Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the range of benchmarking applications that can be used in a principal‐agent relationship setting often found in the public sector. Design/methodology/approach – Collection and critical analysis of secondary data from relevant publications...

The importance of intellectual capital (IC), as a prime value driver in today's knowledge‐based economy, is undisputed. Benchmarking is seen as a tool for identifying, understanding, and adopting best practices in order to increase operational performance. The paper explores techniques of...

Purpose – Public sector organisations have to respond to calls for accountability from both funders and recipients of the services, as well as report on operations within constrained financial resources. Given the absence of profit motives and the difficulties of performance assessment in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how benchmarking affects transparency and economic performance in the public sector. Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies a quasi‐experimental method to 1989‐2000 time series data on benchmarking and non‐benchmarking...

Purpose – The paper seeks to suggest an application of the benchmarking technique on the content evaluation of the health district activity plans (HDAPs). Design/methodology/approach – A literature review on benchmarking leads to the definition of a benchmarking process, which is utilized to...

Purpose – This paper investigates the technique of benchmarking to improve the quality of the public procurement process and discusses the importance of benchmarking to overcome perceived weaknesses with these processes. This is followed by a case study of Sri‐Lanka, exploring the...

Purpose – This research tries to fill a gap in research and to suggest a rigorous quantitative approach to benchmarking marketing productivity. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is useful in identifying the best‐performing units to be benchmarked against as well as in providing actionable...

The importance of benchmarking in the achievement of better results in the purchasing function and in overall business performance has been widely asserted in literature. However, few studies have addressed the implementation of benchmarking in the supply function and its impact on purchasing...

This paper proposes a policy analysis framework for a University system that incorporates benchmarking technique to design effective policies for closing the gaps in performance. Once a university adopts a policy, decision‐makers must evaluate the effectiveness of the policy in achieving...

Purpose – To provide an overview of the current attitudes and practical experience of airport benchmarking. Design/methodology/approach – A range of benchmarking studies are critiqued. The paper considers the partial performance measures which are used from an economic, operational and...