Managing performance in quality management: A two level study of employee-perceptions and workplace-performance

Purpose: This paper addresses potential effects of the control element in Quality Management. First, behavioural theories on how elements of performance management can affect organisational performance are examined. Secondly, theoretical models on how perceptions of work conditions may impact wellbeing and performance are considered. Direct and indirect pathways from performance management to productivity/quality are inferred. Methodology: Matched employee-workplace data from an economy-wide survey in Britain and two-level structural equation models are used to test the hypothesised associations. Findings: The use of practices in workplaces is inconsistent with a unified performance management approach. Distinct outcomes are expected from separate components in performance management and some may be contingent on workplace size. For example, within Quality-planning, strategy dissemination is positively associated with workplace-productivity; targets are negatively associated with perceptions of job demands and positively correlated with job satisfaction, which in turn can increase workplace-productivity. With respect to Information & Analysis: keeping and analysing records, or monitoring employee-performance via appraisals that assess training needs, are positively associated with workplace-productivity and quality. Originality: This paper illustrates how control in Quality Management can be effective. Although the merits of performance management are subject to ongoing debate, arguments in the literature have tended to focus on performance appraisal. Analyses of economy-wide data linking performance management practices, within Quality Management, to employee perceptions of work conditions, wellbeing and aggregate performance are rare

Job Satisfaction and Quality Management: An Empirical Analysis

Purpose – Quality management requires increasing employee involvement that could empower employees, leading to employee and customer satisfaction. Although the literature describes a picture of increasing job demands and work intensification, the evidence of an association between employee job satisfaction and quality management remains mixed and narrow. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this link in the wider economy, and address the roles of human resource management practices that target direct employee participation (job enrichment and high involvement management) in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach – The Workplace Employment Relations Survey of 2004 (WERS2004) provides information on British workplaces including the use of specific quality and human resource management practices, employees' job satisfaction and other outcomes. Latent variable analysis identifies employers' approaches to quality management, job enrichment and high involvement management. Workplace‐level regression analyses illustrate the link between job satisfaction and various desired organizational outcomes. Hierarchical two‐level regression models are used to assess the link between quality management at workplaces and employee job satisfaction. Findings – Although job satisfaction is positively associated with desired workplace outcomes (organizational commitment, productivity and quality), no significant link between quality management and employee job satisfaction is found. By contrast, a positive association between job enrichment and job satisfaction is confirmed, which may be weakened in the presence of quality management. Practical implications – Given the potential impact of job satisfaction on organizational outcomes, job enrichment features should not be neglected when designing jobs so that an effective quality management strategy can be in place. Some weak positive association between high involvement and quality managements with perceived job demands is also observed, and this should be further investigated in more detailed studies of employee well‐being. Originality/value – This is a large empirical study on an economy‐wide sample of workplaces and their employees

Germany’s Nuclear Power Plant Closures and the Integration of Electricity Markets in Europe

This paper examines the potential implications of national policies that lead to a sudden increase of wind power in the electricity mix for interconnected European electricity markets. More specifically, it examines market integration before and after the closures of eight nuclear power plants that occurred within a period of a few months in Germany during 2011. The short- and- long run interrelationships of daily electricity spot prices, from November 2009 to October 2012, in: APX-ENDEX, BELPEX, EPEX-DE, EPEX-FR, NORDPOOL, OMEL and SWISSIX; and wind power in the German system are analysed. Two MGARCH (Multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity) models with dynamic correlations are used to assess spot market behaviour in the short run, and a fractional cointegration analysis is conducted to investigate changes in the long-run behaviour of electricity spot prices. Results show: positive time-varying correlations between spot prices in markets with substantial shared interconnector capacity; a negative association between wind power penetration in Germany and electricity spot prices in the German and neighbouring markets; and, for most markets, a decreasing speed in mean reversion

Structural combination of neural network models

Forecasts combinations normally use point forecasts that were obtained from different models or sources ([1], [2], [3]). This paper explores the incorporation of internal structure parameters of feed-forward neural network (NN) models as an approach to combine their forecasts via ensembles. First, the generated NN models that could be part of the ensembles are subject to a clustering algorithm that uses the structure parameters and, from each of the clusters obtained, a small set of models is selected and their forecasts are combined in a two-stage procedure. Secondly, in an alternative and simpler implementation, a subset of the generated NN models is selected by using several reference points in the model structure parameter space. The choice of the reference points is optimised through a genetic algorithm and the models selected are averaged. Hourly electricity demand time series is used to assess multi-step ahead forecasting performance for up to a 12 hours horizon. Results are compared against several statistical benchmarks, the average of the individual forecasts and the best models in the ensembles. Results show that the clusterbased (CB) structural combinations do better than the genetic algorithm (GA) structural combinations in outperforming the average forecast, which is the traditional point forecast from an ensemble

Quality Management, Job-related Contentment and Performance: an empirical analysis of British workplaces

Purpose - This article investigates whether a quality management philosophy underlies the joint use of operations and human resource management practices, and the relationships with job-related contentment and performance. Design/ methodology/approach - Data from an economy-wide survey is used to test hypotheses via latent variable analyses (latent trait and latent class models) and structural equation models. The sensitivity of each path is then assessed using regression models. Findings – Different elements rather than a unified philosophy are identified. A managerial approach that integrates total quality management and just-in-time procedures is rare, but is associated with the quality of the product or service delivered. Labor productivity and quality are independent of the level of job-related contentment in the workplace. Although the average workforce is content, high involvement management and motivational support practices are associated with job anxiety. On the positive side, job enrichment is linked to labor productivity, thus suggesting potential gains through job design. Originality/value - The study adds evidence from a national sample about a comprehensive range of management practices, and suggests distinct outcomes from different elements of quality management. Additionally, it shows that performance expectations based on previous studies may not hold in large nationwide heterogeneous samples

Liquidity in the NBP forward market

Liquidity in the National Balancing Point (NBP) forward market during 2010-14 is examined using liquidity measures adopted from the financial literature. Since the sample period includes the date when the EU Regulation on Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) became in force, the question of whether changes in these measures reflect REMIT is also investigated. There is evidence of increased market transparency and competition, but no significant differences in the level of liquidity in the NBP one-month-ahead market appear to have followed the introduction of REMIT

Fluctuations in network dynamics

Most complex networks serve as conduits for various dynamical processes, ranging from mass transfer by chemical reactions in the cell to packet transfer on the Internet. We collected data on the time dependent activity of five natural and technological networks, finding that for each the coupling of the flux fluctuations with the total flux on individual nodes obeys a unique scaling law. We show that the observed scaling can explain the competition between the system's internal collective dynamics and changes in the external environment, allowing us to predict the relevant scaling exponents.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Published versio