margins.     

‘Escaping to the gallery’: understanding the motivations of visitors to galleries

• Whilst market research and academic studies by sociologists have identified the personal and socio-cultural factors that influence visits to galleries, there has been less attention to the area of motivational research. Understanding motivations is important as it reveals the underlying reasons why visitors choose to participate in specific leisure activities. This paper focuses on the motivations of two groups of visitors at events at an art gallery. A pre-tested motivational scale built around three factors, learning, social/family interaction and Escapism explained 71.5% of variance. Escapism explained 29.4% of that variance and was the core motivation. The findings of the research are important to both academics and practitioners as previously learning was thought to be the main motivation. This study should be replicated in other settings to evaluate whether gallery and museum managers need to re-consider the purpose, content and marketing of their programmes in a post-modern society.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exploring reallocation’s apparent weak contribution to growth

Two recent meta-analyses use variants of the Baily et al. (Brookings Papers Econ Act Microecon 1:187–267, 1992) (BHC) decompositions to ask whether recent robust growth in aggregate labor productivity (ALP) across 25 countries is due to lower barriers to input reallocation. They find weak gains from measured reallocation and strong within-plant productivity gains. We show these findings may be because BHC indices decompose ALP growth using plant-level output-per-labor (OL) as a proxy for the marginal product of labor and changes in OL as a proxy for changes in plant-level productivity. We provide simple examples to show that (1) reallocation growth from labor should track marginal changes in labor weighted by the marginal product of labor, (2) BHC reallocation growth can be positively correlated, negatively correlated, or uncorrelated with actual growth arising from the reallocation of inputs, and that (3) BHC indices can mistake growth from reallocation as growth from productivity, principally because OL is neither a perfect index of marginal products nor plant-level productivity. We then turn to micro-level data from Chile, Colombia, and Slovenia, and we find for the first two that BHC indices report weak or negative growth from labor reallocation. Using the reallocation definition based on marginal products we find a positive and robust role for labor reallocation in all three countries and a reduced role of plant-level technical efficiency in growth. We close by exploring potential corrections to the BHC decompositions but here we have limited success.     

Relational trust and new ventures’ performance: the moderating impact of national-level institutional weakness

This study investigates the link between relational trust in exchange partners and new venture performance, and determines whether weakness in national-level formal institutions influences this link. Based on a sample of 203 entrepreneurs and their new ventures from Germany and China, findings reinforce the idea that new venture performance may profit from relational trust in exchange partners. However, interaction analyses also reveal that the performance implications of relational trust are contingent on the institutional context. The contributions and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Boards’ Response to Shareholders’ Dissatisfaction: The Case of Shareholders’ Say on Pay in the UK

Abstract

In 2002, the UK adopted a regulation allowing shareholders to cast non-binding (advisory) votes on their firm's Directors' Remuneration Report during annual general meetings (the ‘Say-on-Pay’ rule). This study evaluates a decade of this regulation and examines how it affected the behavior of shareholders and boards in a sample of Financial Times Stock Exchange 350 firms during the period 2002–2012. I find evidence that shareholder dissatisfaction increases with excess Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation. This relationship does not exist for the expected level of compensation, suggesting that shareholders take a sophisticated approach when casting their vote. Boards do not appear to respond to shareholder dissatisfaction systematically; however, they do respond selectively by reducing the excessiveness of CEO compensation when performance is poor. Boards also seem to respond swiftly to shareholder dissatisfaction. There is evidence that the probability of CEO turnover increases with shareholder dissatisfaction. Overall, the evidence suggests that ‘Say-on-Pay’ regulation addressed regulatory concerns about transparency, accountability, and performance linkage.     

An introduction to Allan Gibbard’s oligarchy theorem paper

This note provides an introduction to the accompanying previously unpublished paper by Allan Gibbard in which he establishes his oligarchy theorem.