Performance measurement: a critical analysis of the literature with respect to total quality management

This paper represents a comprehensive review of the literature on performance measurement. The roadmap used for this analysis is from the evolution of performance measurement, to the way it is currently defined and how it is applied from a corporate-wide perspective. One useful contribution of this review is a special focus on performance measurement in a non-financial, non-traditional sense. This discussion was further amplified by referring to newly developed tools and techniques and by highlighting critical factors of success in the application of performance measurement.
The key factors from this literature review reveal that, although interest in the area of measurement is growing significantly, this is not reflected by the tangible and credible experiences in the organizations concerned. There is a concurrent view amongst various writers that there are both hard and soft issues reflecting, for instance, the lack of strategic thinking and goal clarity, putting measurement systems in the driving seat and therefore trusting unreliable designs and not focusing on the true ethos of modern measurement towards continuous improvement and thereby not engaging employees and neglecting the culture change aspects.
The paper concludes by highlighting the dearth in research in the important field of performance measurement and, in particular, the design and implementation of performance measurement systems that cover all the essential aspects through an integrated perspective.     

Correction to: Are Happier Nations More Responsible? Examining the Link Between Happiness and Sustainability

Social Indicators Research - A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02725-4     

Does Gender Diversity Affect Workplace Happiness for Academics? The Role of Diversity Management and Organizational Inclusion

Public Organization Review - The author investigated the relationship between gender diversity and organizational inclusion and moved forward to examine whether gender diversity, diversity...     

Testing for and against a set of linear inequality constraints in a multinomial setting

There are numerous situations in categorical data analysis where one wishes to test hypotheses involving a set of linear inequality constraints placed upon the cell probabilities. For example, it may be of interest to test for symmetry in k × k contingency tables against one-sided alternatives. In this case, the null hypothesis imposes a set of linear equalities on the cell probabilities (namely p_ij = P_ji ×i > j), whereas the alternative specifies directional inequalities. Another important application (Robertson, Wright, and Dykstra 1988) is testing for or against stochastic ordering between the marginals of a k × k contingency table when the variables are ordinal and independence holds. Here we extend existing likelihood-ratio results to cover more general situations. To be specific, we consider testing H_t,0 against H₁ - H₀ and H₁ against H₂ - H ₁ when H₀:k × i=1 p_ix_ji = 0, j = 1,…, s, H₁:k × i=1 p_ix_ji × 0, j = 1,…, s, and does not impose any restrictions on p. The x_ji's are known constants, and s × k - 1. We show that the asymptotic distributions of the likelihood-ratio tests are of chi-bar-square type, and provide expressions for the weighting values.     

Community and individual acceptance: family planning services in the Sudan

The Sudan Community-Based Health Project, initiated by the University of Khartoum in cooperation with the Ministry of Health in 1980, sought to test the proposition that government-trained village midwives could provide maternal-child health and birth spacing services in addition to their ongoing obstetrical duties. The project area encompassed 92,000 people in 93 villages. The 120 midwives serving the project area received training in 4 interventions -- oral rehydration therapy, maternal and child nutrition, immunization, and birth spacing -- and introduced these services by means of 3 rounds of household visits over a 5-month period. Comparison of pre- and post-intervention survey data indicates that village midwives can indeed be used successfully to promote not only contraceptive use, but also health attitudes and practices that are positively associated with fertility regulation. Between the 2 surveys, the percentage of women who ever used contraception increased from 22% to 28%, while the percentage of current users rose from 10% to 13%. Parity was significantly related to current use; each child born multiplied the likelihood of contraceptive acceptance (by a factor of 0.76 in the post-intervention sample). Maternal education was the socioeconomic variable that most enhanced receptivity to contraceptive acceptance after the project's interventions. In terms of community-level variables, village location along the Nile and proximity to a paved road were significant correlates of contraceptive use. When variables related to the project itself were analyzed, women with vaccinated children were found to be twice as likely to contracept as those with nonvaccinated children and women who believed breast feeding should be continued during diarrhea episodes were 1.5 times more likely to use birth spacing than those who did not. Although midwives did not specifically emphasize contraceptive use, it appears women who were encouraged by midwives to take positive steps in the area of child health were also likely to become more innovative in terms of fertility regulation.     

Statistical modeling of selected aspects of the childbearing process with application to world fertility survey countries∗

The childbearing process should be monitored in developing countries experiencing high population growth rates and high levels of maternal and infant mortality. A mathematical model for estimation of certain aspects of the childbearing process, which requires only data on age‐specific fertility rates, is developed. Synthetic maternal childbearing indices, namely, mean ages at first and last birth, length of reproductive life span, inter‐birth spacing, and proportion of childless women, in addition to the well‐known mean age at childbearing, for the WFS countries are obtained using the proposed model. The indices are free from age truncation effects, and, under certain assumptions, provide information about a cohort's completed fertility before the women stop reproducing. The effects of women's residence and education on fertility are also examined.     

Fixed-width sequential confidence interval for the correlation coefficient of a bivariate normal distribution

A sequential confidence interval of fixed width 2d d > 0, is constructed for the correlation coefficient of a bivariate normal distribution. It is shown that the coverage probability is approximately equal to a preassigned number γ, 0 < γ < as d → 0.     

Long‐term employment intensity of sectoral output growth in Tunisia

This article examines the long‐term ability of Tunisian industries to generate employment opportunities. Using a panel data set of 15 industries over 1983–2010, the authors estimate their long‐run output–employment elasticities, using the “mean group” estimator. They argue that economic policy should target the most labour‐intensive industries, particularly service industries and export manufacturing industries. After demonstrating the inability of the mining industry to absorb labour, the authors highlight the long‐run jobless growth in the hotel, bar and restaurant industry and suggest that future investment in this industry will yield no results and that future tourism policy should focus rather on para‐tourism activities.     

Citizens of the margin: citizenship and youth participation on the Moroccan social web

This paper examines how marginalized youth in Morocco use YouTube to contest hegemonic discourses of state power and institutional practices of social exclusion. The paper analyses a user-generated, YouTube web-series, Tales of Bouzebal, as a performance of marginality and a social critique of state bureaucracies and institutions in the context of post-Arab Spring Morocco. Using a combined method of textual and discourse analyses, the paper argues that the new media practices of producing and consuming user-generated video are best understood as practices of cultural citizenship that contribute to social change through the production of counter-discursive political subjectivities among youth in MENA. The paper posits that the concept of citizenship needs to be expanded to account for citizen participatory media practices that contest the conditions of marginality and inequality sustained by normative definitions of citizenship.