Today more than ever, Toyota continues to be studied by scholars and professionals that are interested to understand how a handful of people that formed the early Toyoda family succeeded in setting one of the one world’s greatest manufacturers. It took decades of hard work, innovation and a unique philosophy to turn what was first a small manufacturer of looms used in the textile industry into a champion in the more competitive and tough automotive global market.
The most recent report of global sovereign credit risk for the 3rd Quarter of 2010 presents the country rating based on the Cumulative Probability of Default (CPD), indicating the probability of a country being unable to honour its debt obligations over a given time period. CPD is calculated using an industry standard model and proprietary credit data from CMA Datavision TM. Reference to ‘risky’ is purely in terms of the probability of default derived from the price of the CDS (CMA, 2010).
In his latest paper, Dr. Andre A. de Waal, the academic director at the Center for Organizational Performance based in the Netherlands, presents a framework to analyze the similar characteristics and factors of High Performance Organisations (HPO). The study conducted, The characteristics of a High Performance Organisation, was based on a systematic review of the literature, through the analysis of 290 selected studies, these being summarized by three researchers.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) haveparticular characteristics (such as limited resources, strong personal influence of the owner-manager etc.) that make the management of their operations and strategy different from those of large corporations. Oftentimes strategy is not that well-articulated, processes are not that configured and there are not so many standards and management procedures.
A recent post, ‘Social and Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions‘, outlined that Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are strongly associated with a social mission, therefore MFIs performance focuses both on social impact and financial outcomes (smartKPIs.com, 2010).
