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Recently, Modell (2022) and James et al. (2020) provided reviews of the performance management literature that subscribe to an institutional or behavioral perspective, respectively. This article draws attention to an alternative theoretical approach – the relational perspective.

The article is based on a review of different literature.

Decision-making in public organizations becomes more participatory or distributed, and service provision is increasingly collaborative. In line with these trends in public administration practice, performance management theory needs to be updated and principal-agent assumptions expanded. A relational perspective could provide such an update. This perspective emphasizes the group as the unit of analysis and the importance of collaborative routines to select, define, and use performance practices and metrics. The perspective also draws attention to the role of networks, social processes, and negotiations within teams, as well as group dynamics in decision-making.

The article outlines avenues for future relational research on performance management efforts, with the intention to encourage more empirical work in this area. The article also theorizes about promising connections between the relational, institutional, and behavioral perspectives, specifically linking a relational research agenda to propositions made by Modell (2022).

The purpose of this article is to improve understanding of the use of performance information in the public sector.

The article is based on a comparative case study in the field of German childcare administration. Two cities have been selected based on the variation of their performance measurement systems.

It is found that a higher complexity and sophistication of the measurement system fosters the use of performance data by civil servants. At the same time, such a comprehensive control system seems to undermine the steering ability of local politicians. Referring to agency theory, it is argued that complex data systems can increase information asymmetries in favour of bureaucrats.

Since the findings are based on two cases, the paper does not make any claims about their generalisability for a particular population. Instead, the paper uses in-depth observations to better inform and enhance an existing hypothesis.

The results emphasise the importance of user-specific performance reporting. The paper suggests thinking of the adoption of management innovation as a temporal process where measurement complexity can be balanced over time by customised reporting.

This article is innovative as it focuses on two user groups of performance data simultaneously. The results show that this approach adds value because observations vary based on the perspective of the different users.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perspectives of local residents regarding the impact of the long-duration Hazelwood open cut coal mine fire in rural Australia.

A qualitative approach was undertaken involving 27 in-depth interviews with adults who lived in the town of Morwell, immediately adjacent to the coal mine fire.

Participant concerns focussed upon fear and confusion during the event, the perceived health effects of the smoke, anger towards authorities and loss of a sense of community and sense of security. One of the significant ways in which people managed these responses was to normalise the event. The long duration of the event created deep uncertainty which exaggerated the impact of the fire.

Understanding the particular nature of the impact of this event may assist the authors to better understand the ongoing human impact of long-duration disasters in the future.

It is important to provide clear and understandable quality information to residents during and after such disasters.

While there is an extensive literature exploring the direct social and psychological impacts of acute natural disasters, less qualitative research has been conducted into the experiences of longer term critical events.

France's defeat by Germany in 1940 is one of the most shocking events in the annals of military history. Explanations for France's defeat have traditionally focused on battlefield mistakes, an unmotivated population, and even bad luck. Yet, the seeds of France's failure were sown long before her 1940 surrender. The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence of groupthink in the French General Staff during the interwar years with its deleterious effect on France's military preparedness.

Groupthink is used to understand the reasons behind France's decisive defeat at the start of World War II. Historians of the period and primary and secondary works were consulted and analyzed.

Multiple examples of the main eight groupthink symptoms were identified from the documentary evidence. Groupthink present in the French General Staff had an adverse impact on the France's preparations. Groupthink led to the downplaying of important information, the failure to question vital assumptions about German capabilities, and the misapplication of new military technology. This led to inflexibility and the inability to respond to innovative German technology and operational doctrine.

Groupthink is useful in explaining complex historical events – events which often have been attributed to poor leadership, corrupt or incapable politicians, or simply luck. The application of social science theory and methods to well‐documented events, whether “historical” or otherwise has the potential to enrich the understanding of these events and the ways in which they may be studied.

This study also contributes to evidence on groupthink and the application of theory in social science and management to the study of well‐documented historical events.

This paper aims to provide a systematic review on library and information science (LIS) profession’s image and stereotypes from 1999 to 2013. In particular, it aims to identify and analyze the prevailing images of librarians in various contexts and explore possible changes occurring over time.

The method of systematic review is adopted to identify the prevailing images in LIS profession. Specifically, 60 papers were selected and five main themes emerged such as “public’s perceptions”, “librarians’ perceptions”, “students’ perceptions”, “mass media” and “image as an issue” after a thorough analysis of papers’ aim.

It was found that librarians were negatively perceived by both the wider public and the students. In terms of mass media, the image of “the old maid” was dominant, whereas newspapers focused on the male librarian who was perceived as glamorous. Positive stereotypes were also found in children books. On the whole, librarian’s image and relevant stereotypes have not changed considerably over time.

This literature review considered only papers published between 2000 and 2013 and only in English mainly due to language restrictions.

This review identifies, critically analyzes and discusses the literature on the prevailing images and stereotypes associated with LIS profession in the past 13 years. In addition, it attempts to identify and discuss any changes that occurred in this time frame.

This paper discusses the possible future role of standards in assuring the quality and content of programmes for educating and training people in the fields of emergency planning and management. Principles for the establishment of standards are presented. Existing standards in the civil protection and emergency preparedness fields are reviewed. The requisites for a training standard are described. Finally, a prototype standard is presented. The paper also addresses the question of whether standards are appropriate instruments and concludes that they would help ensure comparability, quality assurance and international compatibility of training.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how product knowledge is utilised by specialist independent grocery retailers (SIGRs) and how it can enhance competitive advantage for these firms.

A case study approach was deemed most appropriate to gain insight into an unexplored area of study. A total of 30 in‐depth interviews were conducted over a six‐month period supported by the collection of observation data and documentation. A purposive sampling method was adopted and the owner managers of the chosen retailers were interviewed as key informants for the study.

It was found that four main resources created the concept product strategy and ultimately explained the success of SIGRs. These relate to knowledge of how to provide a unique product; knowledge of identifying and sourcing from quality suppliers; knowledge of recipes, preparation and storage methods; and knowledge of how to merchandise products.

It is argued that if these specialist grocery firms can achieve sustained competitive advantage from building and exploiting product knowledge, so too can other independent retailers in the sector.

This paper provides empirical evidence and theoretical understanding of product knowledge as a competitive advantage for SIGRs, which is a neglected area of study in the retail literature.

Drawing on the literature on professional ignorance, here defined in affirmative terms as the capacity to act regardless of the incompleteness of available information in organizations and professional communities, the article reports empirical material from an urban development project wherein policy makers' instructions are vague and, in certain domains, inconsistent with market conditions.

Urban development projects regularly include uncertainty and risk taking, and policy makers' stated objectives regarding project goals may be incomplete or merely signal a political ambition. In such situations, first-line project participants need to make decisions as if uncertainties regarding policy objectives are manageable and preferably minimal. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the proposition that professional ignorance is a key mechanism in incomplete or imperfect governance systems.

Project participants actively questioned policy but acted on the instructions just the same, which is indicative of how professional ignorance is supportive of governance system that relies on first-line market actors and agencies to implement also incomplete or vaguely stated policy objectives. Incomplete policies derive from challenges in political deliberation and bargaining processes, uncertainty regarding the future and shifting preferences among policy makers and constituencies more widely. In practice, incomplete policies regularly include issues for first-level actors (e.g. on the urban development project level) to handle and to reconcile in their day-to-day work.

On basis of an empirical study of a major urban development project, the study contributes to a growing literature that recognizes the value of professional ignorance in governance systems and in project management practice. The study invites further scholarly research that takes an affirmative of professional ignorance but without overlooking its risks and potential malfunctions.

Amidst the debates on the death or resurgence of public spaces emerges a significant question: how could public spaces that function at different urban scales and cater for diverse collective needs be provided? This article explores the roles and potentials of temporary public spaces in meeting diverse challenges related to the supply and use of urban open spaces. Positioning temporary public spaces within the literature on non-conventional public spaces is conducted with the purpose of identifying those spaces' characteristics. The proposed definition of temporary public spaces is based on their dynamic status of use-rights. Moreover, a conceptual framework based on urban land economics and bid rent theory is used to explain how such spaces transform under the exchange of temporary use-rights to activate vacant urban lots for public activities. This conceptual framework is applied in the case of a grass root approach to the supply of temporary public spaces. The context is Beirut, a city that has lost its public spaces due to wars and is trying to reintroduce them through different supply mechanisms. The examples illustrate how homogeneous urban spaces are identified over time and converted into heterogeneous and lively temporary public spaces. These contribute towards conviviality in a highly fragmented and multi-cultural society and animate everyday urban life.

The empirical support for agency theory explanations for the great variance in CEO pay has been equivocal. Drawing from the performance appraisal literature, we hypothesize that boards of directors incorporate human judgment into the evaluation and reward of CEO performance in order to balance managerial risk with agency costs. We test Baysinger and Hoskisson’s (1990) proposition that insider‐dominated corporate boards rely on subjective performance evaluation to reward the CEO, and we argue that R&D intensity influences this relationship. Using a sample of Fortune firms, findings support our contention that human judgment is important in evaluating and rewarding CEO performance.