Why we hate performance management—And why we should love it

Individual performance is a building block of organizational success. Not surprisingly, virtually all organizations have in place some type of performance management system. Yet, managers and employees are equally skeptical that performance management adds value; usually, it is seen as a waste of time and resources. We argue that the potential benefits of performance management are not realized because most systems focus exclusively on narrow and evaluative aspects such as performance appraisal. Herein, we offer a broader view of performance management, including discussion of how it differs from performance appraisal. We highlight specific and important benefits of performance management for employees, managers, and organizations. We also describe research-based conclusions regarding how performance management systems should be designed and implemented to realize these benefits. We hope our article will demonstrate that well-constructed performance management systems should not be hated, but rather embraced.     

Money Allocation to Out-of-Home Leisure Activities and the Organization of These Activities in Time and Space

Monetary budgets influence activity participation and related travel as they demarcate limits on how people organize their activities in time and space. In this paper, we are interested in money allocation to out-of-home leisure activities and how this is affected by duration, sociodemographics, and time-location variables. Analyses were carried out by applying a seemingly unrelated regression model to a leisure activity data set. The analyses revealed that expenditures for out-of-home leisure activities are influenced by the variables mentioned above. Moreover, the results indicate that there is a substitution between expenditure of each activity.     

Exploring the use of travel information – identifying contextual market segmentation in Seoul, Korea

As the amount of information is rapidly growing, and ubiquitous urban environments are emerging, the question which kind of information to provide is a major challenge for commercial and public travel-information service providers alike. This paper reports the analyses of recent data, collected in Metropolitan Seoul, about the acquisition of travel information. The study applies CHAID analysis to find homogeneous segments in travel information acquisition. Findings indicate that contextual variables are crucial to explain information acquisition behaviour, depending on decision context. The implication is that both socioeconomic and contextual variables are important to better understand the acquisition (and provision) of travel information. The results have important implications for managers and policy-makers, in particular in the way they respond to dynamic, contextual market segmentation.     

MACROECONOMIC AND LABOUR MARKET POLICIES FOR EMPLOYMENT GENERATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

The recent advent of political democracy in South Africa has brought into sharp focus those macroeconomic and labour policies designed to combat unacceptably high unemployment levels, that have escalated steadily to present estimates of approximately 40 per cent of the Economically Active Population. The continuing implementation of neo-liberal orthodox policies, the authors maintain, will aggravate the problem. An alternative theoretical framework containing elements of a neo-Ricardian, post-Keynesian approach and based on research work of the Macroeconomic Research Group (MERG) is advocated. This approach focuses on State-led, demand-inducing policies, while not neglecting the supply side of the labour market in South Africa.     

Does a Crisis Matter? Forest Policy Responses to the Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic in British Columbia

“[a]n epidemic of catastrophic proportions”?Larry Pedersen, Chief Forester in 2003, in describing the impact of the outbreak. What factors are responsible for the introduction of new policies (especially those involving substantive change) is a phenomenon that is still poorly understood. Researchers have identified policy windows where a confluence of events, such as a change in government, the emergence of a new issue, and ongoing policy processes, come together to create the opportunity for new policy development. Natural disasters can open such policy windows by drawing attention to an issue and mobilizing political will. Yet at the same time, even if policy windows do open, they may not result in effective policy development. The institutional setting in which such policies are developed also plays a key role. In the case of the Canadian forest sector, the combination of public resources and private capital make policy development especially challenging. Although the scale of the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic in British Columbia is unprecedented, and will change the nature of the forest resource (and by extension the industry and communities that rely upon it), the policy response has been limited to short‐term measures. Although some policy reform was introduced, policy makers have yet to address the question of whether more fundamental changes are required in order to address the full consequences of the epidemic. La détermination des facteurs responsables de l’introduction de nouvelles politiques (particulièrement celles qui comportent des changements substantiels) demeurent un phénomène mal compris. Des chercheurs ont déterminé des fenêtres d’opportunité politique où divers événements, tels qu’un changement de gouvernement, l’émergence d’une nouvelle préoccupation et des processus politiques continus, convergent pour créer l’occasion d’élaborer de nouvelles politiques. Les catastrophes naturelles peuvent créer ces fenêtres d’opportunité politique en attirant l’attention sur une préoccupation et en mobilisant la volonté politique. Pourtant, même si des fenêtres d’opportunité politique s’ouvrent, elles peuvent ne pas se solder par l’élaboration de politiques efficaces. Le cadre institutionnel dans lequel ces politiques sont élaborées joue aussi un rôle important. Dans le cas du secteur forestier canadien, la combinaison de ressources publiques et de capitaux privés rend l’élaboration de politiques particulièrement délicate. Bien que l’étendue de l’épidémie de dendroctone du pin ponderosa en Colombie‐Britannique soit sans précédent et modifiera la nature de la ressource forestière (et par extension, l’industrie et les collectivités qui en dépendent), la réaction politique s’est limitée à des mesures à court terme. Malgré une certaine réforme des politiques, les décideurs doivent s’interroger sur la nécessité d’apporter ou non des changements fondamentaux supplémentaires pour surmonter les conséquences de l’épidémie.