Developing a conceptual model of lead performance measurement and benchmarking: A multiple case analysis

Purpose: Environmental turbulence including rapid changes in technology and markets has resulted in the need for new approaches to performance measurement and benchmarking. There is a need for studies that attempt to measure and benchmark upstream, leading or developmental aspects of organizations. Therefore, the aim of this paper is twofold. The first is to conduct an in-depth case analysis of lead performance measurement and benchmarking leading to the further development of a conceptual model derived from the extant literature and initial survey data. The second is to outline future research agendas that could further develop the framework and the subject area.

Design/methodology/approach: A multiple case analysis involving repeated in-depth interviews with managers in organisational areas of upstream influence in the case organisations.

Findings: It was found that the effect of external drivers for lead performance measurement and benchmarking was mediated by organisational context factors such as level of progression in business improvement methods. Moreover, the legitimation of the business improvement methods used for this purpose, although typical, had been extended beyond their original purpose with the development of bespoke sets of lead measures.

Practical implications: Examples of methods and lead measures are given that can be used by organizations in developing a programme of lead performance measurement and benchmarking.

Originality/value: There is a paucity of in-depth studies relating to the theory and practice of lead performance measurement and benchmarking in organisations.

Accountability and Value for Money in Private Finance Initiative Contracts

Within the context of New Public Management (NPM), successive UK governments have claimed that PFI projects provide more accountability, and arguably, more value for money (VFM) than conventional procurement for the public (HM Treasury 1995, 2000, 2003a and 2003b). However, recent empirical research in the UK on PFI has indicated its potential limitations for accountability and VFM (Broadbent, Gill and Laughlin, 2004; Edwards, Shaoul, Stafford and Arblaster, 2004; Shaoul, 2005; and Ismail and Pendlebury, 2006) albeit these are based on either published accounts or a limited number of key stakeholders. This paper attempts to partially redress this gap in the literature by presenting an interesting case of the impact of PFI on accountability and VFM in Northern Ireland's education sector. The findings of this research, based on forty two interviews with a wide range of key stakeholders, suggest that stakeholders have different and often conflicting expectations and the actual PFI accountability and VFM benefits are much more obfuscated than those claimed in Government publications.

Climate drivers for peatland palaeoclimate records

Reconstruction of hydroclimate variability is an important part of understanding natural climate change on decadal to millennial timescales. Peatland records reconstruct 'bog surface wetness' (BSW) changes, but it is unclear whether it is a relative dominance of precipitation or temperature that has driven these variations over Holocene timescales. Previously, correlations with instrumental climate data implied that precipitation is the dominant control. However, a recent chironomid inferred July temperature record suggested temperature changes were synchronous with BSW over the mid-late Holocene. This paper provides new analyses of these data to test competing hypotheses of climate controls on bog surface wetness and discusses some of the distal drivers of large-scale spatial patterns of BSW change. Using statistically based estimates of uncertainty in chronologies and proxy records, we show a correlation between Holocene summer temperature and BSW is plausible, but that chronologies are insufficiently precise to demonstrate this conclusively. Simulated summer moisture deficit changes for the last 6000 years forced by temperature alone are relatively small compared with observations over the 20th century. Instrumental records show that summer moisture deficit provides the best explanatory variable for measured water table changes and is more strongly correlated with precipitation than with temperature in both Estonia and the UK. We conclude that BSW is driven primarily by precipitation, reinforced by temperature, which is negatively correlated with precipitation and therefore usually forces summer moisture deficit in the same direction. In western Europe, BSW records are likely to be forced by changes in the strength and location of westerlies, linked to large-scale North Atlantic ocean and atmospheric circulation. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.