Development of a benchmarking framework to assist educationists and schools on sharing strategies and application of best practices : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand

Benchmarking is used by organisations for comparing performance and for the learning and implementation of best practices. While benchmarking remains a widely recognised improvement tool for practitioners, its application by school systems and schools still remains to be investigated. In this research, an exploratory pragmatic multiphase mixed methods research approach is adopted to investigate the use of benchmarking by school systems and schools. Through the preliminary literature review, school systems and schools were recognised to be using benchmarking informally without being aware of its application. Further research showed that informal benchmarking brought improvements to school systems and schools. It is envisaged that school systems and schools can obtain greater improvements through the systematic use of benchmarking. Therefore, a benchmarking framework has been developed to assist school systems and schools in the planning and application of benchmarking. At the start of the research, a preliminary conceptual model of effective benchmarking was developed and this model has guided the research methodology. Then, a literature review was conducted to validate the use of benchmarking by school systems and schools. Next, a quantitative-qualitative survey was administered to school systems (n = 20) and schools (n = 183) to determine the frequency of benchmarking used by school systems and schools and its contribution to their performance, along with an identification of the benchmarking techniques used. The survey also recognised school systems and schools obtaining effective performance through benchmarking. Subsequently, qualitative structured interviews were conducted with these school systems (n = 4) and schools (n = 19) for an exploration of their benchmarking techniques and success factors. Finally, findings from all three phases of the research were integrated to develop a benchmarking framework to assist school systems and schools in the planning and application of benchmarking for the learning and implementation of best practices. The theoretical contributions of the research include the acknowledgement of use of benchmarking by school systems and schools and the confirmation of the association between benchmarking and performance improvement. The practical contribution is the Benchmarking Framework developed to assist school systems and schools in the application of benchmarking approaches and to guide them in the identification and implementation of best practices. Finally, the limitations and future research opportunities have been outlined. One of the most significant research opportunities is to apply the Benchmarking Framework for an actual benchmarking project for the learning and implementation of best practices

A quantum leap in informal benchmarking : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Organisational Excellence at Massey University, Palmerston North, Manawatu, New Zealand

Despite the paucity of available literature on informal benchmarking and the consequential lack of its understanding, informal benchmarking has outranked established benchmarking (formal), placing 4th out of 20 of the most used business improvement tools, based on a 2008 Global Benchmarking Network (GBN) survey of 450 organisations worldwide. This paradox is exacerbated by the growing popularity of informal benchmarking, even though it is not correspondingly as effective as it is widely used. Therefore, two significant gaps need be filled: firstly, to develop a theoretical understanding of, and secondly, to investigate how to increase the effectiveness of informal benchmarking as an organisational improvement tool. A pragmatic mixed method quantitative-qualitative sequential design using an abductivedeductive- inductive approach is adopted. The product of abduction is a preliminary conceptual model of informal benchmarking from the transdisciplinary academic review of benchmarking, informal learning, organisation learning and knowledge management, augmented by concepts on quantum thinking, innovation and positive deviance. The model informs the quantitative survey questionnaire, whose deductive results of 81 survey responses from 14 countries informs the in-depth semi-structured interviews of 16 informants from 7 countries, the resulting dataset being inductively coded into conceptuallydriven dendrograms. The integrated findings refine the conceptual model of informal benchmarking, and develops a toolset-based application model (a pragmatic outcome of the conceptual model), a maturity assessment framework and an eco-system strategy. From here, an informal benchmarking roadmap is synthesised, representing a sustainable platform for informal benchmarking to be deployed as an effective organisational improvement initiative. The research sets the stage for a leap in scholarly understanding of informal benchmarking in the wider context of business and organisational improvement, and offers organisational improvement practitioners an invaluable cost-effective solution in a time-scarce executive world. This pragmatic study of informal benchmarking has possibly unleashed a different epistemological stance within the benchmarking field, by advocating an organic approach to benchmarking, in contrast to the highly methodical approaches associated with conventional benchmarking

A Role for Management Accountants in Best Practice Benchmarking

Best practice benchmarking (benchmarking for short) generally refers to the pursuit by organisations of enhanced performance by learning from the successful practices of others. Comparisons of processes which contribute to strategic success are made with other parts of the same organisation; competitors; or organisations operating comparable processes in a context which is in some way relevant. Benchmarking continues to grow in popularity in both private and public sector organisations – but does it always produce the desired outcomes? Although spectacular gains from benchmarking are claimed particularly in practitioner literature, there is also growing evidence of disappointment with the effectiveness of benchmarking. It can be very time consuming to undertake and manage, and ensuring that sharing information with competitors is to the mutual advantage of partner organisations is difficult. With this in mind, it is important to recognise that management accountants play pivotal roles at organisational interfaces and therefore could play a (more) significant part in successful benchmarking activities. This paper will report on an ongoing research project at the Open University Business School, funded by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, aimed at understanding, in depth, the processes which are undertaken by Management Accountants, in the name of benchmarking. The project team are using postal questionnaires and case studies to identify the features of successful benchmarking practice, and the characteristics of benchmarking organisations or benchmarking processes which are considered to be problematic. This research centres on an extensive survey of Management Accountants. This research has begun to identify the contribution which Management Accountants can make to successful benchmarking and the factors which have led organisations to abandon benchmarking activities. This study is also facilitating better understanding of the relationship between organisational size and level of benchmarking activity, the impact of benchmarking clubs, and the perceived costs and benefits of benchmarking to stakeholders. The final phase 3 of this research will focus on providing innovative ways to make the findings available to management accounting practitioners

EU and OECD benchmarking and peer review compared

Benchmarking and peer review are essential elements of the so-called EU open method of coordination (OMC) which has been contested in the literature for lack of effectiveness. In this paper we compare benchmarking and peer review procedures as used by the EU with those used by the OECD. Different types of benchmarking and peer review are distinguished and pitfalls for (international) benchmarking are discussed. We find that the OECD has a clear single objective for its benchmarking and peer review activities (i.e. horizontal policy transfers) whereas the EU suffers from a mix of objectives (a. horizontal policy learning; b. EU wide vertical policy coordination and c. multilateral monitoring and surveillance under the shadow of hierarchy). Whereas the OECD is able to skirt around most of the benchmarking pitfalls, this is not the case for the EU. It is argued that, rather than continue working with the panacea OMC benchmarking and peer review currently represents, EU benchmarking should take a number of more distinct shapes in order to improve effectiveness. Moreover, in some areas benchmarking and peer review are not sufficient coordination tools, and are at best additional to those means of coordination that include enforceable sanctions

Benchmarking in cluster analysis: A white paper

To achieve scientific progress in terms of building a cumulative body of knowledge, careful attention to benchmarking is of the utmost importance. This means that proposals of new methods of data pre-processing, new data-analytic techniques, and new methods of output post-processing, should be extensively and carefully compared with existing alternatives, and that existing methods should be subjected to neutral comparison studies. To date, benchmarking and recommendations for benchmarking have been frequently seen in the context of supervised learning. Unfortunately, there has been a dearth of guidelines for benchmarking in an unsupervised setting, with the area of clustering as an important subdomain. To address this problem, discussion is given to the theoretical conceptual underpinnings of benchmarking in the field of cluster analysis by means of simulated as well as empirical data. Subsequently, the practicalities of how to address benchmarking questions in clustering are dealt with, and foundational recommendations are made

Growth Rates Preservation (GRP) temporal benchmarking: Drawbacks and alternative solutions

Benchmarking monthly or quarterly series to annual data is a common practice in many National Statistical Institutes. The benchmarking problem arises when time series data for the same target variable are measured at different frequencies and there is a need to remove discrepancies between the sums of the sub-annual values and their annual benchmarks. Several benchmarking methods are available in the literature. The Growth Rates Preservation (GRP) benchmarking procedure is often considered the best method. It is often claimed that this procedure is grounded on an ideal movement preservation principle. However, we show that there are important drawbacks to GRP, relevant for practical applications, that are unknown in the literature. Alternative benchmarking models will be considered that do not suffer from some of GRP\u2019s side effects

REGULATORY BENCHMARKING IN CENTRAL EUROPE: CURRENT PRACTICE AND POSSIBILITIES OF DEVELOPMENT FOR THE ENERGY SECTOR

Benchmarking is a technique of performance evaluation in which comparisons are made to benchmarks that represent external performance standards. In the field of regulation of public utilities, benchmarking can be used as an element of performance-based regulation or as a pure regulatory method, called yardstick competition. In the absence of competition, benchmarking can be used to simulate competitive pressures by comparing a regulated firm's performance against an efficient standard. \\\\\\\\r\\\\\\\\nThe aim of this paper is to examine the Central European regulatory benchmarking practices in the energy sector, namely the electricity and natural gas distribution industries, and to analyse the possibilities of further development of regulatory benchmarking in this region. The countries onto which we focus are Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In the region of Central Europe there are still significant differences between countries, especially in terms of experiences in modern regulation, regulatory methods and practices, level of economic development etc. Differences are considerable especially between Western countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and the countries of former Eastern Bloc (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland). As a result, the degree of the use of regulatory benchmarking is also very diverse within this region. \\\\\\\\r\\\\\\\\nIn the first part of the paper, we develop basic theoretic concepts of economic regulation. Then we describe the most frequently used regulatory methods - cost-of-service regulation, incentive regulation and yardstick competition - and we deal with common regulatory benchmarking techniques, describe their principles and main challenges. Subsequenty, we provide an overview of regulatory methods and benchmarking practices for each country in the region of interest. In the final part of the paper, we analyse the challenges and possibilities for further development of regulatory benchmarking in the Central Europe. \\\\\\\\r\\\\\\\\nWe have found that except for Switzerland, all Central European regulatory regimes are based on some form of incentive regulation. The most sophisticated methods of benchmarking are used in Germany and Austria. In these countries, benchmarking is used in both electricity and natural gas industries. The Polish regulator is using a benchmarking method in cost efficiency analysis in electricity distribution. In Hungary, a specific method of benchmarking is used. In Switzerland, no benchmarking is used at present. In Czech Republic and Slovakia, some principles of benchmarking are adopted, but not directly to the revenue requirements setting. We summarize that the possibilities for development of regulatory benchmarking in the Central Europe could be extended by reducing market concentration, unbundling large vertically integrated companies, establishing a closer cooperation with the private sector and closer harmonization of regulatory frameworks.regulatory benchmarking, public utilities benchmarking, Central European utilites, public utilites regulation, regulatory framework