abstract: In this study, I examine the extent to which firms rely on relative performance evaluation (RPE) when setting executive compensation. In particular, I examine whether firms use information about peer performance to determine compensation at the end of the year, i.e. after both firm and peer performance are observed. I find that RPE is most pronounced for firms that allow little or no scope for ex post subjective adjustments to annual bonuses. Conversely, firms that rely mainly on subjectivity in determining bonus exhibit little use of RPE. These findings suggest that information about peer performance is not used at the end of the year. Instead, peer performance seems to be incorporated in performance targets at the beginning of the year, at least among firms primarily using objective performance measurements. In addition, I provide new evidence on the determinants of the use of subjectivity. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Accountancy 2013

The thesis evaluates both the business and financial performance of Arctic Paper Munkedals AB. The company was founded in 1817 and is located in Munkedal, Sweden. The evaluation was achieved through ratio analysis of the annual reports of Arctic Paper Munkedals AB over a five-year period and business performance analysis using the balanced scorecard model. The data collections are from the annual financial reports for five years before the 2008 recession. Different financial ratios were evaluated such as short-term liquidity ratios, leverage ratios, profitability ratios, asset utilization and capital market ratios. The mathematical calculations were established for ratio analysis from 2003-2007 along with graphical analysis and comparisons. According to Altman (The Journal of Finance, 1968), observed evidence for five years prior to failure was cited as conclusive that ratio analysis can be useful in the prediction of failure. The research paper also analyzes the business performance of Arctic Paper Munkedals AB using the balanced scorecard model. This model is a customer-based planning and process improvement system, with its primary focus on driving an organization's change process by identifying and evaluating pertinent performance measures. It complements the traditional financial perspective with other non­financial perspectives such as customer satisfaction, internal business process as well as learning and growth. The balanced set of performance measures tells a concise yet complete story about the achievement and performance of the organization toward its mission and goals. It provides a holistic view of what is happening in the organization.

Magister Legum - LLM / An understanding of the structure, function and performance relationships in different sports, including softball, allows for improved coaching approaches, development of sport specific fitness and skills training programmes, team selections and talent identification in young players. Despite the fact that fast pitch softball is an established sport with a long history, it has received little scientific attention. It does for example, not have a specific battery of softball specific fitness tests and relies on the tests and norms of baseball. The specific morphological and fitness demands of the sport are therefore not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to establish whether morphological and fitness characteristics are related to skill and performance measures in men's fast pitch softball players and to determine what the strengths of any such relationships are. The sample was purposively selected and consisted of 15 Provincial and 15 club male fast pitch softball players. All participants were members of the provincial Softball Federation. Anthropometric, fitness and skills test and measurements were conducted at the training sites over a number of weeks because it coincided with team training. Anthropometric measurements included height, weight, skinfolds, and were done in accordance with ISAK specifications. Derived anthropometric variables included BMI and body fat percentage. The following physical fitness tests were conducted: vertical jump test, standing broad jump and the Illinois agility run while the skills tests conducted were the softball throw for distance, the two base sprint test, the batting tests and the fielding test. Match statistics were easier to obtain since records were available in printed form from the Provincial softball federation for the Provincial players and from the club for its members. The data obtained were analysed and interpreted both collectively as a group of thirty and then separately as provincial and club teams for the purpose of comparison. Since the data were not normally distributed, the Spearman's rank Correlation was used to test for associations between variables. Comparisons of the squads were done using the nonparametric Wilcoxon Rank Sum test. The results of the study identified a number of strong significant relationships between the different variables tested. Height and percent body fat, amongst others were found to be the two anthropometric variables which significantly interacted with two key performance areas of fast pitch softball i.e. batting and fielding. Percent body fat also negatively correlated with the vertical jump test which highlights the general negative impact of excess fat on performance. The relationships established in this research strongly suggest that coaches include fitness, morphological and skills tests in their coaching and fitness programmes and they should further be used in team selections processes as they are strong indicators for success and will make the selection process more objective.

<p>The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the transportation infrastructure based on performance measures. In doing so, the abstract presents a transportation network as a system of nodes and links. It is important to identify critical components in transportation networks. In identifying critical components of the network, performance measures such as nodal degree, nodal closeness, nodal eigen vector, nodal betweenness, which are the most widely used were explored in the analysis of the network. These measures account for the vulnerability of a node to failure in the transportation network.</p> <p>In our daily use of transportation networks, we are faced with disruptions that engender change in the transportation network. Disruptions tend to be commonplace in transportation systems. These include manmade disruptions such as accidents to natural disasters such as floods due to rainfall and hurricanes, seismic activities among others which are unprecedented. These incidents change how road users interact with the transportation system due to the disruptions that occur. The disruptions cause increased travel time, delays and even loss of property. These disruptions lead to direct, indirect and induced impacts.</p> <p>This study provides a firsthand diagnosis of the vulnerability of the transportation network to flood by ranking the nodes using performance measures and multicriteria evaluation. The paper found out that various performance measures may produce different critical nodes but with the employment of sensitivity analysis and veto rule, the most critical node can be established The paper found out that node 80 is the most critical and essential node of the entire network after the impact of flood. </p>

Purpose – This research aims to examine the relevant literature related to maintenance performance measurement in the manufacturing sector. In the process, innovative approaches and models utilized to measure and manage maintenance performance in manufacturing operational settings are classified and examined. Based on this investigation, future research directions and themes are identified. Design/methodology/approach – A database of 251 peer-reviewed publications, published during the last 30 years, was utilized for the purpose of this research. The published works included contributions from both practitioners and scholars. Findings – This literature review-based research revealed important themes related to evolution of maintenance performance management. These themes focus on the effective utilization of maintenance resources, information systems support, and human factor management. Based on this literature review, a conceptual framework, which traces the different operational and organizational facets of the evolution of maintenance performance management, is offered. Research limitations/implications – Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that the area of maintenance performance and management is in need of more future systematic research efforts aimed at solidifying theoretical constructs and promoting the utilization of more practical applications. Practical implications – Findings derived from this investigation have relevant manufacturing implications. In this context, understanding the different approaches to maintenance performance measurement and management, as utilized in manufacturing organizations, is critical to these organizations' performance improvement efforts. Originality/value – Understanding the types and scopes of the different approaches and models utilized to manage and measure maintenance performance in manufacturing operational settings is important in light of the growing competitiveness of the manufacturing sector.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a systematic approach to measuring, tracking, monitoring and continuously improving efficiency, availability and quality in healthcare operational settings. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed measure of healthcare operational effectiveness (HOE) consists of three indicators. They include an availability indicator, an quality indicator, and an efficiency indicator. The proposed approach tends to facilitate the systematic improvement at the different facets of operational effectiveness. Findings – The proposed operational performance approach based on the HOE is consistent with the themes of performance measures and measurement reported in the literature. Research limitations/implications – The proposed healthcare operational effectiveness approach represents a serious attempt at quantifying the key facets of service effectiveness in healthcare operational settings. The validation of this performance assessment and measurement approach is worthy of future research. Practical implications – The approach advocated by the HOE has operational and strategic relevance to decision makers of healthcare organizations. Originality/value – This paper presents a practical, systematic approach toward enhancing operational effectiveness in healthcare organizations. Relevant implementation issues associated with the proposed approach are also addressed.

Purpose – Owing to the increasing competitive pressures in the marketplace in recent years, the different facets of performance measures and measurement have changed. In this context, the lack of a clear understanding of the dimensionality of manufacturing performance tends to negatively impact successful implementation and utilization of manufacturing performance measurement systems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dimensionality of performance and its effective utilization in a manufacturing operational context. Design/methodology/approach – Using a sample of 92 Portuguese manufacturing executives, this study investigates the dimensionality of manufacturing performance and its associated current utilization practices. Factor analysis and cluster analysis are used to analyze data collected on 63 performance measures. Findings – Based on the results of this study, a conceptual framework is advanced. The framework is intended as an aid to manufacturing organizations in their efforts to modify their patterns of utilization of performance measures in order to be more consistent with the emerging changes and challenges of the global marketplace. Research limitations/implications – The sample used in this study is specific in nature (Portuguese manufacturing organizations). Thus the results should be interpreted accordingly. Practical implications – Based on the results of this study, some important organizational implications regarding the practices related to performance measurement in the manufacturing environment are identified. Originality/value – This study empirically examined the manufacturing Portuguese executives’ opinions regarding the dimensionality and utilizations of performance measures. In this context, this investigation contributes to the understanding of the implementation and utilization of performance measures and measurement systems.

Purpose The objective of this study is to shed some light on performance measurement issues relevant to current practices. Design-methodology-approach The performance measurement practices in terms of utilization, relevance, and availability of information are studied for a sample of 92 Portuguese manufacturing executives. Several statistical instruments were used namely multiple regression analysis, cluster analysis and gap analysis. Findings The results of this study underscore consistent patterns pointing to a lack of a broad perspective on manufacturing performance measurement. Conclusions and their implications to the theory and art of performance measurement are presented. Research limitations-implications The sample used in this study is specific in nature Portuguese executives. Thus, the results should be interpreted accordingly. Future research should test the applicability of the obtained results using other sample frames. Practical implications This study provides practicing managers with useful information regarding performance measures and measurement practices. Originality-value This study represents an important step toward refining the theory and practice of performance measurement in manufacturing organizations.

Clusters of low-performance spacecraft flying in formation may provide enhanced performance over single high-performance spacecraft. This is especially true for remote sensing missions where interferometry or stereographic imaging may provide higher resolution data. The configurations of such formations vary during an orbit due to orbital dynamics, and over longer time scales due to perturbations. Selection of a configuration should be based on overall performance of the formation. In this thesis, performance measures are developed and evaluated based on integration over one orbit. The measures involve the angular separation of spacecraft, the distance between spacecraft, and an area-based measure of the separation of the spacecraft. Numerical techniques are employed to evaluate the performance measures to determine optimal scenarios for two formations. Simplifying assumptions are made to allow a closed-form analytic solution and the results are compared to those obtained numerically. Finally, the sensitivity of the measures to linearized propagation techniques is investigated. / Master of Science

ITC/USA 2008 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fourth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 27-30, 2008 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / The integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry effort (iNET) was launched to create a telemetry network that will enhance the traditional point-to-point telemetry link from test articles (TAs) to ground stations (GS). Two of the critical needs identified by the Central Test and Evaluation Investment Program (CTEIP) are, "the need to be able to provide reliable coverage in potentially high capacity environments, even in Over-The-Horizon (OTH) settings", and "the need to make more efficient use of spectrum resources through dynamic sharing of said resources, based on instantaneous demand thereof". Research conducted at Morgan State University (MSU) has focused on providing solutions for both critical problems. The Mixed Network architecture developed by MSU has shown that a hybrid network can be used to provide coverage for TAs that are beyond the coverage area of the GS. The mixed network uses clustering techniques to partition the aggregate network into clusters or sub-networks based on properties of each TA, which currently include signal strengths, and location. The paper starts with a detailed analysis of two parameters that affect the performance of each sub-network: contention between the TAs in the mobile ad-hoc network, and queuing at the Gateway TAs that serve as the link between the mobile ad-hoc and the Cellular networks. Contention and queuing will be used to evaluate two performance (distance) measures for each sub-network: throughput and delay. We define a new distance measure known as "power", which is equal to the ratio of throughput over delay, and is used as a measure of performance of the mixed network for Quality of Service (QOS). This paper describes the analytical foundation used to prove that the "power" performance measure is an excellent tool for optimizing the clustering of a mixed network to provide QOS.