Book Review: Patrice Flynn and Virginia A. Hodgkinson (eds.), Measuring the Impact of the Nonprofit Sector,Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers,New York, 2001, 299 pp., index,references, $39.95

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Detecting the dubious digits: Benford's law in forensic accounting

Kuldeep Kumar and Sukanto Bhattacharya Introduce an unexpected quality in natural numbers that can help to detect faked data     

Social security, employment and Incapacity Benefit: critical reflections on A new deal for welfare

In January 2006 New Labour published a Green Paper on welfare reform, A new deal for welfare: empowering people to work. Following a consultation period the 2006 Welfare Reform Bill was published in July 2006. The main concern of the Green Paper was with Incapacity Benefit and the people who claim it. This paper critically engages with the proposals outlined in the Green Paper and the subsequent Bill. Focusing upon the social security and labour market interventions of the proposals, the paper argues that rather than empowering disabled people to work, the relationships held to exist between welfare reform and paid employment in A new deal for welfare are likely to have a limited impact. The paper discusses why this is likely to be the case by examining assumptions contained in the proposals related to the reasons why people claim Incapacity Benefit, the model of disability that structures the proposals and the relationships between disability, paid work and models of family structure that the proposals presuppose.     

Predictive validity of a functional capacity evaluation: the physical work performance evaluation

The predictive validity of a Functional Capacity Evaluation, the Physical Work Performance Evaluation (PWPE), was examined in 30 workers compensation patients with musculoskeletal dysfunction who participated in an industrial rehabilitation program. Return-to-work recommendations were made by comparing the discharge PWPE to the physical requirements of the job. Kappa coefficients were used to compare PWPE recommendations to actual work at discharge, 3 months and 6 months. Substantial agreement was found between PWPE recommendations at all three follow-up points. This study provides preliminary evidence in support of the predictive validity of the PWPE for making return-to-work recommendations at the conclusion of an industrial rehabilitation program.     

Green supply chain performance measurement using the analytic hierarchy process: a comparative analysis of manufacturing organisations

The main purpose of this research is to develop and deploy an analytical framework for measuring the environmental performance of manufacturing supply chains. This work's theoretical bases combine and reconcile three major areas: supply chain management, environmental management and performance measurement. Researchers have suggested many empirical criteria for green supply chain (GSC) performance measurement and proposed both qualitative and quantitative frameworks. However, these are mainly operational in nature and specific to the focal company. This research develops an innovative GSC performance measurement framework by integrating supply chain processes (supplier relationship management, internal supply chain management and customer relationship management) with organisational decision levels (both strategic and operational). Environmental planning, environmental auditing, management commitment, environmental performance, economic performance and operational performance are the key level constructs. The proposed framework is then applied to three selected manufacturing organisations in the UK. Their GSC performance is measured and benchmarked by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a multiple-attribute decision-making technique. The AHP-based framework offers an effective way to measure and benchmark organisations’ GSC performance. This study has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically it contributes holistic constructs for designing a GSC and managing it for sustainability; and practically it helps industry practitioners to measure and improve the environmental performance of their supply chain.     

Performance management of suppliers in outsourcing project: case analysis from the financial services industry

This study investigates the characteristics of an effective performance management framework for outsourcing projects in a UK-based financial services organisation and how this may contribute to the success of the outsourcing arrangement. The analysis draws on outsourcing and performance management theory, and uses both primary and secondary data. Valuable information was found on objective setting, performance measurement and performance improvement in the outsourcing project. An adapted version of the Balanced Scorecard, termed a Logic Scorecard, is suggested as a measurement tool; a service credit system and a continuous improvement schedule used to enhance supplier performance. The performance management framework, which is one of the pillars of the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model, was developed, and provides practitioners with step-by-step guidance for the implementation of performance management in outsourcing projects. This combines both suggestions for performance management before and after the outsourcing decision, thus considering the entire outsourcing lifecycle. The proposed 10-step framework for outsourcing not only incorporates strategic propositions but also shows its implementation at an operational level.     

The Retail Planning Problem Under Demand Uncertainty

We consider the retail planning problem in which the retailer chooses suppliers and determines the production, distribution, and inventory planning for products with uncertain demand to minimize total expected costs. This problem is often faced by large retail chains that carry private‐label products. We formulate this problem as a convex‐mixed integer program and show that it is strongly NP‐hard. We determine a lower bound by applying a Lagrangian relaxation and show that this bound outperforms the standard convex programming relaxation while being computationally efficient. We also establish a worst‐case error bound for the Lagrangian relaxation. We then develop heuristics to generate feasible solutions. Our computational results indicate that our convex programming heuristic yields feasible solutions that are close to optimal with an average suboptimality gap at 3.4%. We also develop managerial insights for practitioners who choose suppliers and make production, distribution, and inventory decisions in the supply chain.     

Interorganizational System Characteristics and Supply Chain Integration: An Empirical Assessment*

Some firms have gained significant benefits by effectively deploying interorganizational systems (IOS) to tightly couple operations with their supply chain partners. In contrast, other firms with IOS deployments have struggled to achieve this level of success. So it is not clear how such systems can be configured to promote idiosyncratic interorganizational processes that integrate the supply chains and facilitate successful outcomes. To shed further light on this issue, we draw from multiple theoretical perspectives to develop a comprehensive and unique conceptualization of IOS characteristics that goes beyond the limited treatment it has received in extant literature. Furthermore, we empirically examine the IOS configuration choices made by firms with different supply chain integration (SCI) profiles. Our results support the notion that successful firms sequence the configuration of IOS characteristics toward effectively developing and supporting their supply chain process capabilities. In particular, we found that firms at the lower end of SCI configure IOS features to support supplier evaluation and automatic alerts. As organizations move to the upper end of the SCI spectrum, greater attention is paid to features associated with systems integration, planning, and forecasting. Recommendations to managers and academics stemming from our study are provided, along with avenues for future research.     

Global supplier development considering risk factors using fuzzy extended AHP-based approach

Global supplier development is a multi-criterion decision problem which includes both qualitative and quantitative factors. The global supplier selection problem is more complex than domestic one and it needs more critical analysis. The aim of this paper is to identify and discuss some of the important and critical decision criteria including risk factors for the development of an efficient system for global supplier selection. Fuzzy extended analytic hierarchy process (FEAHP) based methodology will be discussed to tackle the different decision criteria like cost, quality, service performance and supplier's profile including the risk factors involved in the selection of global supplier in the current business scenario. FEAHP is an efficient tool to handle the fuzziness of the data involved in deciding the preferences of different decision variables. The linguistic level of comparisons produced by the customers and experts for each comparison are tapped in the form triangular fuzzy numbers to construct fuzzy pair-wise comparison matrices. The implementation of the system is demonstrated by a problem having four stages of hierarchy which contains different criteria and attributes at wider perspective. The proposed model can provide not only a framework for the organization to select the global supplier but also has the capability to deploy the organization's strategy to its supplier.