Target Setting in Multi-Divisional Organizations

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 13-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Matějka

ABSTRACT The target-setting literature has primarily focused on motivation issues in relatively simple single-task settings. I argue that performance targets also play an important role in addressing other issues such as multi-tasking, information asymmetry, retention, rent extraction, commitment, and coordination in multi-agent settings. Broadening the scope of the literature can help reconcile the theory and empirical evidence on how organizations set and revise performance targets. Moreover, a broader scope can help motivate emerging work on target-setting choices such as the number of targets for each performance dimension, concavity or convexity of target-based contracts, relative target difficulty for different performance dimensions, and coordination and disclosure of targets in multi-agent settings.

2014 ◽  
Vol 660 ◽  
pp. 976-982
Author(s):  
Lukman Sukarma

As a continuation of the previous paper by the author for this conference, this article provides empirical evidence for the impact of concurrent implementation of TQM, JIT and TPM in enhancing company performance, and hence its competitiveness. In doing this, ingredients of World Class Manufacturing company performance are reviewed, hypotheses and research methodology are developed, and data are analysed to verify the hypotheses. It is confirmed that plants implementing TQM, JIT and TPM concurrently outperform those, which implement only one or two of the methods, and there is no difference in performance among plants using either one or two of the methods. Further investigation on the causes of difference in performance reveals that, in addition to simultaneous implementation of the three methods, the establishment of performance targets leads to better performance. However, there is insufficient evidence to claim that involving employees in target setting has an effect on performance.


Author(s):  
Saravanan Muthaiyah ◽  
Larry Kerschberg

This chapter introduces a hybrid ontology mediation approach for deploying Semantic Web Services (SWS) using Multi-agent systems (MAS). The methodology that the authors have applied combines both syntactic and semantic matching techniques for mapping ontological schemas so as to 1) eliminate heterogeneity; 2)provide higher precision and relevance in matched results; 3) produce better reliability and 4) achieve schema homogeneity. The authors introduce a hybrid matching algorithm i.e. SRS (Semantic Relatedness Score) which is a composite matcher that comprises thirteen well established semantic and syntactic algorithms which have been widely used in linguistic analysis. This chapter provides empirical evidence via several hypothesis tests for validating our approach. A detailed mapping algorithm as well as a Multi-agent based system (MAS) prototype has been developed for brokering Web services as proof-of-concept and to further validate the presented approach. Agent systems today provide brokering services that heavily rely on matching algorithms that at present focus mainly only on syntactic matching techniques. The authors provide empirical evidence that their hybrid approach is a better solution to this problem.


2014 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 1197-1226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Aranda ◽  
Javier Arellano ◽  
Antonio Davila

ABSTRACT: Managers use a variety of information to set performance targets. Using data from 376 branches of a large travel retailer over five years, this study documents supervisors considering the relative performance of comparable units in target setting, which we term relative target setting (RTS). We find evidence of RTS after controlling for individual past performance in the form of ratcheting. Our findings also indicate that RTS partially shapes the use of other information on past performance. Specifically, we find that the magnitude of ratcheting decreases (increases) with RTS for favorable (unfavorable) performance variances, and the asymmetry of ratcheting characterized by different ratcheting coefficients for unfavorable than for favorable variances is significant for large absolute magnitudes of RTS. Managers use the flexibility associated with the subjectivity of the target-setting process to weight peer and individual information differently across different units. Data Availability: The data used in this study cannot be made publicly available due to confidentiality agreements with the participating organization.


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