Corrado Lo Storto

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of Naples Federico II

In the last decades, evaluating the performance of municipal solid waste (MSW) service has attracted the interest of scholars and policymakers worldwide. This study adopts a generalized directional distance function (GDDF) data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to measure the eco-efficiency of 94 Apulian municipalities providing MSW service over 201...

This paper adopts a meta-frontier non-parametric directional distance function framework to measure the ecoefficiency of municipal solid waste (MSW) services in 258 municipalities in the Apulia region from 2012 to 2016. Model specification includes the operating cost per quantity of waste as input and the per capita quantities of sorted and unsorte...

This paper presents the results of a benchmarking study that compared the efficiency and productivity of 25 oil pipelines in Europe. The Global Malmquist Productivity Index using Slack-Based Measure-Data Envelopment Analysis was calculated to measure productivity changes between 2007 and 2017. Findings may help governments and utility operators to...

Data relative to the water services industry in Italy indicate that there is a serious infrastructure gap between the southern regions and isles and the rest of the country. In these geographical areas, water utilities are provided with substantial public grants from the central and local governments to support investments necessary to mitigate the...

This paper presents an efficiency analysis of the collection of municipal solid waste in Italian provinces between 2010 and 2019. Particularly, the waste service efficiency of the 110 provinces was measured by implementing non-parametric Slack Based Measure Data Envelopment Analysis (SBM-DEA). A dynamic distributional analysis of efficiencies from...

Purpose The main purpose of this study is to carry out an international benchmarking study to compare the performance of land national logistics systems of the 28 EU countries from 2010 to 2017. Land national logistics systems are compared with respect to infrastructure efficiency, logistics quality, and their impact on environment. Design/methodo...

The availability of a modern energy infrastructure is a crucial resource to achieve an effective integration of the energy markets, guarantee the security of energy supply, and meet the EU sustainability targets. Hence, one of the main goals of the national authorities is to develop this infrastructure and keep it fully effective to grasp the great...

The scope of this work is to present a comprehensive approach to analyze the effectiveness-efficiency nexus in the evaluation of the performance of municipal solid waste (MSW) management. The rate of separate MSW collection is used to measure service effectiveness. A multiple set of non-parametric indicators is employed to obtain measurements of te...

This paper presents a dynamic efficiency study of the solid waste management in the municipalities of the Apulia region (Southern Italy). The study employs the non-parametric Global Malmquist Index to measure the change in productivity of the municipal solid waste service from 2010 to 2017. Three different DEA-based models are implemented to measur...

This paper presents a productivity analysis of municipal solid waste collection in Italian provinces from 2010 to 2019. Particularly, the total factor productivity was measured by computing the non-parametric Global Malmquist Productivity Index implementing Slack Based Measure Data Envelopment Analysis (SBM-DEA). Findings show that the productivity...

In 1994 the Galli Law started an in-depth transformation of the Italian urban water industry in search for a better performance. However, after more than two decades, there is still much debate about the appropriateness of the regulatory framework. This paper contributes to this debate carrying out an efficiency analysis of the Italian urban water...

In consideration of the three pillars of sustainability, alongside the environment, social andeconomic dimensions interplay valuable insight into how society is molded and what key componentsshould be considered. In terms of social sustainability, there are processes and framework objectivesthat promote wellbeing integral to the balance of people,...

This paper employs Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA) to measure the municipality performance. The NDEA approach allows to have a more comprehensive evaluation of the municipality performance if compared to traditional DEA. The proposed NDEA model aims at shedding new light on the efficiency-effectiveness relationship in the provision of soci...

In consideration of the three pillars of sustainability, alongside the environment, social and economic dimensions interplay valuable insight into how society is molded and what key components should be considered. In terms of social sustainability, there are processes and framework objectives that promote wellbeing integral to the balance of peopl...

This paper presents a framework to identify critical nodes of a gas pipeline network. This framework calculates a set of metrics typical of the social network analysis considering the topological characteristics of the network. Such metrics are utilized as inputs and outputs of a (Data Envelopment Analysis) DEA model to generate a cross-efficiency...

The collection of urban waste is an important step of the waste management cycle, because the collection of sorted waste that soon separates different kind of materials makes their reusing, recovering, and recycling easier and more efficient, reducing the amount of landfilled waste. In Italy, municipalities have to meet specific targets relative to...

Ownership, business models and operational efficiency: a non-parametric analysis of Italian airports This paper reports the results of an empirical study which investigated whether some heterogeneities affect the performance of the airport industry in Italy. Sample includes 45 Italian airports. Heterogeneities are assumed to be induced by the owne...

This paper measures the efficiency of Italian airports using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Particularly, the efficiency of an airport is evaluated at three different stages of its cost-revenue production cycle (CRPC), i.e. cost-operations-revenue stages, while network-slack based measure DEA (NSBM-DEA) is adopted to generate efficiency measureme...

During the last decade, the worldwide consumption of natural gas has been considerably growing and an increasing number of countries are importing large amounts of gas from the international market being unable to meet demand through domestic supply. Italy and Ukraine are two countries where the natural gas industry has a critical importance to the...

This paper presents a benchmarking study of the water and wastewater industry in Italy. A three-stage modeling approach was implemented to measure the efficiency of 53 utility operators. This approach is based on the implementation of network and conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) to model the production process of the water service utili...

This paper presents a study aimed at measuring the efficiency of the transmission segment of the US natural gas industry from an economic perspective. The gas transmission infrastructure is modeled as an economic production function and a multi-stage modeling approach based on the implementation of Data Envelopment Analysis is employed to obtain an...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodological framework that combines several data envelopment analysis (DEA) models to deal with the problem of evaluating and ranking advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) without introducing any subjectivity in the analysis. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology follows a two-phas...

This paper investigates the role of the different ownership types of operators in the Italian airport sector. A metafrontier conceptualization is utilized to consider ownership heterogeneity and compare airport efficiencies. Efficiencies are measured from multiple perspectives. Cluster analysis is adopted to uncover airport configurations with resp...

This paper illustrates a benchmarking study concerning the healthcare systems in 32 European countries as of 2011 and 2014. Particularly, this study proposes a two-dimensional approach (efficiency/effectiveness models) to evaluate the performance of national healthcare systems. Data Envelopment Analysis has been adopted to compute two performance i...

This paper implements Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to calculate an index to measure efficiency of healthcare systems, and combine together a number of health quality indices to develop an effectiveness index. These performance measurements are used to conduct a benchmarking study relative to 32 European countries in 2011 and 2014. The study show...

Measuring efficiency in the utilization of public resources has become one major concern of national and regional governments, both in developed and underdeveloped countries. The objective of this paper is to present the results of a benchmarking study that measured efficiency of the national healthcare systems in 31 European countries, from 2011 t...

In the last decade the renewable energy facilities have become very important for generating electricity in Europe. Estimating the production efficiency of renewable energy industry is thus a major concern of governments. This paper implements Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure efficiency in the generation of electricity from renewable sour...

This paper proposes a non-parametric procedure to classify suppliers. The procedure adopts a peeling approach and Data Envelopment Analysis-game cross efficiency (DEA-GXE) method to group a set of suppliers into classes. In DEA-GXE each supplier is seen as a player competing in an uncooperative environment, seeking to maximize efficiency under the...

Structured abstract Purpose To present an objective decision-making framework and conduct a benchmarking study in the air cargo industry. Design/methodology/approach The decision-making framework and benchmarking methodology evaluates the aircraft value for money (VfM) as a benefit-to-cost ratio calculated adopting a measure of relative efficiency...

This paper presents a cross-country benchmarking study of natural gas distribution to final consumers and compares two samples of companies in Italy and Ukraine. A 2-stage DEA procedure calculating efficiency of gas providers and identifying critical context factors and policy issues that affect it is implemented. Both countries are low performing...

A methodological framework based on the implementation of the Fuzzy Cognitive Map method was developed to investigate the organization cognitive practices and social behaviors in the technical problem-solving activity. The framework was implemented in a real case to elicit expert knowledge and generate a cognitive map useful to describe the technic...

An index to compare supercomputers is proposed in the study. This index is based on the concept of technical efficiency and is developed adopting a non-parametric technique, e.g. Data Envelopment Analysis. The index is used to calculate the technical efficiency of 500 high-performing computing systems listed in the TOP500 supercomputers database. F...

In this paper, a method is proposed to calculate a comprehensive index that calculates the ecological efficiency of a city by combining together the measurements provided by some Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) cross-efficiency models using the Shannon’s entropy index. The DEA models include non-discretionary uncontrollable inputs, desirable and un...

This paper presents the findings of a study aimed at investigating how managers in small supplying firms translate their vision of quality as a strategic tool into a set of principles, practices, and techniques that shape the firm quality-based strategy in the customer-supplier relationship. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from a s...

This paper presents a method useful to generate a measurement of supercomputers performance. This method is based on the implementation of a non-parametric technique, e.g. Data Envelopment Analysis. In particular, it uses different formulations of the cross-efficiency concept to calculate a comprehensive efficiency index to rank supercomputers. The...

The study disclosed the common problems of efficiency in gas distribution in Ukraine and Italy. The fact that more Italian companies lie on the efficiency frontier testifies about some advantages of a gas distribution in the EU compared to non-EU countries. However, despite this, both Italian and Ukrainian gas companies suffer from a common ailment...

Structured Abstract Purpose – The aim of this paper is to present a research framework to investigate the behaviour of a Special Purpose Entity (SPE), i.e. a temporary project company, in the delivery of a megaproject, and, particularly uncover critical factors affecting the megaproject performance. Design/methodology/approach – The framework adopt...

This study analyses efficiency changes of renewable energy installed capacity in a sample of European countries between 2002 and 2011. The non-parametric DEA window analysis technique and yearly data from the electricity industry in 31 European countries are used to compute dynamic measurements of efficiency. The results show that these countries h...

This paper presents an index to measure the relative diffusion of e-services in 31 European countries between 2008 and 2012 from a user perspective. This index is calculated by implementing Data Envelopment Analysis, a non-parametric approach useful to measure technical efficiency of production units. Four groups of countries can be identified as t...

This paper presents a non-parametric approach useful to investigates to what extent the cognitive styles of ecommerce website users affect their perception of a website quality. The cognitive efficiency concept is adopted to model the perceived quality of a website during website-user interaction, while the PLSI model based on the Myers-Briggs Type...

Purpose – This is a benchmarking study and the purpose of this paper is to investigate if there is any association between operational efficiency in the integrated water management industry in Italy and the typology of service providers, and as a consequence, the nature of concession contract. Design/methodology/approach – The study is focussed on...

The objective of this study is to analyze productivity changes of renewable energy installed capacity in a sample of European countries from 2002 to 2011. Productivity changes reflect both technical efficiency change (how far the average country is from the best practice frontier) and technological change (shift in the best-practice frontier). This...

The aim of this paper is to present a two-step method useful for support of product benchmarking practice in the automotive industry by measuring a technical value of car model. This method assumes that a car is a bundle of objectively and subjectively measurable attributes (i.e. functional features) provided to users. The car’s technical value is...

Assessing the value for money of a product is of paramount importance to get useful strategic information relative to market and technological trends and major determinants of technological innovation, and to conduct benchmarking studies and make comparison among competitive products. This paper note presents a methodological “value for money” fram...

URL: http://www.iasdm.org/journals/index.php/ijaec/issue/view/10

In this paper the outcome of a benchmarking study that compares organization websites in the public sector is presented. In particular, 31 websites of Italian public universities are compared considering the website cognitive efficiency as a measure of its overall performance, i.e. usability and accessibility. Data Envelopment Analysis is performed...

This study implements a framework which combines together theories relative to individual information processing and human-computer cognition, and Data Envelopment Analysis to calculate website cognitive efficiency during user-interface interaction. This framework is adopted to measure and compare efficiency of 31 Italian university websites. Resul...

A benchmarking study on innovation in the Italian wind energy manufacturing industry is presented. The study calculates a set of patent portfolio specialization indexes - RSI, PSI, and OPSI - to map companies and compare them to one leading international company considered as a benchmark in the industry, the Vestas Wind System A/S.

This paper investigates the levels of technical efficiency in the distribution segment of the natural gas industry in Italy. An empirical analysis is conducted on a sample of 32 gas distributors, while Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is performed to calculate efficiency scores. Technical and scale efficiency, and density measurements are also used....

This article reports the outcome of a performance study of the water service provision industry in Italy. The study evaluates the efficiency of 21 “private or public-private” equity and 32 “public” equity water service operators and investigates controlling factors. In particular, the influence that the operator typology and service management natu...

This paper presents a benchmarking study that measures operational efficiency of water service providers. The problem of measuring the operational efficiency of water suppliers is addressed by adopting a non parametric approach based on Data Envelopment Analysis. The benchmarking model uses both physical infrastructure network and financial variabl...

This paper implemented Data Envelopment Analysis to develop a measure of technical efficiency (TE) for a car. The measurement of TE uses published technical data and judgements by industry experts. It is assumed that the technical value of a car is a function of a functional feature performance set of the product delivered to users when bearing som...

This paper implements Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to calculate an efficiency measure index of 21 energy power plants that use different technologies, including both renewable and conventional types. Super-efficiency measurements are used to generate a ranking of plants based on their efficiency score that can be used to select among alternative...

In the past few decades, all over the world two major trends have characterized the effort of the central governments in search of a greater administrative efficiency: a) the merging of local municipalities, in the belief that the aggregation of small administrative entities would lead to expenditure reduction and efficiency gains due to scale econ...

This paper proposes a benchmarking model useful to rank and select aircraft used in the freight industry. The decision-making problem of aircraft ranking and selection is addressed by implementing an extension of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), i.e. the cross-efficiency calculation. DEA efficiency is a useful indicator to evaluate the value for mo...

The outcome of a benchmarking study on the integrated water service provision industry in Italy is illustrated. In particular, the study investigates if the service providers typology is associated to superior operational efficiency. Operational efficiency of water management operators is calculated by implementing two Data Envelopment Analysis mod...

This paper presents an integrative framework to evaluate ecommerce website efficiency from the user viewpoint using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). This framework is inspired by concepts driven from theories of information processing and cognition and considers the website efficiency as a measure of its quality and performance. When the users inte...

This paper offers a new interpretive perspective to investigate factors of researchers productivity, moving from a personal features/resource endowment view to a behavioral one centered on the knowledge search. Little work has indeed been carried out on the relationship between the research productivity and the scientist knowledge search behaviors....

Technological innovation is conceptualized as an evolutionary, path dependent and interactive knowledge search of optimal alternatives to identify and solve technical problems. Three dimensions of knowledge search behaviors are investigated-search type, search focus and search dynamics-and indexes based on patent data are developed and measured. In...

A four-stage methodological framework useful to analyze the performance of a product development process, with a focus on the information flow inefficiencies is presented. The formal and informal communication exchange between interacting tasks is captured through the Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) representation, while the properties of the inf...

This paper presents an empirical study aimed at investigating the adoption of manufacturing intangible technologies in small manufacturing supplying firms that are located in late developing areas. Manufacturing intangible technologies are more or less formalised practices necessary to make hard technologies work, and to improve manufacturing proce...

Background The Integrated Territorial Projects (ITPs) are a specific and contextualised policy instrument for the promotion of local economic and social development. This instrument deliberately seeks to stimulate the active participation of local authorities and organisations representing local interests in the design and implementation of local d...

The paper undertakes a benchmarking study of the water service management sector in Italy using Data Envelopment Analysis. The optimal territorial area (ATO) is chosen as unit of analysis, while sample investigated includes 38 ATOs. Both technical and scale efficiency are evaluated. Results of DEA implementation show that the average pure technical...

The paper presents a benchmarking study of the Italian water service industry using data envelopment analysis. Sample investigated in the study includes 38 optimal territorial areas (ATOs), where the ATO is a well circumscribed geographical area where the provision of integrated water services is considered efficient. Results of DEA implementation...

This chapter presents the findings of a study aimed at investigating how the fit between the problemsolving style of a product development team and the cognitive environment induced by the perceived problem of complexity affects the amount and type of knowledge generated. It is assumed that organizational knowledge is created as a by-product of col...

This chapter reports the findings of an empirical study whose purpose is to identify the attributes of the organization infrastructure that support organizational learning in small manufacturing firms through the creation of procedural knowledge. The study is based on the following assumptions: a) organizations are cognitive systems that process in...

Research productivity measured using patent-based indexes is a useful measure of the effectiveness of scientists' efforts to produce useful knowledge. In this paper, a theoretical framework and a method based on patent analysis are proposed to understand determinants of research productivity. The framework assumes that research productivity is depe...

This paper presents an approach useful to analyze the performance of a product development process. The approach is based on the assumption that understanding in depth the web of information and knowledge flows during product development can help gain insights to as how to improve the whole process. Particularly, the chain of tasks is modelled usin...

This paper presents a methodological framework to explore the cognitive processes implemented by members of a software development team to manage ambiguous situations at the stage of product requirements definition. Fuzzy Cognitive Maps are used in the framework to elicit cognitive schemes and develop a measure of individual ambiguity tolerance

This paper presents an approach useful to analyze the performance of the product development process. This approach uses the Dependency Structure Matrix tool and metrics from the Social Network Analysis (SNA). Results relative to the application of the approach to the development of a car climate system are presented.

This paper presents an approach based on the adoption of a distributed cognition framework and a non parametric multicriteria evaluation methodology (DEA) designed specifically to compare e-commerce websites from the consumer/user viewpoint. In particular, the framework considers a website relative efficiency as a measure of its quality and usabili...

This chapter reports the findings of an empirical study whose purpose is to identify the attributes of the organization infrastructure that support organizational learning in small manufacturing firms through the creation of procedural knowledge. The study is based on the following assumptions: a) organizations are cognitive systems that process in...

This paper presents a study aimed at identifying major determinants of the creation of procedural knowledge in small manufacturing firms. A model of knowledge creation in which knowledge is a by-product of technical problem-solving is adopted. Particularly, a cognitive-constructionist perspective is assumed, considering organizational knowledge bui...

During the past 20 years the scope and complexity of engineering work and responsibilities have dramatically changed, and in the modern companies engineers perform many management activities. This trend had a major impact on engineering education and a great number of programs in engineering and technology management were started all over the world...

Technological innovation occurs as an evolutionary, path-dependent and interactive searching activity of optimal alternatives and is fundamentally dominated by an intense activity addressed to identify and solve technical problems. As components recombination is a very efficient source of innovation that firms widely resort to, the capability to re...

This paper presents an approach useful to analyse the performance of the product development model adopted by an organisation. A dynamic information management perspective of the development process was assumed while the nature of the information and knowledge flows exchanged to coordinate tasks was the primary focus of this study. In particular, t...

Technological innovation is characterized by a searching activity of optimal alternatives which is fundamentally dominated by an intense activity addressed to identify and solve technical problems. As components recombination is a very efficient source of innovation that firms widely resort to, the capability to recombine pieces of knowledge availa...

This paper presents a study aimed at investigating how supplier firms translate the vision of quality as a strategic tool that their entrepreneurial/management groups develop over time into a set of actions which define the firm's quality-based strategy in the customer-supplier relationship. A survey was carried on collecting data from a sample of...

In the past decades specific principles were guiding product development in the space industry, like maximum performance and minimum weight. At the same time, the availability of funds driven from institutional and military budgets, as well as the existence of captive markets, made the cost of product not the critical factor in product design. Thin...

Methods and practices adopted by software professionals to develop and maintain software are believed to have significant impact on the project outcomes in terms of development cost and product quality. Disciplined methods and practices are expected to result in better control over the software development process. Even though there is a great awar...

In this article, a methodology based on the analysis of granted patents useful to investigate strategies of technological innovation implemented by innovative firms is presented. This methodology adopts a conceptualization which considers technological innovation as an outcome of a change of either the technological components or a diverse combinat...

Risk Management is increasingly gaining the attention of industries, as an essential and integral part of program management. This paper will deal with a program Risk Assessment phase aiming at evaluating both the probability of occurrence of an undesired event and its relevant impact in terms of costs, schedules and performances. Information about...

This paper, using qualitative and quantitative data relative to the software process improvement initiative in which the Italian branch of a multinational software company was engaged from January 1997 to May 2001, investigates the impact of Capability Maturity Model (CMM) certification on organisational learning. A knowledge management perspective...

This editorial sets the context for the special issue examining the contribution of universities to regional and economic growth. The context is extremely dynamic, and some outcomes of all these efforts appear very promising; however a number of obstacles and difficulties that make the interaction between university and industry scarcely effective...

In this explorative research, based on a study of 80 Information and Communication Technology Small Firms (ICT SFs), a framework to inquire into strategic management of SFs is proposed, moving from the idea that a more coherent and careful conceptualisation of relationships between the firms' growth strategies, and their knowing process is operatio...

This paper presents an approach useful to analyse the performance of the product development model adopted by a company. It was implemented to analyse a specific sub-system - "the climatic system" - of a new car model developed by a large Italian car manufacturer. The activity chain was modelled by using the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) tool, whil...

A method to keep trace of companies' technology strategies based on patent analysis is presented. The method adopts the conceptualization that considers innovation to be either an outcome of component change or component recombination. The method has been applied to compare the technology strategies of 12 European companies in the biomedical prosth...

A major source of learning in small manufacturing firms is the technical problem-solving activity during innovation. This problem-solving activity is usually carried on randomly, without any planned or deliberated design, but with the conceptualization of problems by people only when drawbacks occur and no attempt to anticipate them through researc...

This paper reports the preliminary findings of an exploratory empirical study aimed at identifying relevant variables that affect e-business models in the B2B paradigm. The findings reported concern a sample that includes 120 B2B buyer-seller relationships relative to 52 e-business Italian firms.