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This paper aims to explore the use of best practice benchmarking in civil aviation.

Evidence was gathered from two international questionnaire surveys of the top 200 airlines and the top 200 airports. Supplementary evidence included interviews with airline and airport managers.

The profile of responses was a good match to the samples. Benchmarking was identified as the most used performance improvement technique for both airlines and airports. Larger airlines were more likely to engage in benchmarking. Ease of usage and the cost relative to other performance improvement techniques were important factors in determining benchmarking uptake. Problems of data comparability and competitive sensitivity were raised. Airports had a greater tendency to concentrate on benchmarking with similar organisations and placed a relatively greater emphasis on its use for performance measurement over process improvement.

Further research should include a sample of detailed case studies to investigate exactly how different airlines and airports are using benchmarking.

Performance measurement has become increasingly important in aviation as markets become more competitive and the number of asymmetric shocks seems to increase.

The surveys revealed a very high utilisation of benchmarking, although a range of activities were actually being undertaken under the banner of benchmarking. The high uptake of benchmarking is probably due, to the turbulent nature of civil aviation that has placed significant economic pressures on managers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the process benefits and findings of a functional benchmarking exercise. It explores the issues surrounding the potential introduction of a direct employee car parking financial incentive or disincentive measure at an airport, drawing on best practice from specific non‐airport organisations.

A case study approach is taken in which three different organisations are considered from a functional benchmarking perspective.

There are direct findings in terms of how to develop employee parking strategies/policies.

This paper adds to the practical literature on functional benchmarking by presenting evidence from a benchmarking exercise of three case study organisations.

There are practical findings in terms of the potential benefits and limitations from a functional benchmarking exercise. There are also practical recommendations in terms of organisations seeking to develop and implement staff car parking strategies.

The paper provides an illustration of functional benchmarking in practice.

To provide an overview of the current attitudes and practical experience of airport benchmarking.

A range of benchmarking studies are critiqued. The paper considers the partial performance measures which are used from an economic, operational and environmental perspective. It also investigates more complex modelling approaches which have been undertaken to gain greater insight into an airport's overall performance. In addition an assessment is made of the role of benchmarking in airport regulation.

The paper finds that benchmarking techniques have become well established in recent years within the airport sector. However there is still some way to go in overcoming some of the problems that inhibit effective benchmarking on a truly international basis.

The paper focuses on methodological issues and does not discuss the findings of research in this area.

A very useful source of information for all researchers in academia and industry who wish to use airport benchmarking techniques.

The paper provides a comprehensive and unique review of the benchmarking techniques currently in use for airports.

This paper aims to propose and assess a core set of environmental and operational sustainability indicators for airport benchmarking, based on research conducted for a decision support tool designed to support airport environmental and operational sustainability. Seeks to make recommendations on the external use of sustainability indicators in stakeholder communication, based on a separate survey of the way in which UK airports use environmental and sustainability benchmarking reports.

The indicators are designed to minimise additional data collection demands while reflecting sustainability theory to a practicable extent.

Bringing core environmental and operational indicators together helps to make their inter‐relationship explicit. The indicators are a minimum set, and their limitations with respect to sustainability are made explicit.

Reports on a survey of the current extent of, and approaches to, stakeholder communication undertaken by airports in the UK, particularly external use of environmental and sustainability benchmarking results.

This paper aims to present the findings of an investigation into environmental reporting practice in the airline sector.

Evidence was gathered from an international survey of 272 IATA Airlines. Responses accounted 65 per cent of the world's scheduled passenger traffic. Reports were assessed against a framework developed by UK's Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants.

The paper demonstrates that, despite an increase in the availability of quantitative data and some consistency in the use of key performance indicators, comparing social and environmental performance across the airline sector is fraught with difficulties. Variations in the exact definitions of the indicators used and the suite of functions embraced by the term “airline” are identified as fundamental obstacles to effective sector benchmarking.

Insight into an understanding of some of the pros and cons of comparisons between airline environmental performance data.

The research highlights the limitations of inter airline comparisons regarding environmental data and confirms the need for environmental and social impacts to be reported in a more standardised manner in order to facilitate meaningful dialogue with stakeholders in communities adjacent to airports.

This paper aims to describe the processes used to ensure that the comparisons made between airport and airline performance are as meaningful as possible, and to highlight a number of issues which need to be considered when making performance comparisons in aviation.

Evidence was gathered from an international data sample of airports and airlines. Operational and financial data was derived from published reports.

The research illustrates the scale of differences in airport performance levels, and it also highlights the considerable difference in performance levels between airports and airlines. It is clear that many factors can impact on an airport's ability to optimise its performance, and on its relative level of performance when compared to its peers.

The research highlights and demonstrates the need for a degree of understanding of contextual factors when comparing airport performance measures with each other and when comparing airline performance.

Insight into the process by which airport and airline performance measurements can be compared with each other.

To describe and analyse the adoption of economic value added (EVA) income as a benchmark for setting pricing and other policies of a monopolistic state‐owned enterprise in the absence of normal benchmarking mechanisms.

By earning zero economic value added profits the enterprise earns its cost of capital and escapes claims of monopolistic pricing and possible regulation. To test the success of this policy the financial series of the enterprise are developed from the date of incorporation in 1989 along with the economic value added series. The normal accounting profits are compared with the value added results. The value added results are used as a proxy for the pricing and other operational decisions of the firm that are not directly observable. The validity of the economic value added approach to provide a suitable benchmark is examined.

Provides evidence that the enterprise was successful in avoiding charges of monopolistic pricing and subsequent regulation by linking pricing and other policies to its economic results. This was in a period when similar enterprises were regulate or threatened with regulation. The economic environment in the later years of the study have changed the goals of the enterprise.

This is a case study, so the success of this New Zealand based enterprise in benchmarking its policies to economic value added cannot be generalised to other companies and environments.

Provides a useful way to benchmark profits where a monopoly position may attract regulation. It also provides a system of benchmarking if other industry information is not available.

This paper identifies a unique position where the objective was to minimise economic income, rather than the usual goal of income maximisation.

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of organizational identity through an analysis of shared identity narratives at the UK‐based specialist tour operator Laskarina Holidays.

Predicated on a view of organizations as linguistic constructs, it is argued that individual and collective identities are narrative accomplishments, and that organizations tend often to be characterised by identity multiplicity.

A case study is presented featuring three distinctive but interwoven collective identity narratives (which are labelled “utilitarian”, “normative” and “hedonic”), and these are contrasted with some “dissonant” voices. It is argued that change in organizations is, at least in part, constituted by alterations in people's understandings, encoded in narratives, and shared in conversations.

The research contribution that this paper makes is twofold. First, it makes an argument for theorizing organizational identities as narratives, constituted within discursive regimes, and continuously changing as they are created and re‐created by all participants. Second, it suggests that the narratological approach to theorizing and researching organizational identities is important because it both assists one's efforts to analyze identities as the outcomes of processes of hegemonic imposition and resistance, and allows one to read polysemy back into ethnographic research.