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Business performance management describes the processes, methodologies, metrics and systems needed to measure and manage the performance of an enterprise. Traditional performance management systems were based on financial and productivity measures but the alternate measures proposed in last more 25 years have strategic focus and incorporate variety of performance measures such as efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, innovation and employee satisfaction in addition to financial. Globalization and modernization have created a business environment uncertain with associated risks which has necessitated the incorporation of various types of flexibilities such as strategic, technical, operational, information system (IS), etc. Critical success factors and implementation issues also need to be incorporated to succeed. The purpose of this paper is to present the strategic performance management system (SPMS) designed, incorporating flexibility and implementation issues, and its effectiveness empirically validated from Indian oil industry.

Based on literature review and gaps identified, a proposed model of enterprise performance management system incorporating flexibility, critical success factors and implementation issues was developed. Macro- and micro-level factors impacting the effectiveness of the model were identified, and hypotheses were developed and tested empirically from the survey study of Indian oil industry.

The finding met, by and large, most of the research objectives. In total, 7 macro- and 11 micro-level factors came out from the study. The strategy planning, strategy implementation, strategic flexibility (SF), SPMS design, information system flexibility (IF) flexibility, implementation issues and critical success factors, and performance feedback and learning are the macro-level factors impacting the SPMS effectiveness in measuring and managing performance of an enterprise. The SPMS implementation issues have proved to be major driver of effectiveness.

The research like many such researches had limited resources, data availability and bias of respondents. However, the model was statistically validated for its reliability and hypothesis testing. The research has added to literature on SPMS as integrated model incorporated SF, information flexibility and critical success factors. However, the effect of other types of flexibilities such as organizational, operational, HR, marketing, etc., and other stakeholders should also be studied in future research to broaden the findings.

The validated SPMS has practical implications for academics and researchers. Strategic and IF, and critical success factors have been incorporated in the integrated model to take care of business uncertainties so that it is strategically aligned and facilitate in effective SPMS use and implementation.

Though it has no direct social implication but, if adopted for social projects and not-for-profit organizations, it will have social benefits of efficient and effectiveness delivery of social projects and initiatives.

This is an original work carried out by the authors. The validated model along with interpretation is presented.

To develop a fuzzy causal model of enterprise flexibility dimensions in a case study of Indian pharmaceutical industry.

The eight dimensions of enterprise flexibility were identified based on literature review. Fermatean fuzzy decision-making trail and evaluation laboratory (FF-DEMATEL) technique is applied to develop the cause-and-effect interrelationship model among various enterprise flexibility dimensions.

The information technology flexibility, supply chain flexibility, technical flexibility and marketing flexibility are found to be causing/influencing other flexibilities and contributing to overall enterprise flexibilities. Therefore, more attention needs to be paid to develop and sustain them for competitive advantage.

Fermatean fuzzy sets offer more flexibility and more accurate handling complex uncertain group decision making. FF-DEMATEL is a more accurate method to develop inter-dependencies and causal model than ISM, TISM. Ratings from the limited number of decision experts (DEs) from few pharmaceutical firms were done. Future study should take bigger sample of firms and more number of DEs to generalize the findings.

The model will help managers in pharmaceutical industry to prioritize the dimensions of enterprise flexibility to achieve agility, responsiveness, resilience and competitive advantage.

To the best knowledge of the authors, causal modeling enterprise flexibility dimensions using FF-DEMATEL has been studied for the first time in a developing economy context.

This paper aims to select key criteria for sustainable vendor assessment and spare-parts supplies in the Indian petroleum refining sector using stochastic fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (SFTOPSIS).

The criteria for sustainable vendor evaluation and selection are identified from the review of the literature and further; it is finalized using the Delphi method. Eight supply chain (SC) experts from the Indian petro refining sector were identified as having more than five years of experience and agreed to participate in this study (known as decision-makers (DM)). Five vendors supplying spare-parts are shortlisted from the market with the discussion and consent of procurement experts from petroleum refineries. Subsequently, criteria and vendors are rated based on relative importance in linguistic terms from the group of eight DMs. As ratings involve uncertainties in the decision-making, the SFTOPSIS method is applied to determine criteria weight and vendor ranking at a distinct significance level (α). The ranking of the vendors is obtained for sustainable supply of spare-parts in the Indian petro refining sector using the SFTOPSIS method.

The ranking of sustainable vendors is obtained through the integrated application of the fuzzy and stochastic approach to capture the uncertainties in the ratings of DMs. The sensitivity analysis is carried out at distinct confidence limits of a normal distribution to obtain a robust ranking of the vendors. In this paper, a case application of SFTOPSIS in the Indian petro refining sector is presented in which key criteria and the vendor ranking are found to be changing with confidence limit for sustainable vendor evaluation.

The fuzziness and randomness in relative ratings collects from a group of DMs are taken in the proposed methodology. The distinct approaches are compared with changing significance-level under stochastic, fuzzy and deterministic TOPSIS to acquire robustness in the ranking. The proposed SFTOPSIS model can be useful to practitioners from the petroleum sector.

The originality of the paper contributes to an application of the SFTOPSIS method that is the extension of FTOPSIS in the petro refining sector of a developing country. The sensitivity analysis with distinct significance-level shows the uncertainties in the collected ratings from the DMs that supports robustness in the ranking. It might be helpful for SC professionals from the petro refining sector, who assess the rank of the vendors at different confidence limits for sustainable supply of spare-parts. Further research in the petroleum industry from emerging economies needs to be undertaken to broaden its scope and applicability.

The decision-making to outsource and select the most suitable global manufacturing outsourcing partner (MOP) is complex and uncertain due to multiple conflicting qualitative and quantitative criteria as well as multiple alternatives. Vagueness and variability exist in ratings of criteria and alternatives by group of decision-makers (DMs). The paper provides a novel Stochastic Fuzzy (SF) method for evaluation and selection of agile and sustainable global MOP in uncertain and volatile business environment.

Four main selection criteria for global MOP selection were identified such as economic, agile, environmental and social criteria. Total 16 sub-criteria were selected. To consider the vagueness and variability in ratings by group of DMs, SF method using t-distribution or z-distribution was adopted. The criteria weights were determined using the Stochastic Fuzzy-CRiteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (SF-CRITIC), while MOP selection was carried out using Stochastic Fuzzy-VIseKriterijumskaOptimizacija I KompromisnoResenje (SF-VIKOR) in the case study of footwear industry. Sensitivity analysis was performed to test the robustness of the proposed model. A comparative analysis of SF-VIKOR and VIKOR was made.

The worker’s wages and welfare, product price, product quality, green manufacturing process and collaboration with partners are the most important criteria for MOP selection. The MOP3 was found to be the best agile and sustainable global MOP for the footwear company. In sensitivity analysis, significance level is found to have important role in MOP ranking. Hence, the study concluded that integrated SF-CRITIC and SF-VIKOR is an improved method for MOP selection problem.

In a group decision-making, ambiguity, impreciseness and variability are found in relative ratings. Fuzzy variant Multi-Criteria Decision-Making methods cover impreciseness in ratings but not the variability. On the other hand, deterministic models do not cover either. Hence, the stochastic method based on the probability theory combining fuzzy theory is proposed to deal with decision-making problems in imprecise and uncertain environments. Most notably, the proposed model has novelty as it captures and reveals both the stochastic perspective and the fuzziness perspective in rating by group of DMs.

The proposed multi-criteria group decision-making model contributes to the sustainable and agile footwear supply chain management and will help the policymakers in selecting the best global MOP.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, SF method has not been used to select MOP in the existing literature. For the first time, integrated SF-CRITIC and SF-VIKOR method were applied to select the best agile and sustainable MOP under uncertainty. Unlike other studies, this study considered agile criteria along with triple bottom line sustainable criteria for MOP selection. The novel method of SF assessment contributes to the literature and put forward the managerial implication for improving agility and sustainability of global manufacturing outsourcing in footwear industry.

Recognising the shortage of research investigating the effect of individual characteristics in cross-border entrepreneurship, this study models the dimensions of personal values as predictors of international entrepreneurship. Also, noting the paucity of evidence on the influence of ethnicity and gender in the personal values and international entrepreneurship nexus, the study undertakes a multi-group analysis to clarify the moderating effects of these social antecedents in the context of Mauritius.

Cross-sectional data from Mauritius is examined using a sample of 504 students spread across six universities. The analysis takes a structural equation modelling approach.

The results show that, comparing the distinct personal values dimensions, international entrepreneurship has a positive association with self-enhancement and openness to change. Furthermore, it has a non-significant relationship with self-transcendence and a negative connection with conservation. Also, the multi-group analyses revealed significant differences in the individual correlations across gender and ethnic categories.

Building on emerging empirical interest in the literature, this study presents novel evidence of the link between personal values and international entrepreneurial intention in the context of Mauritius. Additionally, examining the moderating influence of ethnicity and gender in the personal values, international entrepreneurship nexus advances current literature. On a practical level, the study offers insights to universities and other stakeholders tasked with nurturing international entrepreneurial behaviour among students to contemplate personal and social antecedents and, accordingly, adapt their entrepreneurship pedagogy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine managerial efficiency of the whole population of petrochemical firms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). It also identifies the root causes of inefficiencies and proposes measures to overcome these.

The paper uses the data envelopment analysis approach to measure the managerial efficiency in context of various returns-to-scales. To glean further insights into the sources of inefficiency, the study investigates the extent of utilization of resources by comparing target inputs vis-à-vis the actual inputs used. This provides the authors information about the degree of underutilization of resources as well as an insight into the sources of inefficiency, e.g., those stemming from the managerial or scale of operations.

The findings reveal a great amount of inefficiencies in Saudi petrochemical sector. These inefficiencies arise from both the underutilization of resources as well as the inability of petrochemical firms to run their operations at optimal scales.

The findings of the study allude toward measures that managers might adopt to overcome the issues of inefficiency. They ought to ensure better utilization of resources by running operations of the firms at optimal scales of production. The firms operating under the sub-optimum scales of operations need to revisit their marketing and production strategies. These might take up the form of boosting marketing efforts to win more orders from customers and increasing production volumes that could allow these firms to take advantage of economies of scale.

This paper is a first attempt to measure efficiency of petrochemical sector in KSA which stands as the key contributor to the national exchequer. Since the study consists of the whole population of petrochemical firms in KSA, it measures the “true” managerial efficiency of petrochemical firms in the sector. Further, being a pioneer study on managerial efficiency of petrochemical sector, it extends original contribution to the literature on efficiency of firms, combined with rich insights into sources of inefficiencies.

In this introduction to the special issue, ‘Marxist Thought in South Asia’, we detail the long history of Marxist politics and theorizing in South Asia and highlight the unique contributions and perspectives of South Asian Marxists to global Marxism. Three contributions we find particularly significant are (1) South Asian Marxists' approach to thinking about questions of capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, (2) the treatment of agrarian and feudal continuities in Marxist theories from South Asia and (3) unique South Asian contributions to theorizing caste from a Marxist perspective.

The paper aims to study the implementation issues and managerial practices impacting the success of strategic performance management system in Indian industry. It has been empirically validated in Indian oil industry. As number of companies adopting SPM has not been able to reap benefit of SPM implementation, a study has been conducted to find reasons in Indian industry. The findings are discussed, and implications for researchers and practitioners are provided in this paper. Limitations and suggestions for further research are also given at the end of the paper.

From the literature review, research problem, critical implementation issues and dimensions of effectiveness of the SPM system have been identified. Accordingly research objectives and hypothesis have been designed and tested by conducting survey in Indian oil industry. The hypothesis that implementation issues are positively impacting the effectiveness parameters of SPM system has been empirically validated using univariate, correlation analysis and multi-variate analyses, t-test, F-test and regression analysis. The validated model has been presented.

A number of critical implementation issues are positively impacting different dimensions of the SPM system effectiveness. SPM managerial/implementation issues such as the use of SPM by top management, selection of right and adequate performance measures, SPM implementation by champions, the use of SPM as a strategic tool, quality and flow of data, incentive scheme aligned with SPM and good organisational acceptance of SPM are critical implementation issues of SPM which affect different dimensions, viz., strategic alignment, strategic monitoring, financial, customer, internal process and learning objectives of the enterprise.

The objective was to study SPM implementation issues and its impact of SPM effectiveness. Indian oil industry being early adopters of the advance SPM methodology and tools, has been chosen for the study and empirical validation. The validated model provides a better insight on the linkages of SPM implementation factors with different dimensions of SPM to researchers and practitioners. The validated model can be help tool in SPM implementation, making SPM a success in driving performance improvements in the organisations. Though recommendations are general, a comparatively large sample size across different industries and sectors combining quantitative and qualitative study would further enhance the utility and reliability of the model.

The validated model provides guidelines to practicing managers on critical implementation and managerial issues to be taken care of in the SPM system implementation.

The research problem has been identified based on literature review. Research objectives and hypotheses have been framed and empirically validated. It provides insight of the effect of implementation issues on different dimensions of SPM effectiveness. The study has filled the research gap of such a study in Indian industries. The validated model provides guidelines to practitioners and researchers and contributes to the literature.

This paper aims to estimate the cost efficiency scores of banks in KSA before and during financial crisis by using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach.

The study uses the intermediation approach of banking services where banks are considered as manufacturing units. The research methodology consists of cost efficiency DEA and a second stage Tobit regression model.

The results reveal that banks in KSA are least affected by the crisis as the efficiency scores remain the same during all the periods. However, the average levels of inefficiency remain higher suggesting that KSA banks are lagging behind in exploiting the resources fully. The major source of cost inefficiency stems from allocative inefficiency rather than the technical one. Results of the Tobit regression also disclose that the impact of financial crisis across bank efficiency remains weak and inconclusive.

The study bears some useful managerial implications for various stakeholders. Although banks do not seem to be affected by the crisis, yet they need to improve their efficiency since the levels are far below the frontier. For successful existence and growth of banking, it remains vital that these banks control their costs regardless of the fact are operating in a concentrated market.

The paper suggests that the banks in KSA need to bring down their operating expenses to reach the efficiency frontier. The average level of inefficiency (82 per cent) reflects a greater amount of input waste which needs to be controlled by these banks.

The study is novel in a way that it evaluates the cost efficiency performance of KSA banks before and during the financial crisis, followed by a second stage regression on the determinants of cost efficiency. It provides valuable insights to both the bank managers and public policy makers who can look for the optimal levels of efficiency and competitiveness of Saudi banking sector.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the data envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency scores and Malmquist productivity indices of banks in Saudi Arabia, an economy that is heavily dependant on the hydrocarbon sector.

The paper adopts the intermediation approach of banking services where financial institutions like banks are perceived to be manufacturing units, employing inputs such as interest and non‐interest expenses to produce outputs such as net interest and non‐interest incomes. The research methodology is comprised of the DEA and Malmquist productivity index (MPI) as a measure of change in total factor productivity, reflecting industry's performance over time.

The results on MPI reflect an improvement in average productivity of banks. However, the major increase in productivity gains emerged through technological change relative to the efficiency change. The banks across the Kingdom appear to have succeeded in catching up with the best practices, even though the average scores on technical efficiency (TE) stood beyond optimal levels.

The question, whether small banks are more productive and efficient vis‐à‐vis large banks, remains unanswered. Likewise, to what extent the changes in oil prices and revenues affect the efficiency and productivity of banks, a second‐stage regression of efficiency on oil prices and revenues along with other variables would help in calculating the degree of impact. However, these are the agenda for subsequent research.

The banks in Saudi Arabia need to rationalize their costs to line up across the efficiency frontiers.

The paper manages to explore the critical issues of TE and productivity changes across the banking sector in Saudi Arabia. It provides valuable insights to both the bank executives and public policy makers, who are seeking for improvements in efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness across the banking sector in the Kingdom.