Purpose – To provide the basis for the development of a specific benchmarking methodology for the foundry industry. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology was developed with the support of the Portuguese Foundry Association (APF). The project was structured in two stages: developing...

Purpose – To highlight a few critical issues related to indicators that are used to compare organizational practices. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is as follows: to compare the efficacy of qualitative and quantitative indicators; objectivity in identification of processes and...

This paper shows that the measure of diffusion introduced by Ian Rowlands called the journal diffusion factor (JDF) is highly negatively correlated with the number of citations, leading highly cited journals to get a low JDF, whereas less cited journals get a high JDF. This property reduces the...

Purpose – This paper aims to present the findings of an investigation into environmental reporting practice in the airline sector. Design/methodology/approach – Evidence was gathered from an international survey of 272 IATA Airlines. Responses accounted 65 per cent of the world's scheduled...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the applicability and benefits of benchmarking as a tool for quality analysis in Brazilian laboratory medical services. Design/methodology/approach – A primary observational study is performed in eight hospital laboratories by tracking the...

Abstract Routinely collected administrative and clinical data are increasingly being utilized for comparing quality of care outcomes between hospitals. This problem can be considered in a causal inference framework, as such comparisons have to be adjusted for hospital-specific patient case-mix,...

Purpose – Measuring or monitoring supply chain performance reveals the gap between planning and execution and helps companies to identify potential problems and areas for improvement. However, it is recognized that developing key performance indicators (KPIs), or metrics, is very challenging...

Purpose – The purpose of this study, with its central thesis placed on excelling at business measures, is to underscore the need for business entities to understand the significant implication of hidden failure costs and its impact on their business processes. The study also stresses the need...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for guiding the evolution of a corporate sustainability performance measurement system (SPMS). Design/methodology/approach – A review of published literature highlights the need for further research on the evolution of corporate...

Purpose – The performance measurement system reflects the corporate strategy and overall business objectives of an organization. The alignment of the performance indicators with the company's critical operating factors, and the processes having bottle‐necks alongside the value chain, could...