Carmine Bianchi

Operational and financial effectiveness of e-collaboration tools in supply chain integration

Abstract This paper develops a comprehensive model of supply chain integration and uses it to analyze and assess the operational and financial effectiveness of different e-collaboration tools at various levels of supply chain integration. This model is also used to evaluate the importance of the sequence in which e-collaboration tools are adopted in supply chain integration. Computational results from a validated system dynamics simulation model with different implementation sequences of e-collaboration tools and different financial scenarios show that local financial constraints can also severely impact operational and financial performance of the entire supply chain.

Drivers and dynamic processes for SMEs going global

Purpose – Many, if not most, small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are subject to the impacts of globalisation. This article seeks to explore the extra dimension of challenge to their already difficult environments when they have to venture into the world‐trade system.Design/methodology/approach – Recent research undertaken separately by Polish, Italian, Norwegian and UK collaborators examined eight case studies of disparate smaller companies with international operations. This article brings together the common features found, and discusses them in terms of structural drivers and dynamic implications.Findings – Research findings include the stretching of capabilities in supporting customers in unfamiliar markets, the internal competition for funds in pursuing multiple international markets, the importance of word‐of‐mouth marketing, and the pressures on R&D functions.Practical implications – The critical importance of balance in smaller enterprises where resources are likely to be tightly constrained ...

Enhancing Performance Management and Sustainable Organizational Growth Through System-Dynamics Modelling

Organizational growth and performance management provide two important research topics for both enterprises and public sector organizations. Improving performance levels, or at least keeping them stable over time, is a hot topic not only for business executives and entrepreneurs, but also for managers and policy makers in public and non-profit institutions. How best to design Planning & Control (P&C) systems to support organizational performance management and assessment in a sustainability perspective? This paper illustrates the need for a methodological framework that would link system dynamics to P&C systems so as to support decision-makers in managing organizational performance, as well as to foster sustainable growth and monitor crisis prevention. The need for this conceptual framework is discussed in the paper.

Performance analysis of the closed loop supply chain

PurposeThe question of resource scarcity and emerging pressure of environmental legislations has brought a new challenge for the manufacturing industry. On the one hand, there is a huge population that demands a large quantity of commodities; on the other hand, these demands have to be met by minimum resources and pollution. Resource conservative manufacturing (ResCoM) is a proposed holistic concept to manage these challenges. The successful implementation of this concept requires cross functional collaboration among relevant fields, and among them, closed loop supply chain is an essential domain. The paper aims to highlight some misconceptions concerning the closed loop supply chain, to discuss different challenges, and in addition, to show how the proposed concept deals with those challenges through analysis of key performance indicators (KPI).MethodsThe work presented in this paper is mainly based on the literature review. The analysis of performance of the closed loop supply chain is done using system dynamics, and the Stella software has been used to do the simulation.FindingsThe results of the simulation depict that in ResCoM; the performance of the closed loop supply chain is much enhanced in terms of supply, demand, and other uncertainties involved. The results may particularly be interesting for industries involved in remanufacturing, researchers in the field of closed loop supply chain, and other relevant areas.OriginalityThe paper presented a novel research concept called ResCoM which is supported by system dynamics models of the closed loop supply chain to demonstrate the behavior of KPI in the closed loop supply chain.

A comparative analysis of performance management systems: The cases of sicily and North Carolina

Performance management is maturing as an effective organizational approach in public organizations around the world, but the existing models have limitations that must be addressed. The international comparative case study analysis in this article presents policy recommendations and organizational strategies on how regional governments can create more robust performance management systems for higher levels of accountability and transparency in a time of global economic crisis. These include the consideration of organizational structure regarding alignment, control, and culture, the positive impact of performance management legislation, the role of executive leadership, and the need for an informational infrastructure that supports performance management.

Commercial and financial policies in family firms: the small business growth management flight simulator

An interactive learning environment (ILE) was built to reproduce the budgeting process of a small family-owned entrepreneurial firm and to capture how current decisions affect business growth in a longer time horizon. The ILE matches the accounting-related perspective through which spreadsheet-based budgets are drawn up, with the system dynamics (SD) view. Such a goal has been pursued through a connection of traditional Excel spreadsheets with POWERSIM SD models. Playing the SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH MANAGEMENT FLIGHT SIMULATOR allows one to learn how (a) to draw up a budget based on an SD perspective, (b) long-term goals may be affected by current decisions, (c) business/family survival and growth are strongly influenced by current policies, and (d) linking short-to medium-and long-term policies and commercial to financial and equity management issues is critical to business growth.

A dynamic performance management approach to support local strategic planning

In spite of efforts devoted in the last decades to local strategic planning, such field of research and practice has been frequently characterized by a lack of implementation. We argue here that this phenomenon is due to the limitations of the static and linear approach to local strategic planning in fostering the development of common shared view among policy makers on the relevant system’s structure and behavior. By means of a case-study, we illustrate how an approach based on system dynamics modeling applied to Performance Management can be useful to overcome such weaknesses. The proposed approach enhances a better understanding of the causes and effects related to adopted policies, undertaken actions and targeted results. This helps key-players in an area to overcome possible barriers to collaboration, and therefore to adopt a combined “institutional and inter-institutional” perspective of performance.

Applying System Dynamics Modeling To Foster a Cause-and-Effect Perspective in Dealing with Behavioral Distortions Associated with a City’s Performance Measurement Programs

ABSTRACT This paper aims to show how applying system dynamics methodology to performance management can provide a powerful modeling perspective enabling public sector organizations to prevent, detect, and counteract behavioral distortions associated with performance measurement. A dynamic performance management approach is able to support performance management system designers in outlining and implementing a consistent set of measures that can allow public sector decision-makers to pursue sustainable organizational learning and development. This perspective implies a major shift from a static to a dynamic picture of organizational processes and results. It means framing delays between causes and effects, feedback loops, and trade-offs in time and space associated with alternative scenarios. It also means understanding how different policy levers impact the accumulation and depletion of strategic resources over time, and determining how performance drivers affect end results. An exemplar application of this perspective is outlined in relation to municipal crime-control policies. Unintended behavioral consequences generated by the implementation of the CompStat program (New York Police Department) on reward and performance management systems are framed through the “lenses” of dynamic performance management.

Designing dynamic performance management systems to foster SME competitiveness according to a sustainable development perspective: empirical evidences from a case-study

The role of performance management (PM) systems has become crucial for steering small-medium enterprises (SMEs) to successfully compete during the ongoing critical economic transition. To improve decision-maker strategic learning processes, traditional PM frameworks need to be combined with system dynamics (SD) modelling. This paper shows how to design and use a dynamic performance management (DPM) approach to assess and support SMEs competitiveness according to a sustainable development perspective. The emerging framework is applied to a real case of an Italian small business to analyse the empirical effectiveness of the approach hereby suggested.

Performance Management in Local Government: The Application of System Dynamics to Promote Data Use

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how system dynamics can be used to enrich performance management in local government, focusing specifically on how the development of conceptual and simulation system dynamic models can foster a shared view of the relevant system among stakeholders to overcome factors that limit data use. Responding to this purpose, we present a normative case study on how key drivers can be used to foster a shared view of the residential refuse collection system for supporting policy and process changes. A major finding from our research, however, is that performance management cannot overlook the broader forces of citizenship outcomes that impact the community.