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There are many potential measures of performance for evaluating the success of a construction project. All address performance in three key areas: scope, schedule and budget. In a performance measurement framework where senior management wishes to minimise the numberof performance measures it employs, while ensuring maximal coverage or visibility into the programme, having a tool that captures each of the three areas would be ideal. Project managers have used Earned Value Management (EVM) for over 40 years to track actual schedule progress and actual costs against project plans. Earned Value Management has traditionally been applied to individual projects on which the manager is accountable for both schedule and cost variances. This paper proposes methods to apply EVM principles to allow: (1) analysis of portfolios of construction projects; (2) incorporation of the analysis into an innovative pay‐for‐performance human resources practice; and (3) use of regression analysis to develop baseline earned value curves. These extensions fit the needs of many government managers, who oversee a range of projects by multiple contractors, and whose cost risk is primarily due to schedule slips and change orders. Earned Value Management is described in the context of project oversight, and a dashboard system of performance measures is proposed for quickly assessing individual projects and portfolios. A method of generating standardised planned value curves is then specified, based on data from previous and ongoing projects. The paper concludes by showing how the US General Services Administration’s Public Buildings Service is using these methods to analyse and oversee its portfolio of new construction and major repair and alteration projects.

This paper is an initial attempt to discuss the American institutionalist movement as it changed and developed after 1945. Institutionalism in the inter-war period was a relatively coherent movement held together by a set of general methodological, theoretical, and ideological commitments (Rutherford, 2011). Although institutionalism always had its critics, it came under increased attack in the 1940s, and faced challenges from Keynesian economics, a revived neoclassicism, econometrics, and from new methodological approaches derived from various versions of positivism. The institutionalist response to these criticisms, and particularly the criticism that institutionalism “lacked theory,” is to be found in a variety of attempts to redefine institutionalism in new theoretical or methodological terms. Perhaps the most important of these is to be found in Clarence Ayres’ The Theory of Economic Progress (1944), although there were many others. These developments were accompanied by a significant amount of debate, disagreement, and uncertainty over future directions. Some of this is reflected in the early history of The Association for Evolutionary Economics.

Rather than waiting to comply with pressure to install certified management systems in the public sector, County Durham Care set out to customize the ISO 9000 series as a framework for monitoring and focusing development.

This article aims to examine the extent to which Western World “textbook” strategic marketing is being practised within Chinese manufacturing companies as well as its contribution to competitive success.

Data were collected by means of a web‐based survey. A total of 89 usable questionnaires were received from Chinese manufacturing firms employing at least 50 people. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS.

The results confirm that, on the whole, the basic strategic marketing practices which are typically advocated in the mainstream Western academic and prescriptive literature are being widely practised within Chinese manufacturing companies. The results also show the higher performing firms are clearly differentiated from their lower performing counterparts by doing more and better marketing.

Because of the relatively low response rate, one limitation is the extent to which the sample is representative of the population under scrutiny. Also, in spite of the questionnaire being back translated, some misunderstanding of the questions cannot be ruled out. Originality/value – The paper confirms that Western strategic marketing practices are clearly associated with the higher performing Chinese manufacturing companies.

For many years scholars of marketing have advocated the importance of marketing as a key determinant of business performance, and particularly for small and medium‐sized enterprises. In the UK, efforts have been made to translate theory into practice in an attempt to improve the competitiveness of the country's small and medium‐sized enterprises. Indeed, since the mid‐1980s, it has been a matter of government policy that a considerable emphasis be placed on seeking to improve the marketing performance of small‐ and medium‐sized firms. Thus, this article examines the marketing activities of a sample of 42 medium‐sized manufacturing firms over a ten‐year period. It reveals that the 42 firms known to have survived the economic exigencies of the decade were amongst the most market oriented of those surveyed in 1987, and that they have embraced both the substance and trappings of marketing.

A conference on the history of heterodox economics in the twentieth century was held during October 3–5, 2002 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The conference organizers were Frederic S. Lee and John King. Several papers presented at the conference are published below, several in significantly revised and/or expanded form, together with one paper distributed at but not formally presented at the conference. Malcolm Rutherford’s paper, “On the Economic Frontier: Walton Hamilton, Institutional Economics, and Education,” will be published in History of Political Economy. All of the papers published here have been reviewed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reporting practice of leading museums in New Zealand (NZ) and the UK to develop a museums' performance accountability disclosure index.

The paper reports a study of annual reporting by 16 museums in NZ and the UK. Because of the unique nature of the industry the disclosure index uses a framework which draws on the balanced scorecard (BSC). The BSC provides a link between internal reporting of key performance issues and the need of a community organisation to report to the public.

Overall, the quality of reporting in each country is found to be of a similar standard. The strongest parts of reports are those dealing with internal processes and objectives, and the weakest are those reporting on learning and growth.

Museums are a key repository of tangible cultural heritage of huge intrinsic value both to the community now, but of more importance to future generations. However, the performance and accountability of this sector is basically without research or commentary, and this paper addresses this deficiency.

This paper provides reflections on the implementation of an active support staff training programme for staff working in community residential facilities for adults with an intellectual disability. Outcomes for the people with an intellectual disability were consistent with recent research findings indicating that active support can lead to improved opportunities for participation in everyday activities within the home. We propose that the success of the training programme was largely influenced by three key elements: ensuring that there is expertise in, and support for, this approach to service provision among key service managers, provision of in vivo one‐to‐one practical staff training in addition to classroom‐based theoretical input, and inclusion of elements of person‐centred planning approaches in combination with active support. Future research should focus on how best to maximise the effectiveness of active support staff training.

This article focuses on one key aspect of industrial buying behaviour, namely the buying process itself. Using a common questionnaire, a large sample of respondents in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US were interviewed by mail from two sectors, the paper and pulp and chemical and allied products industries. The similarity of results between the different industries and the countries — as well as similarities between this and previous surveys in the UK and US — allows generalisations to be made about the respective involvement of corporate departments in the purchase process for equipment, materials and components.