Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indexing Operating Performance


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Cirt (talk) 03:05, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Indexing Operating Performance

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

I PRODed the page on 22 January when I noted, "Per Talk:Indexing Operating Performance, the page was created by 'the academic creator of this concept' citing his own primary sources. It is therefore at best a conflict of interest and at worst original research. There are only two papers indexed by Google Scholar that use the term, both authored by the creator of this Wikipedia page, Hermann Stern. Therefore, the topic does not appear to be notable as defined by Wikipedia guidelines."

User:Patrick Stähler expressed objections to deletion on the talk page. I therefore removed the PROD, since deletion is not non-controversial.

Stähler argues, "It is true that the concept is by Stern, but on Wikipedia we find many other concepts that are also concepts by one company like Economic_value_added. With EVA nobody complained that EVA is even a trademark of the Stern Stewart & Co (not related to Herman Stern)."

I still recommend deletion, as I can find only the two papers by Stern, mentioned above, in which the concept is discussed. A web search finds at least one company that recommends Indexing Operating Performance as a management strategy. Note, though, that the company in question, Obermatt, lists Hermann Stern as its CEO. Cnilep (talk) 17:34, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.  —Cnilep (talk) 17:45, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for opening up the discussion and taking the pressure out to put more fact to the table. I miss my second argument that goes like this: The second reason is that the topic is important in the current discussion about fair salaries. And the method described in this article is not a one person show but is being adopted by proxy advisors like Manifest – The Proxy Voting Agency, a UK agency that gives advice to shareholders how to vote. http://blog.manifest.co.uk/2009/12/2647.html And we will see in the upcoming shareholder meetings season quite often the argumentation that the bonuses are not justified because the company did not outperform its operating index. Well, and it would help if we can check than on Wikipedia what this method is all about. And the largest German group of private investors is also using the method to check the justification of managers bonuses. http://www.dsw-info.de/DSW-kooperiert-mit-Obermatt-be.1613.0.html#c3135 And therefore this method will gain popularity. Should we not have then the topic in wikipedia as well? I still recommend retention of the article.

Looking forward to the discussion.

--Patrick Stähler (talk) 16:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

From Cliff Weight, Director, MM&K

There are dozens of articles in German which give validity to this posting. go to http://www.obermatt.com/publikationen I think this article should not be deleted. Cliff Weight 1 Feb 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cliffweight (talk • contribs) 13:08, 2 February 2010 (UTC)  — Cliffweight (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete per lack of independent WP:RS about it. I checked about half of the /publikationen link, and every one was by Hermann Stern and/or Obermatt, which is intimately related to him. The problem isn't lack of evidence that he is publishing about it and makes a case that it is important, it's lack of evidence that anyone else seems to care enough about it to do so--that's what WP:N is all about. I only barely read German, so perhaps someone who does can provide two or three specific refs that are by unaffiliated authors that discuss this specific topic, that would be useful and I'd be willing to look and perhaps change my !vote. DMacks (talk) 17:05, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Stern added these references to the article talk page:
 * http://www.vdi-nachrichten.com/vdi-nachrichten/aktuelle_ausgabe/akt_ausg_detail.asp?cat=4&id=45837&source=rubrik
 * http://www.capital.de/finanzen/investor/100025204.html
 * http://www.capital.de/finanzen/geldanlage/aktien/investor/100021843.html
 * http://www.capital.de/finanzen/geldanlage/aktien/investor/100016531.html
 * http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/wirtschaft/aktuell/boni_banken_1.3625895.html
 * I can confirm that they talk about Stern and his method, though not using the actual name of this article (they talk about a bonus index). One calls him a remuneration expert. They may be based on interviews with Stern. --Boson (talk) 20:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The first appears to talk about indexing pay against company's own performance but not really company's performance vs competitors. Second's does appear to be on-topic, primarily as quotes from Stern. That's a start, but will need to read further later to find if someone somewhere is actually saying something in detail. DMacks (talk) 02:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The first article, from the VDI, has the following in the last paragraph (Page 2):
 * "Als Lösung aus diesem Dilemma schlägt Stern eine Art von Olympia-Modell vor: Nicht der Sprinter mit der schnellsten Zeit siegt, sondern jener, der alle anderen abhängt. Auf die Wirtschaft übertragen, bedeutet dieses Modell, dass der Bonus des Chefs umso höher ausfällt, je mehr Konkurrenten er mit seinem Unternehmen langfristig überflügelt hat."
 * roughly
 * "As a solution to this dilemma, Stern proposes a sort of Olympics model: not the sprinter with the best time wins but the one who leaves all the others behind. Transposed to the economy, this model means that the boss's bonus is higher, the more competitors he and his company have done better than in the long term." --Boson (talk) 06:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ged  UK  08:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Please note that the purpose of this discussion is to determine whether the article Indexing Operating Performance meets Wikipedia's standards for inclusion, including verifiability and notability among others. It is not to discuss the value of of the concept that article describes. Although all Wikipedia editors, including new ones, are welcome to contribute to the discussion, newer editors may find it useful to review Deletion policy, List of policies to cite in deletion debates, and Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. Cnilep (talk) 17:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Germany-related deletion discussions.  —Cnilep (talk) 17:26, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.

From Sarah Wilson, CEO, Manifest First my declaration of conflict of interest: Manifest has adopted the Obermatt Bonus index in its methodology for analysing executive pay. Notwithstanding our commercial interest in the work of Obermatt, I wish to offer some perspectives about shareholder involvement in executive pay and reward setting in the context of high-quality global news reproting on executive pay.We contend that the Obermatt material should be retained within Wikipedia as it is making a valuable contribution to an issue which is vexing global financial markets, regulators and governments.

The Social Science Research Network in brim full of peer reviewed artciles analysing inapproproate executive reward and the deleterious impact on shareholder returns. To say that a novel and innovative approach to better measuring the appropriateness of executive reward is not notable seems to be missing the point. Excessive executive pay is highly notable with articles in the mainstream English-language news sites, The FT, The Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, Reuters etc. See, for example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/executive-pay-bonuses and http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6b6f2a5e-1146-11df-a6d6-00144feab49a.html

Financial News, part of the Wall Street Journal family also found it notable that Manifest would be adopting the Obermatt Index in its work: http://www.efinancialnews.com/archive/keyword/obermatt/1/content/1055968080 http://www.efinancialnews.com/assetmanagement/pensionfunds/content/1056158762

Reuters, a news organisation famed for its independence and neutrality in reporting, has followed the Novartis/Manifest/Obermatt analysis at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6101OW20100203 which in turn has been picked by by Alacra http://pulse.alacra.com/analyst-comments/Novartis_AG-C1014770

Hugo Dixon of Breaking Views (part of the Reuters family of web journals) has highlighted that the Chairmen of US and UK banks is asking for Presidential and UK government intervention in bank bonus setting:

http://www.breakingviews.com/2010/02/03/Bonuses.aspx?sg=FreemailUS&uid=69928&secid=na&date=04022010T1040

Bonus payments are also a significant feature of the "Say on Pay" debate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Say_on_pay

Therefore the argument that executive bonuses (and their associated measurement/shareholder) is not a notable issue cannot be justified.

We agree that the Obermatt approach is a new and it is also outside the academic mainstream (at present, it is therefore unlikely to achieve the same type of peer review as if it had been developed withing an academic institution. Nevertheless, that Wikipedia allows an entry for RiskMetrics and its risk model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RiskMetrics, the entry for which contains RiskMetrics' own documentation would seem to suggest that it is acceptable for the creators of new methodologies to post their ideas and self-refer.

My apologies if I have not kept within Wikipedia guidelines for discussion, while a heavy user of the site for refernce, this is my first posting.

Manifestinform (talk) 13:53, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. First, this would appear to be a variation on benchmarking, whose claimed difference is in a more indefinite and vaguer set of data sources for comparison:  Different from benchmarking, indexing operating performance uses an investor perspective to select peers for performance measurement. Classical benchmarking focuses only on peer companies with similar products or similar operating processes. Indexing uses an extended peer universe that includes companies that can be considered alternative investment opportunities from the perspective of an investor. This will include companies with similar distribution and purchasing processes which are subject to similar operating risks from an investor perspective.  This would make this article a content fork.  Second, per DMacks's analysis of the sources, and the comments taking a predictable tack, this would appear to be a case of conflict of interest, likely to intended to promote a consulting business or business model.  - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge. Although there may be issues of COI and self-promotion, I think notability is (marginally) supported by fairly reliable German language sources. However, I don't think we need six separate articles about different parts of the same topic; so I propose merging:
 * Indexing Operating Performance
 * Operating Rank
 * Operating Index
 * Operating Alpha
 * Operating Radar
 * Operating Contribution
 * If this article does not survive the deletion debate, the other articles should also be proposed for deletion.--Boson (talk) 22:44, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete as there is no evidence of notability. The whole premise of this theory relies on one book that is the primary source. What is need is signficant coverage from reliable secondary soruces that are indpendent of the theory's creators and promoters. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.