Key performance indicators for measuring performance of facilities management services in hotel buildings: a study from Sri Lanka

Purpose The concept of facilities management (FM) has been acknowledged as a novel avenue brought in to ensure productivity and customer satisfaction in the Sri Lankan hotel industry. Accordingly, performance measurement (PM) has become a crucial entity, where key performance indicators (KPIs) have become the most important instruments of PM in determining how well these FM services are performing. Unfortunately, nowadays, the service quality of hotel buildings has significantly retreated due to the absence of a proper PM system with relevant KPIs. Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify relevant KPIs to measure the performance of the FM services in Sri Lankan hotel buildings. Design/methodology/approach A mixed approach was used to conduct this study. Data were gathered through expert interviews and an expert survey. The expert interviews were conducted to identify the relevancy of KPIs that are discovered through literature review to the Sri Lankan context, and the expert survey was conducted to identify their level of importance. Collected data were analysed using content and statistical data analysis methods. Findings Empirical findings revealed that a PM system with relevant KPIs can be identified as a crucial requirement for FM services in hotel buildings in Sri Lanka to meet the customer needs successfully. Adequate and relevant KPIs are significantly vital for an effective PM system for FM services. Thus, ultimately, 68 most important KPIs have been captured amongst the generally identified KPIs, which can be used in developing a proper PM system to measure the performance of FM services in hotel buildings. Originality/value The previous studies have just focused on the PM in FM services in a general manner where a significant dearth in existing knowledge can be identified when it comes to exploring relevant KPIs for an effective PM system to be implemented in hotel buildings in Sri Lanka to measure the performance of FM services. Accordingly, the current study unveils the most important KPIs, which can be used in measuring the performance of FM services in hotel buildings. The study recommends the use of a proper PM system with identified KPIs by respective industry practitioners to enrich the performance of FM services in hotel buildings in Sri Lanka and thereby achieve the ultimate goals successfully.

Climate Adaptation as Organizational Learning: A Grounded Theory Study on Manufacturing Companies in a Bavarian Region

Climate adaptation supports organizations in dealing with the current and projected effects of climate change by recognizing challenges as opportunities and increasing their economic efficiency. Based on the regional climate model REMO and 13 expert interviews with representatives from mainly manufacturing companies analyzed by the Grounded Theory methodology, this contribution aims to outline actual and future challenges of climate adaptation in the investigated region. We analyze how manufacturing companies respond to climate change and assess the main promoters and barriers of organizational learning in the context of climate adaptation. The expert interviews confirm the importance for companies of having a concrete business case for any strategies and of increasingly making their processes and manufacturing more transparent, through supply chain assessments. In accordance, a focus on strategic management levels is crucial for organizational learning processes as they are responsible for development, mobilization of resources and realization of adaptation concepts.

The grand return of the troops

The aim of this paper is to fill the geographical gap in the literature about the militarization of COVID-19 through a comparative exploration of how the pandemic was handled in militarized ways in Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Drawing from official government and military statements, media articles, and expert interviews with defense intellectuals, we examine two interconnected areas – that of discourse and that of military domestic assistance. By viewing the developments through the lens of militarization and military-society relations scholarship, we argue that rather than serving as a ‘portal’ for civilian resilience, the pandemic constituted an unprecedented ‘return of the troops’ to Visegrad states and societies in terms of its size, scope, and duration, thus strengthening the pressure for re-militarization in the region that has been recorded in the last decade. The paper presents a number of analytical findings: first, it identifies the emerging gap between right-wing populist rhetoric that relied on warspeak and the human-centered communication of the armed forces; second, it reveals that military domestic assistance functioned as a military ‘band aid’ on systemic vulnerabilities, as well as incidentally converged with illiberal patterns of governance; third, it shows how the pandemic aided re-militarizing pressures, resulting in a significant boost to the defense sector, a positive public opinion about the armed forces, and military-society relations.

Challenges Posed to Social Youth Organisations in the Fields of Security and Rescue

In Poland, it is possible to observe a lack of comprehensive solutions to the problem related to the co-existence of youth rescue organisations in the system of local security, namely: the solutions which would legalise involvement of such organisations in emergency situations and which would indicate the role that such entities could play in prevention. In the paper presented below, the Author poses the following questions: What are the contemporary challenges and expectations of youth rescue organisations? What activities in the fields of security and rescue could be developed by social rescue organisations to use their potential and to improve the level of security? It is possible to expect that the development of some particular fields of activity will contribute to the improvement in the efficiency of social organisations and the impact they have on the level of local security. It can be achieved by the promotion of pro-social behaviour in the fields of security and rescue among young people, local communities and self-government authorities to form the civil society. In order to meet challenges and expectations of youth rescue organisations, it is necessary to provide young people with broader participation in social organisations, to improve the attractiveness of such entities through systemic and financial support, along with social and education base. To provide a solution to the research problem, the Author has applied the method of a diagnostic survey in the form of expert interviews with people involved into activities undertaken by youth rescue organisations.

Audiovisual policy transfer between Mercosur and the European Union has gone offtrack

This article analyses the Audiovisual Mercosur Program as a case of policy transfer between Mercosur and the European Union. A qualitative document analysis, expert interviews and the use of policy transfer theory and its constraints made possible the critical evaluation of the program and its impacts. By focusing on the constraints that led to an incomplete and uninformed transfer, we were able to identify an alignment between the underlying ideas of audiovisual policies in Mercosur and the European Union, but also inadequate governance within Mercosur, unbalanced interests between the two trade blocks, and a lack of policy learning. As a result, the transfer of European Union policies reproduced well-documented failures of the European Union's internal market policies relating to the audiovisual sector.

Infrastructural Breaks on the Road from Birth to Death in Contemporary Russia

This paper addresses the problem of infrastructural breaks in two systems—the funeral market and maternity care. The authors analytically problematize how dysfunctions in the operation of these infrastructures shape the experiences of funeral and childbirth in contemporary Russia. The authors propose the conceptual model of the ‘rite of passage’, supplemented with the sociology of repair joint with the anthropology of infrastructures. Based on the ethnographic studies of the funeral market and maternity care (2015–2019), the authors uncover multiple infrastructural gaps and challenges that Russian families face while preparing for childbirth and funeral, especially in remote areas of the country. Empirical data of participant observations, in-depth and expert interviews demonstrated that continuous infrastructural failures can be considered to be an integral part of these life-cycle rituals, as both burial and maternity care arrangements never happen smoothly and unproblematically. In conclusion, the authors argue that necessity of “repairing” or patching the infrastructural gaps obtains self-sufficient symbolic meanings that possess ontological features.