Employee performance management across borders: A review of relevant academic literature

The purpose of this paper is to survey the emerging academic literature on employee performance management (PM) from an international perspective. The primary information source was a search of electronic databases. Two criteria were used to determine which studies to include in the literature survey: (1) those published in an English-language blind refereed academic journal, and (2) those focused on employee PM or performance appraisal (PA) from an international/global perspective. Sixty-four articles, published between 1985 and 2005, met the criteria. A preliminary scheme was developed for classifying the existing academic research into conceptual and empirical articles. The empirical articles were further classified by their foci and themes. In addition to classifying the articles, the paper presents a summary of what can be learned from the major findings of the empirical studies. The major conclusion is that the academic literature on cross-border PM is relatively atheoretical and exploratory in nature and that the design and substance of the research studies are weak. With regard to themes, there are a number of foci in the literature with only scant attention paid to the central concern with the PM of expatriates as expressed by firms. The empirical articles look at the disparate components of PA and are interested mainly in cultural differences as an intervening variable. Several recommendations are presented for researchers to help focus future research on cross-border PM.     

A GRAPHICAL DIAGNOSTIC FOR VARIANCE FUNCTIONS

This paper proposes diagnostic plots for regression variance functions. It shows how to extend graphical methodology that uses Bayesian sampling for checking the regression mean function to also check the variance function. Plots can be constructed quickly and easily for any model of interest. These plots help to identify model weaknesses and can suggest ways to make improvements. The proposed methodology is illustrated with two examples: a simple linear regression model to fix ideas, and a more complex study involving count data to demonstrate the potential for wide application.     

Care leavers: A British affair

Individuals in and leaving care within the UK experience numerous dilemmas that include a lack of supportive housing and potential homelessness, lower educational attainment and occupational status, and greater likelihood of moving into poverty. These adverse situations—all of which are interrelated—shape their present and future health status. Models of these processes usually focus on individual behaviours/characteristics, the consolidation of positive identities through the development of supportive networks, and specific social policies germane to this group. Although informative, these models neglect many key contextual factors that shape these outcomes. In this paper, we present a model of care‐leaving that incorporates developments in the political economy of health literature to show how differing welfare state arrangements shape health by mediating the distribution of economic and social resources over the life course for populations in general and for those in and leaving care specifically. The key recommendation suggested by this model is to focus upon developing public policies to address the vulnerable situations care leavers experience associated with skewed income distributions, lack of housing affordability, weak employment standards, and lack of access to higher education typical of liberal welfare states such as the UK.     

Restorative justice for delinquents in Hong Kong: current practices and challenges

ABSTRACT

In Hong Kong, juvenile justice embraces mainly disciplinary welfare and rehabilitative philosophies. Various statutory measures are applied to juvenile offenders, including police cautioning, community-based treatment programmes and custodial sentencing options. However, no statutory restorative measure has yet been incorporated into the mainstream criminal justice system in Hong Kong. Several non-governmental organisations are developing innovative strategies to prevent problematic adolescents from slipping into delinquency and are willing to apply restorative practices to help delinquents desist from engaging in criminal careers. This study begins with main features of restorative justice, and it highlights the preventive and correctional services for delinquents in Hong Kong. The study also questions the explanations offered by the government for not implementing restorative justice. By comparing restorative options for juveniles in some Asian jurisdictions, the study advocates for an earlier introduction of restorative justice for the benefits of juvenile offenders.     

Impact of Absenteeism on Assembly Line Quality and Throughput

Assembly lines function best when every worker is present. When a worker is absent, management must scramble to quickly find a replacement. Usually, the replacement will not be as proficient as the absent worker. This can reduce quality and throughput. We present two assembly line work‐systems models (one for lines with Andon and one for lines without Andon) that show one mechanism whereby absenteeism could impact quality and throughput. We exercise these models to provide insights into absenteeism's impact on quality and throughput. While the paper is written in the concrete terms of automotive assembly, the concepts and results apply to manual assembly lines in general.     

Construction of orthogonal Latin hypercube designs with flexible run sizes

Latin hypercube designs (LHDs) have recently found wide applications in computer experiments. A number of methods have been proposed to construct LHDs with orthogonality among main-effects. When second-order effects are present, it is desirable that an orthogonal LHD satisfies the property that the sum of elementwise products of any three columns (whether distinct or not) is 0. The orthogonal LHDs constructed by Ye (1998), Cioppa and Lucas (2007), Sun et al. (2009) and Georgiou (2009) all have this property. However, the run size n of any design in the former three references must be a power of two (n=2^c) or a power of two plus one (n=2^c+1), which is a rather severe restriction. In this paper, we construct orthogonal LHDs with more flexible run sizes which also have the property that the sum of elementwise product of any three columns is 0. Further, we compare the proposed designs with some existing orthogonal LHDs, and prove that any orthogonal LHD with this property, including the proposed orthogonal LHD, is optimal in the sense of having the minimum values of ave(|t|), t_max, ave(|q|) and q_max.     

Bayesian D-optimal supersaturated designs

We introduce a new class of supersaturated designs using Bayesian D-optimality. The designs generated using this approach can have arbitrary sample sizes, can have any number of blocks of any size, and can incorporate categorical factors with more than two levels. In side by side diagnostic comparisons based on the E(s²)$E(s^2)$ criterion for two-level experiments having even sample size, our designs either match or out-perform the best designs published to date. The generality of the method is illustrated with quality improvement experiment with 15 runs and 20 factors in 3 blocks.