982 research outputs found
DOES AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AFFECT PRODUCTIVITY IN THE INDIAN RAILWAYS?
Our objective in this paper is to shed some empirical light on a claim often made by critics of affirmative action policies: that increasing the representation of members of marginalized communities in jobs â and especially in relatively skilled positions â comes at a cost of reduced efficiency. We undertake a systematic empirical analysis of productivity in the Indian Railways in order to determine whether increasing proportions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in railway employment â largely a consequence of India's affirmative action policies â have actually reduced productive efficiency in the railway system. We find no evidence that higher percentages of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the railway labour force have reduced productivity. Indeed, some of our results suggest that the opposite is true, providing tentative support for the claim that greater labour force diversity boosts productivity.affirmative action; labour force; productivity; Indian railways
Efficiency Measurement in Turkish Coal Enterprises Using Data Envelopment Analysis and Data Mining
Gradual population growths, skyrocketing technological developments and inter-State competitions increase the energy demands continuously. Although the countries try to diverse their energy sources in order to sustain their developments, they also have to pay attention to protect their energy independences. Thus, it is very important to develop their self-resources. Coal is the most common natural source which can meet our energy needs. However, coal mine enterprises have to be administrated cost-effectively in order get minimum energy costs. In this study, the efficiency of Turkish coal enterprises between the years 2003-2010 is measured by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Then, indicators which are the most important in estimating the efficiency were determined by using the efficiency scores obtained by DEA in the Data Mining technique
Risk management and risk control for state-owned firms of China
As global economic integration deepens and enterprises scale up their business, the enterprise groups have become the mainstream of the company's development form. Subsidiaries of the Company have grown in size and increasingly diversified. Thus how does the parent Company control its subsidiaries effectively has become an urgent challenge, especially for the state-owned enterprises in China. This thesis studies the management and control of state-owned enterprises in China, carrying certain theoretical and practical significance.
The research examined the theory and mechanism of management of SOEs, and evaluation on employee performance. It also analyzed performance evaluation, coordination and risk control strategies of SOEs' subsidiaries. The same studies were repeated on state-owned enterprise groups and extended to the strategies of risk management and risk control.
The thesis first examined the conundrum of effective cooperation between subsidiaries of different departments and the parent company for efficient allocation of resources. To tackle this headache, the IAHP and DEA model were adopted to help group decision makers better measure the performance of employees and organizations. The thesis used the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) tool as the main principle and the combination of fuzzy mathematics and Delphi and entropy weight methods as the main methodology to assess the performance. In addition, a novel method of using multi-reasoning, multi-dimensional and dynamic factors was developed to assess the performance of SOE employees, and this method was proven to be effective. Moreover, the super-efficiency DEA model which takes into account work performance, work ability, work attitude, job potential and other factors in the evaluation on employee performance was developed and tested. Finally, risk map for SOEs was proposed and evaluated
The Impact of Privatisation on the Efficiency of Train Operation in Britain
Twenty-five train operating companies (TOCs) were created between 1994-1997, as part of the restructuring process of the railway industry in Great Britain. The TOCs operate monopoly franchises for the provision of passenger rail services over certain routes - some of which continue to receive government subsidies. This paper investigates how the efficiency of these train operating companies evolved prior to the October 2000 Hatfield crash (which caused significant disruption to the network) using data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis. Our data allows us to look at the relative efficiency and productivity through the privatisation, to control the efficiency scores for environmental data and to correlate these results with safety and quality indicators. The analysis sheds some light on the successes and failures of the UKâs most controversial privatisation to date.Railways, Comparative Efficiency, Data Envelopment Analysis, Stochastic Frontier Analyisis, Malmquist Productivity Index, Train Operating Companies, Privatisation
Assessing the carry-over effects of both human capital and organizational forgetting on sustainability performance using dynamic data envelopment analysis
Many studies have documented that human capital, which is a result of professional knowledge accumulation, continuously improves sustainability performance over time. Organizational forgetting is the loss of such professional knowledge, and it results in lower sustainability performance. Thus, human capital and organizational forgetting can be respectively treated as good and bad carry-overs. Both human capital and organizational forgetting may reflect business cycle fluctuations. The data envelopment analysis model has not been employed to examine the impact of either human capital or organizational forgetting on sustainability performance in multi-stages. The aim of this study is to develop a three-stage approach to incorporate the carry-over effects of both human capital and organizational forgetting and the effects of business cycle fluctuations on overall and term sustainability performance using data from Taiwanâs 16 major industrial sectors. The study finds that the carry-over effects of human capital and organizational forgetting lead to accurate estimations of sustainability performance and illustrates that the development of the industrial economy is a critical factor for adjusting human capital. Governments should implement economic stabilization policies and increase investment in education and safe capital to improve human capital accumulation and enhance sustainability performance
HSE management system and efficiency evaluation of construction projects
The strategy of Belt and Road Initiative actively advocates the establishment of
economic partnerships with countries along the belt and road, and makes infrastructure
construction a field for preferential development. It provides good development opportunities
for domestic and foreign engineering contracting enterprises. The "Strategic Implementation
Guidance Document" mentions that infrastructure construction and operation should be green
and efficient. However, most state owned engineering contracting enterprises do not attach
importance to HSE management, which obviously affects the engineering efficiency and
hinders the sustainable development of enterprises. However, China's engineering contracting
enterprises pay less attention to HSE management, which obviously affects project efficiency
and hinders the sustainable develop ment of enterprises.
This study takes a typical large project contracting enterprise (Enterprise A) in China as
the research object, adopts the SWOT analysis method, analyzes the weakness of project
management at the organization level, and consummates th e organization level project HSE
management system of the enterprise at the organization layer and the project layer. Through
the enterprise interview, questionnaire design and investigation, this study puts forward the
suitable indicators and methods of H SE management performance evaluation, and verifies the
effectiveness of the methods through the empirical analysis of eight projects. Then, this study
proposes incorporating the project HSE management performance into the comprehensive
evaluation methods o f project efficiency.
The empirical analysis shows that the HSE management system proposed in this
study at the organization layer and at the project layer can improve the HSE management performance
of the project. Project HSE management performance has a positive impact on project
efficiency, that is, the more enterprises attach importance to project HSE management, the
higher the degree of completion of project objectives. The above research results are helpful to
improve project management system at the organizational level and enhance the
competitiveness of project contracting enterprises.A estratégia da "Belt and Road Initiative" defende ativamente o estabelecimento de
parcerias econĂłmicas com os paĂses ao longo de uma determinada faixa e faz da construção de
infraestruturas um campo preferencial para desenvolvimento. Este campo fornece boas
oportunidades de desenvolvimento para as empresas de engenharia nacionais e estrangeiras. O
"Documento de Orientação de Implementação Estratégica" menciona que a construção e
operação de infraestruturas deve ser eficiente e sustentåvel. No entanto, a grande maioria das
empresas pĂșblicas contratadas nĂŁo atribuem a devida importĂąncia aos sistemas de gestĂŁo de
saĂșde e segurança (HSE) o que, obviamente, afecta a eficiĂȘncia da engenharia e dificulta o
desenvolvimento sustentĂĄvel das empresas.
As empresas privadas chinesas de engenharia ignoram a gestĂŁo HSE o que, obviamente,
afecta, tambĂ©m, a eficiĂȘncia dos projetos de sustentabilidade das empresas. Neste trabalho foi
considerada uma grande empresa Chinesa de contratação (Empresa A) na China como
referĂȘncia de pesquisa, que adota a anĂĄlise swot, analisa as fraquezas na gestĂŁo de projetos ao
nĂvel da organização e consuma a gestĂŁo de projetos em HSE ao nĂvel da organização e do
projeto em si. Através de entrevistas, questionårios e investigação, este projeto apresenta os
indicadores e métodos a dequados de avaliação de desempenho e verifica a efetividade dos
mĂ©todos atravĂ©s da anĂĄlise empĂrica de oito projetos. Em suma, este projeto propĂ”e incorporar
mĂ©todos de avaliação da eficiĂȘncia atravĂ©s dos indicadores de gestĂŁo do HSE.
A anĂĄlise empĂrica demonstrou que o sistema proposto de gestĂŁo HSE, ao nĂvel da
organização e de projeto, pode aumentar efetivamente a gestão de performance do HSE em
projeto. A gestĂŁo da performance do projeto HSE teve um impacto positivo na eficiĂȘncia do
projeto, ou seja, quanto mais as empresas atribuirem importĂąncia Ă gestĂŁo de projetos HSE
maior serĂĄ o nĂvel de conclusĂŁo dos objetivos sustentĂĄveis do projeto. Os resultados deste
projeto sĂŁo Ășteis para melhorar o sistema de gestĂŁo de projetos ao nĂvel organizacional e
aum entar a competitividade das empresas na contratação de projectos
Infrastructure performance and reform in developing and transition economies: evidence from a survey of productivity measures
The authors review about 80 studies on electricity and gas, water and sanitation, and rail and ports (with a footnote on telecommunications) in developing countries. The main policy lesson is that there is a difference in the relevance of ownership for efficiency between utilities and transport in developing countries. In transport, private operators have tended to perform better than public operators. For utilities, ownership often does not matter as much as sometimes argued. Most cross-country studies find no statistically significant difference in efficiency scores between public and private providers. As for the country-specific studies, some do find differences in performance over time but these differences tend to matter much less than a large number of other variables. Across sectors, private operators functioning in a competitive environment or regulated under price caps or hybrid regulatory regimes tend to catch up best practice faster than public operators. There is a very strong case to push regulators in developing and transition economies toward a more systematic reliance on yardstick competition in a sector in which residual monopoly powers tend to be common.Enterprise Development&Reform,Labor Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Health Economics&Finance
Induced Technological Change in a Limited Foresight Optimization Model
The threat of global warming calls for a major transformation of the energy system the coming century. Modeling technological change is an important factor in energy systems modeling. Technological change may be treated as induced by climate policy or as exogenous. We investigate the importance of induced technological change (ITC) in GET-LFL, an iterative optimization model with limited foresight that includes learning-by-doing. Scenarios for stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentrations at 400, 450, 500 and 550 ppm are studied. We find that the introduction of ITC reduces the total net present value of the abatement cost over this century by 3-9% compared to a case where technological learning is exogenous. Technology specific polices which force the introduction of fuel cell cars and solar PV in combination with ITC reduce the costs further by 4-7% and lead to significantly different technological solutions in different sectors, primarily in the transport sector.Energy system model, Limited foresight, Climate policy, Endougenous learning, Technological lock-in
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