Ranking institutions within a university based on their scientific performance: A percentile-based approach

Over the recent years, the subject of university rankings has attracted a significant amount of attention and sparked a scientific debate. However, few studies on this topic focus on elaborating the scientific performance of universities’ institutions, such as institutes, schools, and faculties. For this reason, the aim of this study is to design an appropriate framework for evaluating and ranking institutions within a university. The devised methodology ranks institutions based on the number of published papers, mean normalized citation score (MNCS), and four percentile-based indicators using the I-distance method. We applied the proposed framework and scrutinized the University of Belgrade (UB) as the biggest and the best-ranked university in Serbia. Thus, 31 faculties and 11 institutes were compared. Namely, an in-depth percentile-based analysis of the UB papers indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIe) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for the period 2008-2011 is provided. The results clearly show considerable discrepancies in two occasions: first, when it comes to the question of leading author, and second, when it comes to analyzing the percentile rank classes (PRs) of groups of faculties

Ranking institutions within a university based on their scientific performance: A percentile-based approach

Over the recent years, the subject of university rankings has attracted a significant amount of attention and sparked a scientific debate. However, few studies on this topic focus on elaborating the scientific performance of universities’ institutions, such as institutes, schools, and faculties. For this reason, the aim of this study is to design an appropriate framework for evaluating and ranking institutions within a university. The devised methodology ranks institutions based on the number of published papers, mean normalized citation score (MNCS), and four percentile-based indicators using the I-distance method. We applied the proposed framework and scrutinized the University of Belgrade (UB) as the biggest and the best-ranked university in Serbia. Thus, 31 faculties and 11 institutes were compared. Namely, an in-depth percentile-based analysis of the UB papers indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIe) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for the period 2008-2011 is provided. The results clearly show considerable discrepancies in two occasions: first, when it comes to the question of leading author, and second, when it comes to analyzing the percentile rank classes (PRs) of groups of faculties

REDESIGNING THE GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY INDEX: A MULTIVARIATE COMPOSITE I-DISTANCE INDICATOR APPROACH

tract The topic of food security has gained significant attention and importance due to its impact on political, economic, and humanitarian decisions governments make. Although composite indexes that measure food security have proliferated in the last decade, many questions regarding their methodologies remain unanswered. Among several composite indexes that aim to measure food security, the Global Food Security Index (GFSI) stands out for its solid methodology and reliable data sources. However, its weighting scheme can be categorized as biased. This paper attempts to overcome the issue of subjectively assigned weights to indicators and categories within the GFSI. Namely, we propose a statistical methodology, the Composite I-distance Indicator (CIDI), which is based on the I-distance method, for obtaining an unbiased weighting scheme. Our approach can serve as a foundation for future research on weighting schemes, which are enveloped with subjectivity

REDESIGNING THE GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY INDEX: A MULTIVARIATE COMPOSITE I-DISTANCE INDICATOR APPROACH

The topic of food security has gained significant attention and importance due to its impact on political, economic, and humanitarian decisions governments make. Although composite indexes that measure food security have proliferated in the last decade, many questions regarding their methodologies remain unanswered. Among several composite indexes that aim to measure food security, the Global Food Security Index (GFSI) stands out for its solid methodology and reliable data sources. However, its weighting scheme can be categorized as biased. This paper attempts to overcome the issue of subjectively assigned weights to indicators and categories within the GFSI. Namely, we propose a statistical methodology, the Composite I-distance Indicator (CIDI), which is based on the I-distance method, for obtaining an unbiased weighting scheme. Our approach can serve as a foundation for future research on weighting schemes, which are enveloped with subjectivity

The Factors Affecting the Environmental Practices of Companies: The Case of Serbia

Environmental practices are often considered external to the business, and the impacts of self-regulation and other CSR company practices on environmental practices are important but not fully understood—especially in transitional and developing countries. The aim of this paper is to explore factors that influence the environmental practices of companies operating in Serbia. We observed four types of self-regulations (core values, codes of conduct, ISO 9001, and ISO 14001); the level of CSR practices in relationships with employees, customers, the local community, and society, and related to business transparency; as well as company features related to types of operations (manufacturing vs. service), size, and internationalization (multinational ownership and export activities). Based on the SEM analysis of data collected from 178 companies operating in Serbia, the findings showed that smaller, manufacturing companies that applied the observed types of self-regulations, which have a higher level of employee relations and are more social and community involved, are more likely to have higher levels of environmental practice. Among the observed self-regulation types, only ISO 14001 certification proved to have an individual effect on company environmental practices. However, our results also showed that the influence of core values, applied codes of conduct, and ISO 9001 certification cannot be neglected