Performance Management is both a strategic and an integrated approach to delivering successful results in organizations by improving the performance and developing the capabilities of teams and individuals. The term performance management gained its importance and popularity in the1980’s when the competitive pressures in the market place started rising. This is when organizations felt the need of introducing a comprehensive performance management process into their systems for improving productivity and performance effectiveness. Performance management can be regarded as a continuous process of managing the performance of people to get desired results. Performance management is beneficial to major stakeholders of an organization by clearly describing what is supposed to be done for attaining certain desired goals. However focus on performance management may be fruitless without the existence of effective implementation, proper organizational design and management systems.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Performance Management is both a strategic and an integrated approach to delivering successful results in organizations by improving the performance and developing the capabilities of teams and individuals. The term performance management gained its importance and popularity in the1980’s when the competitive pressures in the market place started rising. This is when organizations felt the need of introducing a comprehensive performance management process into their systems for improving productivity and performance effectiveness. Performance management can be regarded as a continuous process of managing the performance of people to get desired results. Performance management is beneficial to major stakeholders of an organization by clearly describing what is supposed to be done for attaining certain desired goals. However focus on performance management may be fruitless without the existence of effective implementation, proper organizational design and management systems.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. Dewey second copy is in one volume. / Bibliography: leaves 348-355. / by Roger Eric Bohn. / Ph.D.

A local utility company processes a variety of jobs each day including meter reading, service shut-offs, emergency response, and customer service work. For the Company, a specific workflow begins with automated meter-reading (AMR) and ends with collections/service shut-offs (CSOs) for accounts with excessively late payments (AMR-CSO workflow). There are considerable and systemic sources of variability in both the workload and resource demands of the AMR-CSO workflow including order arrival, order release schedules, order batch-sizing and maintenance scheduling. This project draws on theory from the job-shop problem to explore possible means to mitigate this variability. We hypothesized that controlling various forms of input variability would lead to reduced downstream workload variability. Using discrete event simulation we tested a variety of measures to reduce input variability in the workflow. Consistent with other literature we find that various workload control tactics have limited impact on output measures and system performance. However, we found that system is much more sensitive to resource capacity variability. One input control tactic we call Targeted Release allowed us to reduce Company capacity variability which suggested significantly improved outcomes. These initial results are promising for both the Company and for future investigation of tactics to mitigate resource capacity variability.

Thesis (M.S.)--Northwest Missouri State University, 2009. / The full text of the thesis is included in the pdf file. Title from title screen of full text.pdf file (viewed on January 13, 2010) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-81).

This paper focuses on the lack of an efficient private sector debt market for the funding of public sector projects. A brief synopsis is presented on the current listing activity on the Bond Exchange South Africa (BESA), which highlights the lack of private sector participation in public sector projects. Research is conducted on an international and a local basis with the use of a self-administered questionnaire to establish the extent of private sector funding in public projects. The results of this research reveal that whilst many jurisdictions recognise the role of the private sector in funding public sector projects, many have yet to see the benefits that flow from the private-public partnership initiatives that have been implemented in the developing countries such as China, Taiwan and South Korea. In this regard, however, South Africa has already gone a long way in the process of developing a public-private partnership program with the implementation of regulations and a separate unit being established at National Treasury to facilitate such programs. Nevertheless, the municipal sector of the country still needs to promulgate critical legislation to allow for greater involvement by the private sector in financing the infrastructure needs of local government. To provide detail to the study, an interview was conducted with the listing director of BESA, which highlighted important concerns of investors and also presented solutions to address those concerns relating to the lack of development of the private sector funding of public projects. The main concern of investors relate to the lack of proper governance structures in municipal and other government organs. The proposed solution to address the concerns of investors is to adopt innovative financing techniques to attract private investors to such projects, such as the use of securitisation schemes. Finally the study also highlights gaps in extant knowledge relating to the use of private sector funding in South African public sector projects. The study finds that more research needs to be conducted into the financial engineering techniques that have been successfully employed in countries that have more experience in developing a private sector debt market for the funding of public sector projects. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

No description available.

Public utility services have been plagued with problems of low tariff and low willingness-to-pay by consumers. In many countries, tariff setting has been a political decision with governments reluctant to antagonise the electorate. Low pricing leads to inadequate revenue streams and further deterioration in service levels which in turn aggravates the revenue collection problem. Even with the already low tariffs, many consumers are not willing to pay the charges. / Maintaining tariffs at a low level sets a low reference price in the minds of consumers further dampening their willingness-to-pay. Low tariffs also create a perception that public service provision is not a serious problem which can be solved rather easily and relatively cheaply. This perception has a negative effect on consumers when tariffs are raised resulting in them resisting upward tariff revisions. This research project seeks to model consumer willingness-to-pay behavioural intentions by identifying the factors that affect their perception of price and service. The objective of this model is to enable service providers to recognise these factors and plan their strategies to focus on positively influencing them. By such strategic planning and action, service providers and governments could attempt to change the perception of consumers and increase their willingness-to pay a fair price for public goods. / Setting prices for public goods using contingent valuation and willingness-to-pay surveys have little practical use as they inevitably result in low prices due to strategic manipulation and bias by respondents. There has been very little research focussed on modelling such behavioural intentions for public goods. Due to this, a literature review on the psychological aspects of the pricing and willingness-to-purchase of private goods is thus conducted to develop the conceptual model for public goods. / The literature review indicated that the key factors affecting consumers' price perception were reference price, information and justification of pricing practices, and information on service provision and service performance. It is proposed that these key factors could also be applicable in price and service perception formation and in moderating reactions to current and future price increases of public goods. / Several existing conceptual models for private and public goods were reviewed in developing the research model. Although none of them could be used fully, they formed the basis for formulating a new conceptual model and item development for the survey instrument. This conceptual model was built by defining the relationships of the key factors underpinning price and service perception and willingness-to-pay for public goods. / A field survey using a personally administered questionnaire on sewerage services was conducted. The data collected was used to validate the conceptual model using structural equation modelling (SEM). / The results indicate that reference price plays an important role in consumers' price perception of the public good. The consumer's reference price can be shifted by providing adequate justification of the price and disseminating information on service provision and performance. Greater emphasis is thus needed by service providers on communication strategies to justify prices and present service performance information in a manner readily understood by consumers. / Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2006.