Performance Contract and Performance Evaluation of State-Owned Enterprises: Insights from the Goal Setting Theory

Performance contract (PC) is one of the initiatives under the impulse of reforming State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to among other things, ensure improved SOE performance. Studies however show mixed results in relation to improved SOE performance, and the general perception is that targets in PCs are not challenging enough. Drawing on the goal setting theory, this article provides further theoretical explanations for the application and impact of PCs using evidence from Ghana, the first Anglophone nation in Africa to adopt and implement the PC reform programmes. Relying primarily on data from PCs, SOE evaluation reports, and interviews, findings suggest that the quality of targets in PCs has been improving over the years. Moreover, the goal setting theory element, commitment, is crucial to achieving desirable outcome from PC as a performance evaluation tool.

The analytic index of elliptic pseudodifferential operators on a singular foliation

In previous papers ([1, 2]) we defined the C*-algebra and the longitudinal pseudodifferential calculus of any singular foliation (M,). In the current paper we construct the analytic index of an elliptic operator as a KK-theory element, and prove that this element can be obtained from an “adiabatic foliation” on M×ℝ, which we introduce here.

Structure and Coherence of Two-Model-Descriptions of Technical Artefacts

A technical artefact is often described in two ways: by means of a physicalistic model of its structure and dynamics, and by a functional account of the contributions of the components of the artefact to its capacities. These models do not compete, as different models of the same phenomenon in physics usually do; they supplement each other and cohere. Coherence is shown to be the result of a mapping of role-contributions on physicalistic relations that is brought about by the concept of function. It results a sandwich-like structure of the two models, which can be reconstructed as a two-sorted theory element.