Annual Performance Evaluation Research Articles

Performance Management of Taiwan’s National Hospitals

This study aimed to conduct operation performance evaluations of Taiwan’s national hospitals during the period 2005–2008 and also propose appropriate suggestions for operation performance improvements. 28 national hospitals were selected as study objects and six input variables and three output variables were filtered as evaluation measures. Data envelopment analysis model was used for annual operation performance evaluation, and Malmquist productivity index for intertemporal operation performance change analysis. In addition, a performance scatter diagram and a strategy management matrix were utilized to synthetically analyze all kinds of operation performance data and accordingly improvement suggestions were proposed. Several findings were explored, including (1) nearly 60% of national hospitals ran an inefficient performance; (2) a significant gap between urban and nonurban hospitals did exist in health care resources allocation and medical service outputs, which reflected the negative public opinion about regional medical care resources gap in Taiwan; (3) other evidence depicted the expectation that the government of Taiwan has already wasted a lot of medical resources in the operation of Taiwan’s national hospitals; (4) 70–80% of Taiwan’s national hospitals ran a constant returns-of-scale operation, while the remainder ran a decreasing returns-of-scale operation; and (5) a extreme disparity existed in the total productivity, which rationally conjectured the cause came from the bad operation of several individual national hospitals. At last, two main suggestions advocated: (a) the government of Taiwan should reconsider the medical care resources allocation between urban and nonurban hospitals; and (b) hospital operation performance should be regarded as one of the main prerequisites for government budget subsidies so as to stimulate operation performance improvement and self-sufficiency operation.

A Reflection of Faculty and Course Evaluations

A Reflection of Faculty and Course Evaluations

The Role of Tacit Knowledge in Auditor Expertise and Human Capital Development

In this study we investigate how tacit knowledge influences auditor expertise and human capital development. While prior research provides evidence that tacit knowledge is a key determinant of experienced auditors’ annual performance evaluations (Tan and Libby [1997]), we posit and find that tacit knowledge differentiates more from less promising auditors early in their careers, in terms of leadership potential. Tacit knowledge therefore plays a previously undocumented, forward-looking role in inexperienced auditors’ expertise development. In addition, we predict and find evidence supporting three direct organizational consequences of audit supervisors’ tacit knowledge: (1) it improves development of their subordinates’ tacit knowledge, (2) it increases the relative value they place on subordinates’ tacit versus technical knowledge when assessing annual performance, and (3) it increases the firm commitment of subordinates with relatively high tacit knowledge. Collectively, these findings contribute to the audit expertise, human capital development and incentive contracting literatures in accounting.

Corporate social responsibility practices and performance improvement among Chinese national state-owned enterprises

Based on the stakeholder theory, this study develops “7+2” dimensions for CSR practices measurement among Chinese national state-owned enterprises (CNSOEs), and examines if their CSR practices bring financial and social performance improvements. By analyzing the 2011 CSR reports that cover 100 CNSOEs, we identify that these CNSOEs highlight CSR practices related to the environment, labor practices, political responsibility, and human rights in their reports. However, three CSR practices related to managing the supply chains, fair operating practices and community development need more of their attention. We evaluate the social performance of CNSOEs by using the two performance ranking systems developed by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Regression results obtained through Structural Equation Model (SEM) using the partial least square (PLS) method indicate that CSR practices pertinent to organizational governance, human rights, and the environment are beneficial for their social performance. With secondary data inputs from the annual operating performance evaluation conducted by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration, we identify that four CSR practices can bring financial performance, but two of the four concerning communities and managing the supply chains are implemented at the lowest level among the others. Our “7+2” CSR practices dimensions together with their underlying measurement items extend the use of stakeholder theory for studying CSR practices, which can also serve as a checklist for evaluating how well CSR practices are implemented at CNSOEs. Our study results identify the need for CNSOEs to highlight community-related CSR practices in their operations and expand CSR efforts to the management of their supply chains.

Applications of building-integrated coil-type ground-coupled heat exchangers—Comparison of performances of vertical and horizontal installations

The building-integrated coil-type ground-coupled heat exchanger (GCHE) was used to overcome the high installation cost of the heat exchanger. A field test and simulations were conducted to analyze the performance of GCHE when installed vertically or horizontally. The vertical GCHE refers to the coil-type GCHE installed at the center of a PHC (pre-stressed high-strength concrete) pile used for the building foundation. The horizontal GCHE refers to the coil-type GCHE laid horizontally on the bottom of the building.The amount of electric power consumed by the horizontal GCHE system was higher than that consumed by the vertical GCHE system. The coefficient of performance (COP) through a cooling experiment was identified as 3.9–4.3 for the vertical type and 3.3–3.7 for the horizontal type.The simulation model was used to examine the annual performance evaluation for the vertical and horizontal GCHEs. The comparison of the year-round energy consumption values showed that the vertical GCHE has about 15% higher heating/cooling efficiency than the horizontal GCHE. The return period was six years in both the horizontal and vertical GCHEs for the short term, but the cost saving in the vertical GCHE was about 28% higher in the long term.

Exergy analysis and annual exergetic performance evaluation of solar hybrid STIG (steam injected gas turbine) cycle for Indian conditions

The STIG (steam injected gas turbine) cycle offers a way for increasing the power, efficiency and NOx reduction in gas turbines by injecting steam into the combustor. The present exergetic study is to investigate the influence of compressor PR (pressure ratio), TIT (turbine inlet temperature) and SAR (steam to air ratio) on the solar hybrid STIG cycle. Exergy analysis was performed for four cases based on the parameters of real gas turbines. Annual exergetic performance is also presented for the sites Indore and Jaipur in India under constant and variable power modes. The analysis suggests that the steam injection does not affect the performance of compressor. The total exergy destruction in the cycle increases with SAR and TIT. The exergetic efficiency also increases in the range of 40%–54.2% with SAR up to 0.9. The magnitude of exergy destruction in all components in the cycle (except compressor) increases by increasing SAR. Nevertheless, largest component of exergy destruction in the combustion chamber increases with SAR and TIT about 53% at SAR 0.9. The exergetic efficiency of combustor increases from 74.5% to 81.8% with increasing SAR from 0.3 to 0.9. The exergy destruction in the turbine increases considerably with compressor pressure ratio, sparingly with SAR and independent of TIT. The exergy destruction in the SH (super heater) is less compared to the economiser in the HRSG (heat recovery steam generator). The contribution of solar energy (exergetic solar fraction) is more sensitive to TIT and SAR than PR. It is noticed that increase in turbine outlet temperature, led by PR and TIT, decreases the exergetic solar fraction, and the cycle exergetic efficiency improves as the exergetic solar fraction increases, which leads to an improved performance device. The second largest percentage of exergy destruction is in the flue gas condenser to recover water for recycling, and the heat removed from the condenser is lost to the surroundings by cooling air. The annual values of exergetic solar fraction and exergetic efficiency at Indore are higher than Jaipur in both constant and variable power modes of operation.

Experience of health-system pharmacy administration residents in a longitudinal human resource management program.

The experience of health-system pharmacy administration (HSPA) residents in a longitudinal human resource (HR) management program is described. The subsequent benefits to the residents, department, and profession are also discussed. Postgraduate year 2 HSPA residents at an academic medical center desired more responsibility for managing an operational area. To this end, a program was created in which these residents directly manage a small group of pharmacy technicians and report to a clinical manager or assistant director with oversight responsibility. These "resident managers" are responsible, under the direction of the area's clinical manager, for the personnel, schedule, time and attendance, and HR activities of the area. Resident managers have led and sustained operational improvement projects in their areas. In addition to providing learning experiences to residents, the HSPA residency program has also improved the operations of the areas in which these residents work. Benefits to the residents include conducting annual performance evaluations for employees with whom they have a relationship as it is a task every administrator completes. Resident managers at UNC have consistently stated that this longitudinal HR experience is one of the most rewarding and most challenging experiences offered in the two-year HSPA residency. The involvement of HSPA residents in longitudinal management responsibilities furthers residents' leadership success by providing trained managers who are ready to immerse themselves into practice postresidency, having employee engagement and HR skills as well as experiences with leading operational improvements. A longitudinal HR management experience was successfully incorporated into an HSPA residency combined Master of Science degree program.

The performance indicators for science and technology projects in Taiwan

To help the Taiwanese private sector to compete globally, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) in Taiwan initiated a programme called the 'Science and Technology Project (STP)' in 1982. Through this programme, the government offers over 10 billion NT dollars per year to support technological research and development. Furthermore, the STP is executed by statutory bodies (non–profit research institutes) funded by the MOEA. For the purposes of budget allocation and control, an annual performance evaluation of STP is needed, though it is a difficult task. Although the MOEA has established a system of performance evaluation and has practiced it for years, there is no consensus on the fairness of this system among research institutes and other interested parties competing for funds. A more elegant evaluation system is needed. The purpose of this research is to establish a reliable system of performance indicators for the STP. Our study reviewed the whole performance indicators system of R&D projects and proposed a feasible revision. The system of performance indicators can be further divided into three subsystems: (1) indicators for research results, (2) indicators for industrial co–operation, (3) indicators for technology diffusion.

Comparative Study of Distance Learning and Conventional System on the Teachers’ Job Performance in Kwara State

This research study investigated job performance among teachers in Offa metropolis based on the disparity between distance learning program and conventional learning method. It was designed to examine the level of job performance of teachers of distance learning system and those of conventional system. The study involved 300 selected teachers from secondary schools for both private and public schools in kwara state. Two research hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The research instrument used was Annual Performance Evaluation Report to gather relevant data and the analyses conducted by correlation and t-test analysis at .05 significance level. The result of the data analyzed shows that the distance learning system is complementary institution to the conventional schools system, also that there is no significant different in job performance of teachers of distance learning system and the conventional school system. Following these conclusions, teachers of distance learning should be properly remunerated in line with teaching in conventional school system and increase their wages based on job performance which has to do with experiences.

Implementation of a Professional Portfolio: A Tool to Demonstrate Professional Development for Advanced Practice

The literature has a gap related to professional development for APRNs. In the United States, many health care organizations use clinical advancement programs for registered nurses, but APRNs are not often included in these programs. If APRNs are included, advancement opportunities are very limited. At CMC, implementation of a professional portfolio resulted in increased satisfaction among APPs regarding their ability to showcase professional growth and expertise, as well as the uniqueness of their advanced practice. Use of the professional portfolio led to improved recognition by APS and organizational leaders of APP performance excellence during the annual performance evaluation, as well as improved recognition among APP colleagues in terms of nominations for honors and awards.

Annual performance evaluation and experimental study on variable speed compressors for room air conditioners

Energy efficiency for room air conditioners has received increasing attention in recent years with the intense emphasis on environmental concern and energy consumption. As the main energy consumption component of air conditioner, compressor awaits further work to accomplish the transition of performance evaluation from one operation condition to its actual usage. In the present study, an evaluation index called annual efficiency is proposed to rate the annual performance of air conditioner compressor. Experimental study is conducted on four variable-speed compressors, and the results show that the best fit determined from annual efficiency is different from that of ASHRAE standard. The compressor efficiency and dynamic pressure are quite different at rated and half-capacity test conditions. Compressor running under half-capacity conditions is more energy efficient and peak phenomenon of dynamic pressure is less obvious when compared with rated conditions. Moreover, more attention should be paid to half-capacity conditions to improve the annual efficiency of compressor and energy-saving capabilities of air conditioners.

Moving toward a more objective peer review process

Moving toward a more objective peer review process

Multiple floating porous absorbers type solar still: annual performance evaluation

This paper describes an experimental work conducted in order to evaluate the annual performance of a modified single sloped basin type solar still. The modified still consists of a multiple number of blackened porous jute cloth absorbers, which are being floated on the basin water with the help of thermo-col insulations. Higher absorber surface temperatures are rapidly reached in this design, resulting in a quicker start-up and faster evaporation rates. Cooler basin water results in lower base heat losses. Highest distillate output was recorded in the month of May with 52% efficiency, whereas the lowest was obtained in the month of December with 34% efficiency. The modified still gave the maximum gain of 74.6% more output in the month of January and the minimum gain of 35.5% in the month of August, when compared with the conventional still. An average 7.6% of the total output was obtained as nocturnal yield. The productivity initially increases marginally with the wind velocity, but at higher wind velocities it decreases rapidly. Extra base insulation improves the performance.

TeachersasRESEARCHERS:A Narrative Pedagogical Approach to Transforming a Graduate Family and Health Promotion Course

Scholarship of teaching in nursing is illustrated by describing the development, implementation, evaluation, and revision of a family and health promotion course for graduate family nurse practitioner students. A narrative pedagogical approach that combines conventional pedagogy with action research is used. The work, an example of curriculum as dialogue, illustrates how teachers can incorporate research, evaluation, and reflection into their daily teaching practice. Given adequate support, these evaluation and research activities could constitute part of the scholarship of teaching, and, as such, would warrant allocation of time in faculty workloads and formal acknowledgment in annual performance evaluations and promotion and tenure decisions. The importance of increasing the clinical relevance of the scholarship of teaching in a practice discipline such as nursing is also emphasized.

주거용 직접순환식 수직밀폐형 지열원 열펌프의 연간 운전성능 평가

Vertical closed-loop ground source heat pump systems(GSHP) have been installed widely in Korea since it can extract moderate temperature level of geothermal heat in a small area. As a ground heat exchanger, a vertical closed -loop type with brine circulation is mostly preferred since it is simple and less harmful to ground environment. However, it requires a secondary heat exchange loop between the refrigerant in a heat pump and the brine. By adding a geothermal heat exchanger in the secondary heat exchange loop, circulation pumps should be attached and the temperature difference between refrigerant and ground is increased, which are important parts of performance degradation. In this paper, annual and seasonal performances of direct expansion(DX) geothermal heat pump were estimated mathematically as an alternative of classical indirect geothermal heat pump based on the annual performance evaluation. As results, DX geothermal heat pump showed 43% higher annual performance than the classical U-tube geothermal heat pump.

A network perspective on organizational architecture: performance effects of the interplay of formal and informal organization

AbstractWe take a network perspective to organizational architecture, conceptualizing it as multiple networks of both formal and informal interactions and argue that their interplay is key to better understanding individual organizational member performance. We develop and test the concept of network consistency as the overlap between the informal network of advice and information with formal structures and processes, expressed as networks. We theorize that consistency between formal and informal networks exerts differing effects on performance. We test our theory in a financial services firm, using secondary data to create formal networks and annual performance evaluations for our dependent variable, along with primary survey data from organizational members to obtain the informal advice and information network. Results support our network approach to organizational architecture. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

On employees’ performance appraisal: the impact and treatment of the raters’ effect

By putting in place a performance appraisal scheme, employees who improve their work efficiency can then be rewarded, whereas corrective action can be taken against those who don’t. The aim of this paper is to develop a technique that helps to measure the subjective effect that a given rater’s assessment will have on the performance appraisal of a given employee, assuming that an assessment of one’s work performance will have to be undertaken by a rater and that this rating is essentially a subjective one. In particular, a linear mixed modelling approach will be applied to data that comes from a South African company which has 214 employees and where an annual performance evaluation has been run. One of the main conclusions that will be drawn from this study, is that there is a very significant rater’s effect that needs to be properly accounted for when rewarding employees. Without this adjustment being done, any incentive scheme, whether its motive is reward based or penalty based, will ultimately fail in its intended purpose of improving employees’ overall performance.

Evaluation of Annual Performance of 2-Tank and Thermocline Thermal Storage Systems for Trough Plants

A study was performed to compare the annual performance of 50 MWe Andasol-like trough plants that employ either a 2-tank or a thermocline-type molten-salt thermal storage system. trnsys software was used to create the plant models and to perform the annual simulations. The annual performance of each plant was found to be nearly identical in the base-case comparison. The reason that the thermocline exhibited nearly the same performance is primarily due to the ability of many trough power blocks to operate at a temperature that is significantly below the design point. However, if temperatures close to the design point are required, the performance of the 2-tank plant would be significantly better than the thermocline.

교원업적평가와 성과연봉제 그리고 강의평가

On March 2011, an annual salary plan was applied to new faculty members in National Colleges and Universities. In 2015, all tenured faculty members will receive salaries based on annual performance evaluations. The efforts and accomplishments of faculty are normally assessed according to a standard formula of 40% teaching, 40% research and 20% service. In almost all colleges and universities, student course evaluations may be considered as the only measure of the perceived quality of the courses offered by the faculty member. The mandatory course evaluations are becoming prevalent in Korea. The results of course evaluations do not reflect the fairness and the appropriateness of the quality of the course taught by the faculty member and should not be considered under the teaching evaluation criteria.

Simulating the Daylight Performance of Complex Fenestration Systems Using Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Functions within Radiance

We describe two methods which rely on bidirectional scattering distribution functions (BSDFs) to model the daylighting performance of complex fenestration systems (CFS), enabling greater flexibility and accuracy in evaluating arbitrary assemblies of glazing, shading, and other optically-complex coplanar window systems. Two tools within Radiance enable a) efficient annual performance evaluations of CFS, and b) accurate renderings of CFS despite the loss of spatial resolution associated with low-resolution BSDF datasets for inhomogeneous systems. Validation, accuracy, and limitations of the methods are discussed.