Changes In Operating Performance Research Articles

The Role of Robotics in Meeting Institutional Goals: A Unified Strategy to Facilitate Program Excellence.

The rapid expansion of robotic surgical equipment necessitates a review of the needs and challenges faced by hospitals introducing robots for the first time to compete with experienced institutions. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of robotic surgery on our hospital compared to open and laparoscopic surgery, examine internal transformations, and assess regional, domestic, and international implications. A retrospective review was conducted of electronic medical records (EMRs) from 2019 to 2022 at Inha University Hospital, including patients who underwent common robotic procedures and equivalent open and laparoscopic operations. The study investigated clinical and operational performance changes in the hospital after the introduction of robotic technology. It also evaluated the operational effectiveness of robot implementation in local, national, and international contexts. To facilitate comparison with other hospitals, the data were transmitted to Intuitive Surgical, Inc. for analysis. The study was conducted in compliance with domestic personal information regulations and received approval from our Institutional Review Board. We analyzed EMR data from 3,147 patients who underwent surgical treatment. Over a period of 3.5 years, the adoption of robotic technology in a hospital setting significantly enhanced the technical skills of all professors involved. The introduction of robotic systems led to increased patient utilization of conventional surgical techniques, as well as a rise in the number of patients choosing robotic surgery. This collective trend contributed to an overall increase in patient numbers. This favorable evaluation of the operational effectiveness of our hospital's robot implementation in the context of local, national, and global factors is expected to positively influence policy changes. Stakeholders should embrace data science and evidence-based techniques to generate valuable insights from objective data, assess the health of robot-assisted surgery programs, and identify opportunities for improvement and excellence.

Listing switch and financial performance of companies: evidence from the Warsaw Stock Exchange

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to present the results of empirical research concerning the identification of the impact of the transfer of companies from the alternative market to the regulated market of the Warsaw Stock Exchange on their operating and net performance.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted based on the empirical data of the companies that changed the listing place on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Data regarding the years before the transfer were collected from the prospectuses of companies prepared mandatorily in connection with the transition to the regulated market. Data regarding the years of the event and subsequent years were obtained from companies' annual reports. As in other studies in the analysis, the operational metrics were used (operating return on sale, operating return on assets, total asset turnover), which was further extended to net profitability ratios (net return on ale, net return on asset, net return on equity). The significance analysis was based on the Student's t-test and Wilcoxon’s test.FindingsThe results show that before the transfer from the alternative market to the regulated market, companies improved financial performance. As a result of the change of listing venues, the results already collapsed in the year of the event. The downward trend continued in the following two years, with a noticeable improvement in the third year after the transfer.Originality/valueThe literature lacks such studies based on the Polish market. To the best knowledge of the author, this is one of the first studies in Poland showing the changes in operating and net performance of companies changing the stock listing venues. The research is based on a large group including all companies that have changed listing venues since the beginning of the alternative market in Poland. The article presents an original empirical result that can be used both by managers and investors in their decisions.

Additive Sensory Noise Effects on Operator Performance in a Lunar Landing Simulation.

INTRODUCTION: Adding noise to a system to improve a weak signal's detectability is known as stochastic resonance (SR). SR has been shown to improve sensory perception and cognitive performance in certain individuals, but it is unknown whether this performance improvement can translate to meaningful macrocognitive enhancements in performance for complex, operational tasks.OBJECTIVE: We investigated human operator performance in a lunar landing simulation while applying auditory white noise and/or noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation.METHODS: We measured performance (N = 16 subjects) while completing simulation trials in our Aerospace Research Simulator. Trials were completed with and without the influence of auditory white noise, noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation, and both simultaneously in a multimodal fashion. Performance was observed holistically and across subdimensions of the task, which included flight skill and perception. Subjective mental workload was collected after completing four trials in each treatment.RESULTS: We did not find broad operator improvement under the influence of noise, but a significant interaction was identified between subject and noise treatment, indicating that some subjects were impacted by additive noise. We also found significant interactions between subject and noise treatment in performance subdimensions of flight skill and perception. We found no significant main effects on mental workload.CONCLUSIONS: This study investigated the utility of using additive sensory noise to induce SR for complex tasks. While SR has been shown to improve aspects of performance, our results suggest additive noise does not yield operational performance changes for a broad population, but specific individuals may be affected.Sherman SO, Shen Y-Y, Gutierrez-Mendoza D, Schlittenhart M, Watson C, Clark TK, Anderson AP. Additive sensory noise effects on operator performance in a lunar landing simulation. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2023; 94(10):770-779.

The Impact of the COVID-19 on Pfizer: Past, Present and Future

Towards the end of 2019, COVID-19 was discovered in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, and rapidly spread worldwide, resulting in significant impact on the global economy. Despite the pandemic being a disaster for the world, it has also created business opportunities for some healthcare companies, with Pfizer being a prime example. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Pfizer and BioNTech jointly developed Comminate, a vaccine that has been instrumental in combating the infection and death crisis. At the same time, Pfizer also engaged in the development of effective drugs. However, Pfizer has also been exposed to some negative news, which has had a significant impact on its business performance and stock price. The impact of the pandemic on Pfizer can be reflected through the changes in Pfizer's operating performance before and after the pandemic. In the future, the ever-changing factors of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to have a certain influence on Pfizer's future, and the company will need to develop new strategies to address future challenges in order to achieve long-term stable development.

A Study on Performance of IPO (Initial Public offering) with Special Reference to Selected Companies at BSE

Debt and/or equity are two ways that corporations and government entities raise money. The primary market can be used by unlisted companies to issue shares through an initial public offering (IPO). These businesses have the chance to grow, diversify, and expand with stronger long-term business prospects. An investor who owns shares from an IPO may view it as a short-term speculative opportunity or as a long-term chance to generate big dividends and capital gains. In India, initial public offerings (IPOs) or public issues have grown in popularity as a means of obtaining capital. These initial public offerings (IPOs) have an erratic performance over time, and previous investors who invested in them have suffered significant losses. While IPOs provide noticeable returns on the day of listing, they often perform poorly over the long run. This essay evaluates how Indian companies' operational performance changes following their initial public offerings (IPOs). If a performance metric like "profit" is normalized by sales volumes (i.e., return on sales) rather than assets (i.e., return on assets), it is discovered that there is no worsening in the operating performance post-IPO. This paper discovers a steady return on sales, in contrast to a clear fall in return on assets observed in comparable other studies. The importance of selecting the appropriate variables for matching and normalization purposes is emphasized in the paper.

Performance Evaluation of Food and Beverage Listed Companies in Vietnam

During the last decade, the food and beverage industry has been one of the most significant and prioritized industries that contributed to the economic growth in Vietnam. Therefore, how to enhance the performance of food and beverage firms has become a critical factor for Vietnam’s economic development. This research aims to use the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist productivity index (MPI) to assess changes in operational performance and productivity of listed lead food and beverage firms in Vietnam during the period between 2015 and 2020. The obtained results reveal that Vietnamese food and beverage firms were generally inefficient between 2015 and 2020 because the number of relatively inefficient companies was higher than the relatively efficient ones in each year between 2015 and 2020. The MPI findings indicate the growth in productivity during the study period as a result of technological progress. By integrating the findings of the relative efficiency and productivity change, this study creates five decision-making matrixes for five periods, respectively, from 2015 to 2020 to position the food and beverage firms in each sector. The analytical results provide instructions to senior managers on developing strategy for increasing efficiency of food and beverage listed companies in Vietnam.

Signalized Corridor Timing Plan Change Assessment Using Connected Vehicle Data

Updates to traffic signal timing plans are expected to either improve operations or mitigate the effects of increased volumes. Longitudinal before-after studies are important when validating changes to traffic signal systems, but they have historically required field data collection as well as deployment of extensive detection and communication equipment. These infrastructure-based techniques are costly and hard to scale. This study utilizes commercially available connected vehicle (CV) trajectory data to assess the change in performance between August 2020 and August 2021 on a 22-intersection corridor associated with the implementation of a semi-automated adaptive control system. Approximately 1 million trajectories and 13.5 million GPS points are analyzed for weekdays in August 2020 and August 2021. The vehicle trajectory data is used to compute corridor travel times and linear referenced relative to the far side of each intersection to generate Purdue Probe Diagrams (PPD). Using the PPDs, operational measurements such as arrivals on green (AOG), split failures (SF), and downstream blockage (DSB) are calculated. Additionally, traditional Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) level of service (LOS) is estimated. Even though there was a 35% increase in annual average daily traffic (AADT), the weighted average vehicle delay only increased by two seconds, LOS did not change, AOG improved by 1%, and SF and DSB remained the same. Based on the small changes in operational performance and considering the increase in traffic volume it is concluded that the implementation of the semi-automated adaptive control system had a significant positive impact in the corridor. The presented framework can be utilized by agencies to use CV data to perform before-after studies to evaluate the impact of signal timing plan changes. The presented methodology can be applied to any location where CV trajectory data is available.

Analysis of the effect of ionizing radiation on the properties of bulk nonwoven material

At the moment, there is a wide range of bulky nonwovens for various purposes on the market. One of the important areas of using such materials is healthcare. In particular, bulky nonwoven materials are intended for the manufacture of wound dressings, evacuation kits for newborns. Disposable medical devices of this kind are usually subjected to radiation sterilization. As is known from earlier studies, radiation sterilization significantly affects the performance of nonwovens. In this regard, for nonwoven materials for medical use, an important characteristic is the stability of indicators after exposure to radiation sterilization. As a result of the study of bulk nonwovens Holofiber ® after radiation radiation in the dose range from 20-60 kGy, there were no significant changes in operational performance. The stiffness increased by an average of 3-10%. The stiffness indicators after ionizing radiation according to GOST 24684 also meet the requirements. The value of electrification increased due to an increase in the static field under the action of ionizing radiation. It is worth noting that the values of electrification are within the norm established by GOST 32995. The breaking load varies from 1-5%. Thus, non-woven materials Holofiber ® PROFI, article P 35191, Holofiber ® SOFT, article P 5197, Holofiber ® SOFT, article P 5200 are recommended for the production of medical devices.

Does target firm insider trading signal the target's synergy potential in mergers and acquisitions?

We find that the acquirer's (1) abnormal returns at merger and acquisition (M&A) announcements and (2) long-term abnormal returns after acquisitions increase with target firm insiders’ net purchase ratios. Further, acquisition synergies, measured as the (1) acquirer-target combined cumulative abnormal returns at M&A announcements and (2) changes in three-year operating performance after acquisitions, increase with target insider net purchase ratios. Notwithstanding, targets with higher insider net purchase ratios receive higher takeover premiums. Overall, our findings suggest that, even under the SEC's “short-swing rule,” target insider trading prior to the M&A announcement serves as a credible signal for acquisition outcomes.

Wealth Effects and Enterprise Performance Changes of Debt-to-Equity Swap

Market-oriented Debt-to-Equity Swap （DES） plays a critical function in two ways: One is the fastest way to de-leverage in macro-economy; the other is breakthroughs in promoting the SOE’s mixed ownership reform, and improving corporate governance. The article firstly analyzes the economic consequences of DES on zombies and non-zombies through a theoretical model. Then, we collect the publicly disclosed DES cases from August 2016 to December 2018. Based on the financial data disclosed by bond-issued DES companies, we use the FN-CHK method to determine whether there are zombies in DES sample. Furthermore, we calculate the CARs for bonds and stocks issued by DES companies and compare these CARs among state/non-state as well as zombie/non-zombie firms. Finally, we use PSM method to match the comparable non-DES companies for the DES ones. On basis of the matched sample, DID method is used to test financial performance for DES companies.Our findings can be concluded that: （1） Among 74 DES companies providing financial data, there are 19 zombies, accounting for 25.3% of the sample. Before the DES announcement, these 19 companies have the history of being zombies for more than 2 years, among which 8 companies have become zombies for more than 4 years. （2） As for the short-term market event study, the difference in DES announcement response between zombies and non-zombies has been efficiently recognized in bond market. The prices of bonds issued by zombies have dropped significantly within 30 days before and after the announcement of DES, while the prices of bonds issued by non-zombies have increased significantly. The overall response of the stock market to DES is relatively neutral, but leaving negative records for non-SOEs. In terms of financial performance changes, we use PSM-DID method to test the effects of DES. We find that operating performance changes within [-1, +1] year period for zombies and non-zombies are largely different. For non-zombies, DES reduces debt pressure, improves profitability, operating efficiency and solvency; for zombies, DES only decreases financial leverage, but brings no improvement to profitability, operating efficiency and solvency.Contributions of this paper are listed as follows: Firstly, we use real DES samples to study the actual mechanisms of deleveraging. We find that for different types of enterprises, there are structural differences in short-term and long-term DES performances. Secondly, we conduct relatively early empirical study for this new round of Chinese market-oriented DES. Thirdly, this paper conducts creatively new try on disposal of zombies from the perspective of DES, and finds that DES’s wealth effects and performance changes are relatively negative.

Nitrogen removal as nitrous oxide for energy recovery: Increased process stability and high nitrous yields at short hydraulic residence times

The Coupled Aerobic-anoxic Nitrous Decomposition Operation (CANDO) is a two-stage process for nitrogen removal and resource recovery: in the first, ammonia is oxidized to nitrite in an aerobic bioreactor; in the second, oxidation of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) drives reduction of nitrite to nitrous oxide (N2O) which is stripped for use as a biogas oxidant. Because ammonia oxidation is well-studied, tests of CANDO to date have focused on N2O production in anaerobic/anoxic sequencing batch reactors. In these reactors, nitrogen is provided as nitrite; PHA is produced from acetate or other dissolved COD, and PHA oxidation is coupled to N2O production from nitrite. In a pilot-scale study, N2O recovery was affected by COD/N ratio, total cycle time, and relative time periods for PHA synthesis and N2O production. In follow-up bench-scale studies, different reactor cycle times were used to investigate these operational parameters. Increasing COD/N ratio improved nitrite removal and increased biosolids concentration. Shortening the anaerobic phase prevented fermentation of PHA and improved its utilization. Efficient PHA synthesis and utilization in the anaerobic phase correlated with high N2O production in the anoxic phase. Shortening the anoxic phase prevented reduction of N2O to N2. By shortening both phases, total cycle time was reduced from 24 to 12 h. This optimized operation enabled increased biomass concentrations, increased N2O yields (from 71 to 87%), increased N loading rates (from 0.1 to 0.25 kg N/m3-d), and shorter hydraulic residence times (from 10 to 2 days). Long-term changes in operational performance for the different bioreactor systems tested were generally similar despite significant differences in microbial community structure. Long-term operation at short anaerobic phases selected for a glycogen-accumulating community dominated by a Defluviicoccus-related strain.

Testing Operating Performance of Chinese Listed Firms before and after Cross-border M&As: The Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation

t a time when China encourages its firms to go overseas, especially to countries and regions involved in its “Belt and Road Initiative”, and sets up a favorable domestic environment for innovation and entrepreneurship, this paper is a first trial looking along both the two dimensions to test whether Chinese firms' operating performance changes after cross-border merger and acquisition (CBM&A) activities, using entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as a moderating factor. The paper combines data from Chinese listed firms’ annual reports, Chinese stock market financial statements database and the Zephyr database from 2001 to 2015 to examine how acquirers’ operating performance changes after CBM&A activities using EO as a moderating factor. In order to test whether the results are affected by the stock market, this paper also defines abnormal return on equity (ROE) to detect abnormal operating performance. After these, the paper divides the sample into separate industry groups to see whether results will change. The results obtained for the whole sample show that the performance of Chinese listed firms is fluctuant after CBM&As within the sample years. It increases one year after the acquisition but drops two years later and then follows an increasing trend again. The moderating factor of EO is not significant for the sample as a whole. However, after dividing the sample into separate industry groups, it becomes clear that different industries have their own characteristics. EO helps Chinese listed firms to adjust to the post-acquisition situation and even to improve their performance to some extent in the metal mining industry and the business services industry. When ROE is substituted with abnormal ROE, the results do not change much.

Sleep deprivation impairs affordance perception behavior during an action boundary accuracy assessment

ObjectivesAstronauts must adapt behaviors to changing affordances (action possibilities) when exposed to operational stressors such as sleep deprivation. The inability to correctly perceive affordances may cause astronauts to attempt behaviors that place them at greater risk. This study investigated the effects of sleep deprivation on affordance perception performance during 30-day NASA Human Exploration Research Analog missions. MethodsSixteen participants completed a perception-action coupling task (PACT) over days 22–25 of the missions. Participants completed sessions on day 22 (1800) and 24 (1200 and 1730) under normal sleep conditions and sessions on day 25 (0430, 1200 and 1445) after a night of sleep deprivation. During PACT, participants judge whether virtual balls afford posting (can fit) through virtual apertures. The ratio of ball-to-aperture size ranges from 0.2 to 1.8 (afforded trials <1, unafforded trials >1). A two-way repeated measures ANOVA was used to analyze the effect of time and trial type (afforded versus unafforded) on response time (RST) and accuracy (ACC). ResultsFor RST, significant main effects of time (F2.666, 39.984 = 7.685, p = 0.001) and trial type (F1, 15 = 17.554, p = 0.001) were observed. Afforded RST was greater than unafforded RST. ACC decreased across time (F2.724, 20.939 = 5.137, p = 0.005) but did not differ between trial types. No significant interaction effects were observed. ConclusionDecrements in affordance-based behaviors were observed under increasing levels of sleep deprivation and subjects responded slower to trials where the task-specific affordance was available. These decrements may relate to changes in operational performance.

The Impact of Horizontal Mergers on the Operational Performance in the U.S. Airline Industry

We study the effect of horizontal mergers on the operational performance of the merging firm and its competitors in the U.S. airline industry. We argue that the changes in operational performance f...

Downstream electric utility restructuring and upstream generation efficiency: Productivity dynamics of Indian coal and gas based electricity generators

This paper investigates the producer-level temporal dynamics of total factor productivity and operational performance changes in coal- and gas-based generators during the 2000–20013 period of major structural reforms in the downstream utilities in India. The total factor productivity is estimated using a recently developed improvement in the Stochastic Frontier panel method that controls for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, and the productivity change is decomposed into components of changes in technology frontier, efficiency, scale and allocation. A unique dataset of station-level data for coal and gas plants, that represents about two-thirds of all power generation in India during this period, is constructed for the analysis. The study shows that while there is improvement in the coal generator productivity at the mean rate of 0.20% per year that converges towards a point of higher efficiency for most plants, the gas generators show a trend of stagnant efficiency and declining total factor productivity at the mean rate of −0.80% per year. Unbundling and multi-dimensional utility reform indices are significantly associated with improvement in thermal efficiency and capacity utilization for coal generators. In contrast, utility reforms shows no significant positive influence on gas generators, instead a decline in capacity utilization is observed following unbundling.

Managing EPS and signaling undervaluation as a motivation for repurchases

PurposeAccelerated share repurchases (ASRs) represent an important recent innovation in repurchase methods. Although executives often mention signaling undervaluation as a motivation for ASRs, managing earnings per share (EPS) has been argued as a key alternative motivation in the financial press. This paper aims to investigate whether ASRs are driven by managerial opportunism (i.e. managing EPS) or managerial optimism (i.e. signaling undervaluation) and whether stock market participants see through these motives.Design/methodology/approachThe sample consists of 293 ASRs conducted between 2004 and 2011. Firms suspected of using ASRs to manage EPS (EPS-suspect firms) were identified by examining actual reported EPS, as-if EPS (i.e. EPS that would have been reported in the absence of an ASR), and analysts’ consensus EPS forecasts. A logistic regression of EPS-suspect versus non-EPS-suspect ASR transactions was performed. Analysts’ reactions to ASR announcements and investors’ reactions to post-ASR earnings announcements were examined. Changes in post-ASR operating performance were also analyzed.FindingsTwenty-nine per cent of ASR firms (EPS-suspect firms) would have missed the consensus EPS forecasts had they not implemented the repurchase. Managerial incentives – securing bonuses and maintaining reputation by avoiding EPS misses – appear to lie behind this opportunistic use of ASRs. Upward revision observed in analysts’ EPS forecasts upon the announcement of ASRs is short-lived, indirectly facilitating firms’ use of ASRs to meet or beat consensus forecasts. Investors, however, are not fooled by managers’ use of ASRs as an earnings management device. Unlike EPS-suspect firms, non-EPS-suspect firms exhibit positive abnormal operating performance during the post-ASR period, suggesting that these firms use ASRs as a signaling device rather than as an earnings management device.Practical implicationsASRs can be used by managers to signal better future performance to investors. However, managers who intend to do so should carefully consider the timing of an ASR. Initiating an ASR when the company is facing the risk of missing analysts’ EPS forecasts may be interpreted as the ASR being motivated by EPS management concerns rather than signaling, diminishing the credibility of a positive signal intended to be conveyed through the ASR. Further, when considering payout policy and executive compensation decisions, corporate boards need to be cognizant of managers’ incentives for undertaking ASRs. The use of ASRs opportunistically to boost EPS is prevalent, and this action is followed by poor performance.Originality/valueA number of novel results are documented using tests that are methodologically distinct from those used in related previous research. Notably, this is the first study to distinguish between EPS-suspect and non-EPS-suspect ASR firms and examine the determinants as well as consequences of using ASRs as an earnings management versus signaling device. One out of every four ASR firms are EPS-suspects. Analysts react to ASR announcements by only temporarily increasing their short-term EPS forecasts. Investors see through managers’ use of ASRs as an earnings management device. While ASRs are prone to managerial opportunism, a large number of firms use ASRs to communicate favorable information about their future operating performance to investors.

Conflict-induced forced CEO turnover and firm performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine operational and stock performance changes around forced CEO turnovers caused by conflicts between corporate boards and CEOs over the strategic direction of the firm. In addition, the authors investigate whether changes in performance can be explained by board, CEO, or firm characteristics.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply propensity score matching to choose matching firms that do not forced CEO turnover but have similar characteristics with the sample firms. The authors compare their operating and stock performances. The authors apply both univariate analysis and multivariate regression analyses.FindingsThe authors find that the CEO turnovers caused by conflicts between corporate boards and CEOs over the strategic direction of the firms tend to be preceded by significant declines in a firm’s operating and stock performance and that corporate performance improves after turnovers. In addition, the authors find that an increase in long-term incentives and firm size and a decrease in turnover improve firm performance.Originality/valueWhile the existing corporate governance literature emphasizes oversight as the main role of the board of directors and identifies the CEO as the leader who sets the strategic direction of the firm, in cases of conflict-induced forced CEO turnover, it is the board that sets the strategic direction. This paper is the first to provide evidence regarding the implications of conflict-induced forced CEO turnovers.

Signal Timing Optimization with Connected Vehicle Technology: Platooning to Improve Computational Efficiency

This paper develops a real-time traffic signal optimization algorithm in the presence of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs). The proposed algorithm leverages information from connected vehicles (CVs) arriving at an intersection to identify naturally occurring platoons that consist of both CVs and non-CVs. Signal timings are then selected to optimize the sequence at which these platoons are allowed to discharge through the intersection to minimize total vehicle delay. Longitudinal trajectory guidance that explicitly accounts for vehicle acceleration and deceleration behavior is provided to the lead autonomous vehicle (AV) in any platoon to minimize the total number of stopping maneuvers performed by all vehicles. Simulation tests reveal that the proposed platoon-based algorithm provides superior computational savings (over 95%) compared with a previously developed algorithm that focuses on optimizing departure sequences of individual vehicles, with negligible changes in operational performance. The computational savings allow the platoon-based algorithm to accommodate intersections with four multi-lane approaches and left turns, whereas large computational costs limited the previous vehicle-based algorithm to only two single-lane approaches without conflicting left turns. Additional simulation tests of the platoon-based algorithm on these more realistic intersection configurations show that intersection performance increases as the penetration rate of CAVs in the vehicle fleet increases. However, the marginal benefits decrease rapidly after the fleet is composed of 40% CAVs.

Operational Performance and Lean Healthcare in the Healthcare Sector: Review on the Dimensions and Relationships

Numbers of evidence have shown operational level in the healthcare sector is predicted to make some changes in operational performance that help to improve cost, quality, flexibility, efficiency, effectiveness and other measures of the organization. Further, the implementation of lean healthcare seen as one of the best practices to accelerate productivity growth and facilitated the organizations to eliminate waste. Moreover, it helps to have a better health outcomes, to reach efficiency and optimize resources by improving work processes in the organization. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to discuss the dimensions of operational performance and lean healthcare and hence, to review numerous article on the relationship between lean healthcare and operational performance in the healthcare sector.

New product strategies and firm performance: CEO optimism

We examine the role of CEO optimism in explaining firm performance associated with new product introductions. New product introducing firms with high levels of CEO optimism experience better announcement-period abnormal returns and long-term stock performance than introducers with moderate or low levels of CEO optimism. Changes in abnormal operating performance following new product announcements are also more favorable for firms with high-optimism CEOs than for firms with moderate-optimism or low-optimism CEOs. The results hold after controlling for other potential explanatory factors and accounting for endogeneity. The evidence highlights the importance of CEO optimism in assessing the valuation effect of corporate product strategies.