Abstract

Abstract
It is imperative that online companies have a complete in-depth understanding of online behavior in order to provide a better service to their customers. This paper proposes a model for real-time basket addition in the e-grocery sector that includes predictors inferred from anonymous clickstream data, such as a Markov page view sequence discrimination value. This model aims at anticipating the addition and the non-addition of items to customers' market basket, in order to enable marketers to act conveniently, for example recommending more appropriate items. Two classification techniques are used in the empirical study: logistic regression and random forests. A real sample of anonymous clickstream data taken from the servers of a European e-retailing company is explored. The empirical results reveal the high predictive power of the model proposed, based on the explanatory variables introduced, as well as the supremacy of random forests over logistic regression.

Abstract
The performance evaluation of education systems is at the top of the agenda of governments and education authorities worldwide. However, research involving cross-country comparisons of the performance of education systems is still incipient. This paper proposes a new composite indicator to summarise the performance of education systems, enabling benchmarking comparisons and the definition of objectives for improvement. The research analyses different modelling alternatives for the construction of composite indicators, with varying degrees of weight flexibility. Our study uses annual data of 29 European countries, collected from Eurostat and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development databases. The results obtained in terms of performance scores and country rankings are presented and their managerial implications are discussed. We conclude that composite indicators estimated using frontier techniques can support the transition from the paradigm of performance assessment (control) to performance management (improvement).

Abstract
The performance of secondary schools is usually assessed based on students' results on national exams at the end of secondary education. This research uses data on academic achievements by first-year university students to benchmark secondary schools on their ability to lead students to success in higher education. The analysis is conducted using data of University of Porto and Catholic University of Porto, Portugal, for a three-year period, corresponding to more than 10.000 students from 65 degrees, for which the school of origin is known. A number of variables representing students' success in Higher education were constructed for each school in our sample and aggregated through a Benefit of the Doubt indicator. Results suggest that the schools' ranking based on schools' ability to prepare students for university success is quite different from the ranking based on results on national exams. Given these findings, we propose complementing schools' performance assessments (traditionally based on national exam results or indicators of value added) with indicators that account for the preparation of students for success in future challenges, which is indisputably a key objective of secondary education. We propose a composite indicator for the analysis of these complementary aims as well, and results show that frontier units indeed exhibit trade offs between traditional measures of performance and our new measure of performance.

Abstract
This study presents an innovative procedure to assess the evolution of the social performance of firms over time using a Benefit-of-the-Doubt Composite indicator specified with a Directional Distance Function and the Malmquist index. In recent years, the social indicators of large corporations are increasingly being used to evaluate corporate performance. Reputation issues associated with the firms’ impact on society, including local employment and contribution to local economic development are considered critical. This paper develops a composite indicator of social performance that can be used both for benchmarking comparisons among firms within an industry and to monitor the evolution of performance over time. Both desirable and undesirable factors can be taken into account in the performance evaluation. An illustrative application involving the assessment of 24 large mining firms in the years 2011 and 2012 is discussed. The specification of indicators reflecting social burdens and benefits of mining firms is based on international standards and guidelines for large corporations. The managerial implications of the results obtained are discussed. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

Abstract
In recent decades, the concept of urban metabolism has been widely applied at different scales. This paper proposes an optimization model, based on Data Envelopment Analysis, for the evaluation and benchmarking of countries' metabolism. The EU-28 countries are analyzed based on economic and environmental indicators, including the resources consumed (energy and materials) and environmental pressures (GHG emissions and waste) associated with the value-added from the economic activities. The empirical results produced a ranking of countries' based on their metabolic performance underlying the creation of wealth, along with the targets for the countries with lower metabolic performance. This new metabolic approach is a contribution to the design of policies for the promotion of sustainable and resilient services.