Thesis (M.S. in Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Nussbaum, Daniel A. ; Hildebrandt, Gregory G. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 29, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Maintenance, ground equipment, descriptive statistics, Table of Authorized Material Control Number. Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-71). Also available in print.

This thesis is dealing with the topic of the strategic performance management and cultural consequences of its implementation at emerging markets. The foremost goal of this thesis was to break down key issues which should be addressed by C-level management when considering implementation of Balanced Scorecards in emerging markets. Key issues which were addressed in this thesis: Cultural differences between emerging and developed countries; Knowledge worker as the key production factor in services; Theory of the Performance Management; Theory of Balanced Scorecards; Strategic implications of the implementation of Balanced Scorecards; Alternative approaches to Balanced Scorecards

Diss. (sammanfattning) Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2007. / Härtill 6 uppsatser.

Chinese firms are experiencing a rapid increase in technological diversification, which is referred to as maintaining their capabilities in multiple technologies. However, the research on the relationship between technological diversification and firm performance is inconclusive. This PhD thesis tries to re-investigate the technological diversification-firm performance relationship from three different perspectives using data on Chinese listed firms from 2003 to 2014. First, the thesis tries to overcome the shortcomings of previous technological diversification research by unpacking technological diversification into explorative and exploitative technological dimensions from the mechanical view and studying their roles in firm performance. The findings suggest that technological diversification that combines explorative and exploitative dimensions is positively related to firm performance. This relationship is conditional on intangible complementary assets and firm type (high or low-tech firms). Second, this thesis tries to investigate the technological diversification-firm performance relationship through an institutional view that has hardly been mentioned in the previous literature. Here it is argued that firms try to use technological diversification as a way to gain legitimacy. In order to do so, firms' technological diversification need to be similar to the industrial norms. The results reveal a positive relationship between firms' conformity in technological diversification and their performance. The results further delineate the boundary conditions that influence this relationship. While environmental dynamism strengthens the conformity-performance relationship, environmental munificence reduces it. Finally, this thesis tries to integrate both a mechanical view and an institutional view of technological diversification and find evidence to support the optimal distinctiveness view that firms should reach a balance between these views. The results reveal a curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between firms' conformity in technological diversification and their performance. I also test the boundary conditions of this relationship. While firm age strengthens the conformity-performance relationship, state ownership weakens it.

The current extremely volatile business world requires firms to deal with a wide range of risks that pose threats to their organisations. The poor practices of risk management, based on Traditional Risk Management (TRM), was cited time and time again in the aftermath of the recent Global Crisis. Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) has been advocated as a solution to the problems of TRM. The aim is to centralise the management of risk within the organisation and ensure that the board deals with the risk. Hence strategic, external, internal, operational, compliance and reputational risk are dealt with jointly. In doing so, it is expected that ERM will bring value creation to firms. One of the main limitations facing researchers is the lack of a good standardised measurement of ERM implementation; therefore, it has not been possible to establish whether ERM does actually bring benefit to firms. In addition, many companies have set up ERM initiatives, but they lack a clear understanding of the factors that will lead to successful ERM implementation. The remaining unanswered problematic situation has led to two unanswered questions that will determine whether the solution to ERM implementation is avoiding potential pitfalls and improving business sustainability. Firstly, does ERM implementation have an impact on firm performance? And secondly, which is the firm-specific characteristic that leads to better ERM implementation level? This thesis answers the aforementioned questions by proposing a reliable ERM measurement method, and then testing whether firms that adopt ERM actually improve financial performance and determine the influential factor of ERM implementation. The proposed method for measuring ERM implementation is based on the components developed from the current ERM frameworks, where contribution scoring can be standardised to measure ERM implementation level. To demonstrate its viability, data was collected from publicly listed firms in Thailand and was then compared to three alternative methodologies: cluster analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS). The results show that the proposed method did well compared to the alternatives, both statistically and in prediction performance. The relationship between the proposed ERM measurement and firm performance is then considered by taking appropriate control variables into account, such as the firm’s size and characteristics, industry effects, sales growth and the external environment: technology, market uncertainty, as well as economic factors. By using data from the Thailand Stock Exchange, it was found that implementing ERM could improve firm performance in term of Tobin's Q, ROE and ROA. The results show that ERM and firm performance are related. For the influential factor of ERM implementation, the empirical results show that a firm’s size and economic factors have a statistically positive relationship with a high level of ERM implementation, while lower ERM scores show more revenue volatility than those who have well-implemented ERMs. Furthermore, technology and growth are positively related to each ERM in the scoring system considered.

Effective risk and financial management possess a great challenge for the multinational companies operating globally. Despite the increasing development of diverse hedging strategies against foreign exchange risk, global firms cannot fully foresee and measure the degree of the impact of foreign currency fluctuations. This paper aims to evaluate the exchange risk management and financial performance of the BMW Group from the year 2005 to 2016. Moreover, this paper is devoted to provide explanatory information on the impact of foreign exchange exposure on the financial performance of the company by the usage of information provided by the annual reports. The first section of the paper establishes the theoretical concepts of risk management with emphasis on exchange rate risk and financial performance analysis, which support the following study. The analysis of the industry and BMW Group business operations worldwide, currency movement, detailed accounting examination, financial ratio, peer group, exchange rate exposure and hedging strategies are performed to examine the relation between the financial performance and foreign exchange risk management. The analysis reveals that the effective hedging strategies against the foreign exchange risk may substantially impact the financial performance and overall positioning of the company in the competitive environment.

This research investigates Destination Management Organisation (DMOs) in China, and looks at their functions and their adoption of Performance Measurement Systems (PMSs). A two-stage questionnaire survey has adopted to achieve the pre-determined aims of the research. Finally, ninety-three DMOs took part in the first stage survey and thirty-four DMOs were involved in the second stage survey. The key findings from the research are as follows. (1) Irrespective of their nature and level, Chinese DMOs attached most importance to the functions of “economic-driver”, “marketing” and “coordination & collaboration”. (2) DMOs attached a second level of importance to the functions of “operator”, “administrator”, “statistics” and “training”; however, particularly at municipality and city levels; also Chinese public DMOs paid more attention to these aspects. (3) Chinese public DMOs, particularly at provincial and city level, placed more emphasis on the functions of “regulator” and “legitimacy”. (4) Chinese higher-level public DMOs paid less attention to the function of “public awareness”, “funding” and “international relations”, however they did performed much better than non-public lower-level DMOs to these tasks. (5) Chinese governmental DMOs at higher-level, and private DMOs, were the best at adopting PMSs in their organisations. (6) The PMSs of Chinese DMOs paid greatest attention to measuring the aspects of “visitor”, “earning” and “marketing”, and medium levels of attention to the aspects of “stakeholder”, “operation” and “event”, and relatively low attention to evaluating their performance of the aspects of “employment” and “innovation” in their organisations. Finally, a refined PMS model that could be adopted by Chinese DMOs in the future was developed at the end. Based on the above findings, the refined model aimed to measure the performance of “stakeholders”, “employees” and “customers” by assessing the outcomes of the aspects of “management” and “marketing” for Chinese DMOs. The refined PMS model was developed and based on the top-down operation system that currently existed in China and was supposed to pursue every major aspect of the system for each stakeholder in the DMOs.

Performance management research in the private and public sector has received much attention in management accounting research; however, empirical studies on performance management in the non-profit sector remain scarce. This study proposes and validates a model that explains the relationships between contingency variables, performance management practices, and organisational effectiveness in the non-profit sector. The study employed a mixed methods research approach, which entailed a field study and a cross-sectional survey in the Kenyan non-profit sector. The field study was undertaken to understand the perceptions of NPO leaders on non-profit sector characteristics, organisational effectiveness, determinants, challenges, and benefits of implementation of performance management systems in the Kenyan non-profit sector. Thereafter, a cross-sectional survey (using mailed questionnaires and an online survey) was used to collect quantitative primary data. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the quantitative data. The structural equation modelling approach was adopted to test the hypothesised relationships among the contingency factors, performance management practices and organisational effectiveness. The findings indicate that performance management in NPOs can be categorised into three groups: performance planning, performance measurement and performance context. The NPOs emphasise mission statements and core values within the formal PM system. Although a number of private sector measurement frameworks are utilised, the NPOs mostly use logical framework, with emphasis on output and financial measures and team based targets with no clear rewards. The PM systems are resource intensive and they lead to goal displacement and narrow definition and measurement of organisational effectiveness. The results further reveal that among the contingency variables, strategic orientation significantly predicted performance management practices and organisational effectiveness in non-profits. Among the performance management variables, performance planning, performance targets, and performance rewards significantly predict organisational effectiveness domains. Furthermore, performance management practices mediate the relationship between strategic orientations, technology, information technology, leadership and external environment and organisational effectiveness domains. However, organisational size was not significantly related to performance management practices or organisational effectiveness. To successfully implement and benefit from the PM system, non-profit organisations need to address the fit between contextual factors and the performance management system. By employing a pragmatic, embedded, mixed methods approach this study provides empirical evidence of performance management practices that influence organisational effectiveness beyond the rhetoric of performance management theory. At the practice level, the findings will benefit Kenya government, non-profit organisations, donor agencies and performance evaluation practitioners.

Literature on performance management (PM) indicates that the concept has gained momentum in its use by organisations, with the ultimate goal of improving business performance. It is argued that PM makes significant contributions to individual employees and organisational performance by enabling expectations to be defined and agreed in terms of the role, responsibilities and accountabilities, and providing opportunities for individuals to identify their own goals and to develop their skills and competencies. However, there has been much debate as to whether PM optimises or leads to improved overall business performance as other factors other than human resources policies, such as personality, job role experiences, and structural factors, may have a detrimental influence on job performance. Moreover, several studies have shown that PM, and performance management systems (PMS) has resulted in unintended impacts, both positive and negative, in addition to those sought by organisations. This research is an investigation into the perception of managers and care assistants in private care of the elderly in care homes in Scotland on the impact of performance management systems. Use is made of both PM literature and empirical research to understand the perceived impact of the PMS with the ultimate aim of developing an enhanced PMS framework. In addition to documents review, twenty-four in-depth interviews were conducted, comprising of eight managers and sixteen care assistants drawn from eight different private care homes. The interviews focused on eight key PM elements, the PM concept, goal-setting, performance reviews, performance measurement, supporting performance, rewards system, training and development, and managing underperformance. The interview results from managers and care assistants were compared with the normative/ideal PM practice from the PM literature to determine how PMS is being implemented in the private care homes. The research findings reveal an overall positive perception towards PMS implementation by managers. However, the care assistants raised many of concerns which influenced a negative perception towards the PMS implementation. This was used as the basis for developing recommendations for an enhanced PMS framework. Therecommendations are centred around the identified two main problem areas: management/leadership style and the communication process. In addition to staff involvement in performance planning, and a fair underperformance management process, three other theories: power distance, vertical and horizontal trust, and the principal-agent problem were recommended to private care homes. This would help change the negative perception towards PMS implementation by care assistants.

The current study aims to contribute to Corporate Governance CG and Risk Management RM literature by providing empirical evidence of the relationship between the three construct: CG, RM and Bank Performance BP within the GCC banking sector. Furthermore, the Islamic data and conventional data have been separated to investigate the association between CG, RM and BP. To do so, 90 active banks (30 Islamic – 60 conventional) banks have been selected as a sample for ten years period from (2003 – 2012), and subsequently used the regression analysis (Ordinary Least Square OLS) for the four selected models as follows; Regarding the empirical results of Model (1) which investigate the relationship between CG’s variables and BP measured by ROE and ROA for all banks’ data; Islamic data and conventional data, the result indicate that the board size, gender diversity, role duality and audit committee are insignificantly associated with bank performance measured by ROE in all types of banks. In addition, in Islamic banks the Non-Executive Board Member NEBM and credit and investment committee are negatively and significantly associated with ROE, however, this association is insignificant in conventional banks. The capital ratio is positively and significantly associated with ROA in all types of banks. Furthermore, the gender diversity is insignificantly associated with bank performance measured by ROA in both Islamic and conventional banks. Interestingly, bank size is significant and positive with bank performance measured by both of ROE and ROA in all types of banks. Model (2) investigates the relationship between RM’s variables and BP measured by ROE and ROA for all banks’ data; Islamic data and conventional data. The results indicate that capital risk and liquidity risk are insignificant with BP measured by ROE in all types of banks. The association between non-performing loan and credit risk with ROE are insignificant in Islamic banks, however, this association is significant and negative in conventional banks. Interestingly, the capital adequacy ratio is positively and significantly associated with ROE and ROA in all types of banks. Furthermore, as per Model (3) which investigate the relationship between both of CG and RM’s variables and BP measured by ROE and ROA for all banks’ data; Islamic data and conventional data, it can be concluded that the NEBM is significantly and negatively associated with BP measured by ROE and ROA in all types of banks. In this model, it was noted that some variables are insignificantly associated with bank performance in both Islamic and conventional banks, those variables are gender diversity, role duality, Loan to Deposit Ratio LDR, NPL, credit risk, capital risk and liquidity risk. In Model (4) which investigate the relationship between CG and RM measured by NPL for all banks’ data; Islamic data and conventional data. It can be concluded that NEBM and CEO-turnover are insignificant with NPL in all types of banks. Furthermore, board size, Role duality, LDR and Risk committee are negatively and significantly associated with NPL in conventional banks, however, they are insignificant in Islamic banks. The gender diversity in all types of banks is negative and significantly associated with NPL. In addition to the above, the current study provides evidence that the determinants of bank performance in the GCC banking sector vary among the different independent variables. No single variable could explain the bank performance, this conclusion highlights that there is a need for additional analysis of the three constructs in different periods.