Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to propose a systematic approach to measuring, tracking, monitoring and continuously improving service efficiency, availability and quality in hospitality operational settings. Design/methodology/approach - The proposed measure of service operational effectiveness (SOE) consists of three indicators. They include the availability indicator, the quality indicator, and the efficiency indicator. Findings - The paper finds that the proposed operational performance approach based on the SOE is consistent with the themes of performance measures and measurement reported in the literature. Research limitations/implications - In this paper, the proposed service operational effectiveness approach represents a serious attempt at quantifying the key facets of service effectiveness in hospitality operational settings. The validation of this performance assessment and measurement approach is worthy of future research. Practical implications - The paper sees that the approach advocated by the SOE has operational and strategic relevance to decision-makers of hospitality organizations. Field interviews with hospitality operating managers in different operating base cultures confirmed this. Originality/value - This paper presents a practical, systematic approach to the problem of enhancing service operational effectiveness in hospitality organizations. Relevant implementation issues associated with the proposed approach are also addressed. Interviews with operational managers representing different types and sizes of hospitality organizations in different operational cultures were utilized to provide initial validation of the proposed approach and to shed some light on relevant practical implementation issues.

America’s founding fathers identified education as the key for sustaining democracy and economic growth. When determining how the new country would organize education, they decided not to centralize higher education institutions under a national university, thus creating a federalist system unique from the European model. This format allowed for diversity in educational missions, which many theorists suggest allows the country to serve its heterogeneous population. Many institutions that focus on social equity do not perform as high as institutions with selective admissions criteria. As governments begin enforcing accountability policies that encourage performance, institutions with social equity missions may be adversely affected. Furthermore, higher education leaders fear that the focus on performance downplays the role of educational effectiveness. This research developed an Educational Performance Index (EPI)—a tool that combines measures of efficiency, effectiveness, and equity—to serve as an evaluation instrument for higher education institutions. The results of the study indicated that social equity related missions do have a negative relationship to traditional efficiency metrics; however, the composite EPI was not influenced by institutional characteristics, such as Carnegie Classification and attributes indicative of social equity missions. By controlling for these mission-related features, institutional performance can be measured more comprehensively. A third hypothesis compared the EPI scores to those of traditional academic rankings to test whether the EPI was similar to existing measures. This hypothesis was partially supported, but it also excluded nearly half of the institutions in the study because they did not have regional rankings. Through an exploration of the literature, this study asserts that the way higher education is measured has consequences in how institutions fulfill their missions. Current performance measures both in terms of graduation rates and in terms of academic rankings promote social inequity. The conclusions of this study presents an alternative instrument that provides an accountability mechanism that does not disincentivize institutions from serving the public good.

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Road authorities around the world have been innovating and finding ways to cope with the high cost of road network maintenance, the growing demands of road users and the changing traffic type and volume. A well-maintained road is needed to make the network sustainable for future generations. Improving road maintenance management in the Philippines, based on New Zealand experience, is the goal of this research with the theme of managing the change from method-based specifications to the adoption of performance-based specifications for unsealed low-volume roads. The New Zealand Local Government Act 2002 prescribes the requirements for the provision, operation, and management of the local road network, consistent with the Land Transport Management Act 2002 and the New Zealand Land Transport Strategy. The maintenance management system used by New Zealand road controlling authorities (RCAs) was determined by survey and a profile of RCAs that have adopted performance-based specifications was established. RCAs that adopted performance-based specifications had employed asset managers, used the Road Asset Maintenance Management (RAMM) system as an asset management tool, engaged consultants for specialised skills, employed more engineers, had highly developed performance specifications, conducted customer surveys, and had more resources in terms of rates and revenues than RCAs that had not adopted performance-based specifications. The proposed performance-based specifications for sealed and unsealed roads were also presented in this thesis. The Department of Public Works and Highways of the Philippines has implemented three long-term performance-based maintenance pilot projects, all completed by 2005. The lessons learned from the pilot projects, together with the New Zealand survey results will guide road authorities in the Philippines to improve the implementation of future long-term performance-based maintenance contracts (LTPBMC) on national roads, and possibly apply the same to low-volume roads.

Performance measurement of Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) is of increasing importance for aid agencies, policy-makers and donors. A widely used benchmark for measuring the efficiency of NPOs is the overhead cost ratio, consisting of the total money spent on administration and fundraising relative to the budget. Donors generally favor a lower overhead cost ratio as it ensures that more Money directly reaches beneficiaries. Unlike fundraising expenses, administrative costs do not contribute to advertising the actions of an NPO even though they account for a significant proportion of overhead cost. Reducing administrative expenses is a logical consequence from a financial viewpoint, but might negatively affect NPOs through the resulting administrative capacities. This phenomenon is known as "Nonprofit Starvation Cycle" This work provides an analytical framework for analyzing NPO decision making concerning administrative costs. The paper provides answers to important research questions on the optimal level of administrative spending, the influencing factors and the effects of available information on NPOs. The research shows that focusing on financial performance measurements can result in reduced utility created for NPOs. Less transparency often leads to increased utility for NPOs, but more transparency can increase NPOs' utility if the information available exceeds a certain threshold. Fluctuating donations are challenging for NPOs' planning and may Impact administrative capacities negatively.

The wide range of applications for single input single output controllers have encouraged interest in monitoring their performance. Over the past two decades researchers in the area have found many performance enhancement opportunities by applying these techniques. These are most evident in large operational plants with hundreds of controllers being monitored at the same time. Early performance measures were based on minimum variance control as a benchmark for controller performance. Many other procedures have since emerged that have improved the level of accuracy in these performance measures. In addition, these improvements made it easier to implement control loop performance monitoring in large industrial settings. This thesis looks at the performance measures in use for single input single output controllers. The work here looks at incorporating these different measures for a specific manufacturing plant. Ways of identifying the goals and objectives of controllers in a system are presented. Furthermore, measures are proposed that most accurately indicate if these goals and objectives are being met. The concept is demonstrated on a distillation system in a gas plant. It is shown how using these objective driven techniques can provide the user with sound results. These results do not require much user analysis to identify sources of problems and areas of improvement.

The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a holistic management philosophy put forward by Eliyahu Goldratt in 1984. The thinking process and improvement tools discussed in this theory are mainly geared to manufacturing environments, however their applicability to service environments has also been shown for private professional service organizations. This study demonstrates that the steps and principles of the TOC can also be applied to non-profit services, such as the elective course registration process described in this thesis. In the case of non-profit organizations, the challenge is to define the performance measures of the TOC, which are Throughput, Inventory, and Operating Expense. This study offers a novel definition for these measurements, and using the principles of the TOC, it identifies the bottleneck and constraints of the elective course registration process. Using this analysis, the study then redesigns the system in order to improve the performance measures of the system.

This report explores the effects of rapid growth in Austin, Texas, with an emphasis on local government budgets, service delivery, and citizen satisfaction. The relationship between urban growth and public finances has been studied extensively, but a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between growth and public finances, service delivery performance, and citizen satisfaction over time is lacking. A multi-decade analysis reveals a steady increase in the cost of local government services and levels of taxation, with corresponding high performance and citizen satisfaction over time. In light of these findings, recommendations to improve cost-effectiveness, service delivery, and citizen satisfaction include: regular audits of the City’s performance measurement system to ensure the metrics tracked remain relevant to the challenges; better coordination of taxes and expenditures among local government entities to minimize the tax impact on residents; greater consideration of less costly alternative municipal service delivery systems; and concerted efforts to engage residents in the budget and service delivery decisions. / text

Empirical studies within a cognitive load framework have determined that for novice learners, worked examples provide appropriate levels of instructional guidance. As learners advance in specific subject domains, worked examples should be gradually replaced by practice problems with limited guidance. These studies compared immediate and delayed performance in transfer from examples to practice problems using example-problems pairs and gradual fixed fading of worked examples as well as a control condition of pure problem solving. These studies were conducted with employees of a financial services company in a classroom environment. In Experiments 1 and 2, the fading condition indicated possible benefits over the other conditions on immediate and delayed performance measures (although results were not statistically significant). Experiment 3 used a modified fading method and demonstrated that the fading condition performed marginally better than the problem solving condition on delayed performance measures (although results were not statistically significant). Even though the fading condition did not demonstrate significant advantages in immediate post-test measures, over time learners benefited most from this condition. Experiment 4 investigated if the delayed fading effect found in experiment 3 would be observed using far transfer test performance measures. The results of this experiment indicated that the fading condition performed marginally better than the problem solving condition on delayed transfer post-test performance (although results were not statistically significant). Generally the results of this thesis favored the fading condition over the example-problem and problem solving conditions, and the advantage of this condition was enhanced with greater performance in delayed and transfer post-test measures.