Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the sensitivity of economic efficiency rankings of water businesses to the choice of alternative physical and accounting capital input measures. Design/methodology/approach: Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to compute efficiency rankings...

Faced by increased globalization, the dissatisfaction of Australian citizens, and a curtailing of spending, the Australian Government has embarked on a major reform agenda centered on new public management ideals to achieve greater economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. A major driver of reform...

In recent years, many companies have adopted the total quality management (TQM) philosophy for achieving organizational excellence. The paper reports on the findings of a case study concerned with appraising TQM practices in the Housing Authority of Fiji (HA). The HA has been set up to provide...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of a major initiative (the National Competition Policy) and pieces of legislation (the Local Government Act and the Local Government Finance Standards) on the internal practices of a large Australian local authority....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a study of performance measurement and reporting practices of four government departments in Australia. Design/methodology/approach – Relying on the “context” and “content” aspects of the institutional and strategic choice...