Fourth, firms exceeding þ/2 three standard deviations of the industry mean for a given year were classified as outliers
and deleted from the industry average calculations. Fifth, step four was iteratively repeated until all firms used for the
calculation of each year’s EVAM5YABT industry average were within þ/23 standard deviations of that year’s EVAM5YABT mean score. Sixth, paired t-tests were performed to compare the top SCM performer firms’ EVAM5YABT scores with those of their respective industry averages for each of the four years under examination (i.e. 2007-2010 Gartner opinion data and 2006-2009 EVA Dimensions financial data). The 25 top SCM performer firms utilized for the tests of H2 are shown in Table II. As would be expected, many top SCM performer firms identified in the tests of H2 are also among the firms used in the tests of H1.