Performance-based incentives may be appropriate to address challenges to delivery of prevention of vertical transmission of HIV services in rural Mozambique: a qualitative investigation

abstract: Background Performance-based incentives (PBIs) have garnered global attention as a promising strategy to improve healthcare delivery to vulnerable populations. However, literature gaps in the context in which an intervention is implemented and how the PBIs were developed exist. Therefore, we (1) characterized the barriers and promoters to prevention of vertical transmission of HIV (PVT) service delivery in rural Mozambique, where the vertical transmission rate is 12 %, and (2) assessed the appropriateness for a PBI’s intervention and application to PVT. Methods We conducted 24 semi-structured interviews with nurses, volunteers, community health workers, and traditional birth attendants about the barriers and promoters they experienced delivering PVT services. We then explored emergent themes in subsequent focus group discussions (n = 7, total participants N = 92) and elicited participant perspectives on PBIs. The ecological motivation-opportunity-ability framework guided our iterative data collection and thematic analysis processes. Results The interviews revealed that while all health worker cadres were motivated intrinsically and by social recognition, they were dissatisfied with low and late remuneration. Facility-based staff were challenged by factors across the rest of the ecological levels, primarily in the opportunity domain, including the following: poor referral and record systems (work mandate), high workload, stock-outs, poor infrastructure (facility environment), and delays in obtaining patient results and donor payment discrepancies (administrative). Community-based cadres’ opportunity challenges included lack of supplies, distance (work environment), lack of incorporation into the health system (administration), and ability challenges of incorrect knowledge (health worker). PBIs based on social recognition and that enable action on intrinsic motivation through training, supervision, and collaboration were thought to have the most potential for targeting improvements in record and referral systems and better integrating community-based health workers into the health system. Concerns about the implementation of incentives included neglect of non-incentivized tasks and distorted motivation among colleagues. Conclusions We found that highly motivated health workers encountered severe opportunity challenges in their PVT mandate. PBIs have the potential to address key barriers that facility- and community-based health workers encounter when delivering PVT services, specifically by building upon existing intrinsic motivation and leveraging highly valued social recognition. We recommend a controlled intervention to monitor incentives’ effects on worker motivation and non-incentivized tasks to generate insights about the feasibility of PBIs to improve the delivery of PVT services.The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-016-0157-

Performance Study of Software AER-Based Convolutions on a Parallel Supercomputer

This paper is based on the simulation of a convolution model for bioinspired neuromorphic systems using the Address-Event-Representation (AER) philosophy and implemented in the supercomputer CRS of the University of Cadiz (UCA). In this work we improve the runtime of the simulation, by dividing an image into smaller parts before AER convolution and running each operation in a node of the cluster. This research involves a test cases design in which the optimal parameters are set to run the AER convolution in parallel processors. These cases consist on running the convolution taking an image divided in different number of parts, applying to each part a Sobel filter for edge detection, and based on the AER-TOOL simulator. Execution times are compared for all cases and the optimal configuration of the system is discussed. In general, CRS obtain better performances when the image is divided than for the whole image.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-10639-C04-0

Performance-based credit trading

It is well established that - in the absence of market distortions - permit trading provides a cost efficient implementation mechanism for a range of different environmental policy issues where objectives can be set - either explicitly, or implicitly - in absolute terms (e.g. tonnes of carbon). However in many policy areas, objectives are formulated in relative terms (i.e. as rates). For example, objectives may be set for energy efficiency rates in certain industrial sectors (i.e. energy consumption per unit output), or for the mix of secondary and primary materials used in the manufacture of certain products. Furthermore, in a second-best setting with distortionary taxes, there may be significant social cost advantages to using rate-based instruments, even when the underlying policy objective is expressed in absolute terms. This paper extends the analysis of the cost efficiency of trading schemes to encompass a broader range regulatory rules. It is demonstrated that for a generic form of trading - performance-based credit trading (PBCT) - a market equilibrium will always exist, and that it will achieve the cost efficient outcome for any policy objective that can be expressed in the form of a linear perform-ance rule. The general formulation of this rule is very flexible, and it can incorporate both absolute performance targets, and rate-based targets. In the case of an absolute performance target, it is shown that while PBCT is functionally equivalent to permit (i.e. allowance) trading, it has different implications for property rights. In relation to rate-based regulation, an application of PBCT to an energy efficiency target for a particular sector is used to demonstrate how performance adjustment factors can be used to different-iate individual firm targets while ensuring that the overall sector constraint is satisfied

Performance-Based Long Term Incentive Compensation and Firm Performance

Awarding executives long-term incentive pay based on firm performance is often described as a natural way to improve firm performance. This brief uses an analytical approach to examine that proposed relationship. We first document the prevalence of performance-based long-term incentive (PB LTI) measures and the trends in the relative size of these measures compared to aggregate measures of compensation. We then compare the characteristics and performance of firms that have implemented a PB LTI measure in the past to those that have not. In order to understand the impact of PB LTI awards on firm performance, we separately assess the roles of the existence of the PB LTI measures, the relative size of the measures, and the type of PB LTI measure on firm performance

Performance-Based Pay for Teachers

CRS ReportCRSTeachersPerformancePay01.pdf: 10899 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

The Relationship Between Risk, Performance-Based Pay, and Organizational Performance

In this study, we argue that much of the recent agency-based research on performance based pay virtually omits the role of risk. This compensation research has predominantly taken the positive perspective and focused on the incentive properties of performance-based pay, thereby overlooking the important role that risk plays in normative formulations of agency theory (Holmstrom, 1979; Eisenhardt, 1989; Jensen & Meckling; 1976). Building on previous research, such as Beatty and Zajac (1994), we re-introduce risk by investigating its effects on the formation and outcomes of performance-based pay contracts. Specifically, our study examines both the main effects of risk on the structure of compensation contracts and the joint effects of risk and performance-based pay on firm performance. This study is based on data of incumbent managers from 356 companies over the period 1981 to 1988. Financial performance and market data were drawn from the CRSP and COMPUSTAT

A Risk-Return Paradox: Risk, Performance-Based Pay and Performance

[Excerpt] In recent years, strategy researchers have examined the relationship between business risk and performance. The logic underlying this relationship is that organizations facing greater business risk seek to offset it with the prospect of higher financial returns. The research typically involves various financial measures of organization performance regressed on measures of risk. Surprisingly, the findings are contradictory. While some studies report evidence supporting a positive relationship between the risk organizations face and their performance (Aaker & Jacobson, 1987; Fiegenbaum & Thomas, 1988), others reported an inverse relationship (Bowman, 1982, 1984). These different results called into question the basic premise about the form of the risk-return relationship and left a void in understanding why organization decision makers might pursue more risky strategies. Advancing this line of inquiry, Miller and Bromiley (1990) noted that business risk, like financial performance, is multi-dimensional. Several dimensions of business risk emerged from their work including income stream and strategic or financial risk. They suggested that differences reported in the risk-return relationship resulted from different operationalizations of business risk

Balanced Scorecard Based Performance Measurement & Strategic Management System

Developing strategy and performance measurement are an integral part of management control system. Making strategic decision about planning and controlling require information regarding how different subunits in organization work. To be effective, performance measurement, both financial and non-financial must motivate manager and employees at different levels to force goal accomplishment and organization strategic. An organization\u27s measurement system strongly affects the behavior of people both inside and outside the organization. If companies, are to survive and prosper in information age competition, they must use measurement and management systems derived from their strategies and capabilities. Unfortunately, many organizations espouse strategies about customer relationships, core competencies, and organizational capabilities while motivating and measuring performance only with financial measures. The Balance Scorecard retains financial measurement as a critical summary of managerial and business performance, but it highlights a more general and integrated set of measurements that link current customer, internal process, employee and system performance to long term financial success