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The paper is a proof of concept (PoC) intervention study aimed for developing performance management (PM) practices in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the longer-term aim enabling the SMEs to improve their productivity. The intervention was designed and deployed by a collaborative quartet of academics, management consultants, accountancy firm and a commercial bank manager.

The paper firstly musters a set of initialising PM practices aligned to productivity improvement. These are utilised to design a knowledge transfer intervention for deployment with a set of manufacturing SMEs incorporating some associated productivity tools. The evaluation of the intervention utilised a case study approach founded on a logic model of the intervention to assess the development of the PM practices.

The intervention contributed to a partial development of the mustered practices and the productivity diagnostic based on the multi-factor productivity (MFP) abstraction and a data extraction protocol had the strongest impact. The study revealed the importance of the three interlaced factors: Depth of engagement, feedback opportunities and the intervention gradient (the increase of independent action from the participating SME's and the diminishment of the external intervention effort).

The case study is based on a limited number of individual SME's, and within just the manufacturing sector.

SME businesses will require a more sustained programme of interventions than this pilot to develop PM capability, and depth of engagement within the SME is critical. Professional stakeholders can be utilised in recruitment of firms for intervention programmes. Business can start developing PM capability prior to PMS implementation using the tools from this programme.

The productivity diagnostic tool, based on a synthesis of MFP and the performance pyramid, an array of potential initialising practices for PM capability and discovery of potential mechanisms for PM practice development.

It is well known that culture is a catalyst for change, helping economies respond to societal problems and demands and that culture is where people turn to in moments of crisis. In this case study around designing and implementing evaluation methodologies/frameworks for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021, it is suggested that in English public policy and within publicly invested arts there is a maturation of thinking around recognising/measuring the public value of culture including its social value. The purpose of this paper is to chart the recent policy of justifying cultural expenditure with social value claims and highlight challenges for evaluating activity within Coventry UK CoC 2021 as a change in wider policy is taking place.

This paper provides creative insights into the design and implementation of the evaluation methodologies/frameworks for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021. The authors of this paper as the collective team undertaking the evaluation of Coventry's year as UK City of Culture 2021 bring first-hand experiences of challenges faced and the need for a cultural mega-event to evidence its value.

The case study aims to address the concepts of measuring value within cultural events and argues that a paradigm shift is occurring in methods and concepts for evidencing the aforementioned value.

The case study within this paper focuses on the build-up period to the UK City of Culture 2021 year and the thinking and logic behind the creation of the evaluation/measurement framework and therefore does not include findings from the actual cultural year.

It is acknowledged that there are papers examining measuring and evidencing the “value” of cultural mega-events, the authors bring real-life first-hand experience of the concepts being utilised by them on the ground in the delivery and evaluation design of Coventry, UK City of Culture 2021.

Economic, socio-cultural and demographic changes in Famagusta have altered consumers’ shopping expectations; they expect good architectural quality as well as various functions and activities besides shopping. The concept of shopping has moved away from being purely a necessity towards being part of the urban lifestyle. Accordingly, recently developed shopping centres try to satisfy these new demands in a variety of ways. The new Lemar shopping centre in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus, is an example of such a centre. This study aimed to measure user satisfaction and identifies the impact of the Lemar shopping centre on the immediate local context by surveying 104 randomly selected consumers, local residents and shopkeepers. Statistical analysis of the resulting data was used to determine Lemar’s physical qualities, functions and activities as well as its general impact on its close urban context and the wider city. Survey data is supplemented with on-site observations. This study reveals that the majority of respondents perceive the shopping centre as a positive contribution to the area, as an attractive building with a contemporary style and pleasant indoor spaces. On the other hand, it has increased the traffic on the high street, the area has become more crowded and air pollution has increased. This study suggests that consumers’ and citizens’ viewpoints should be considered in planning decisions in order to contribute to the success of shopping centres.

During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, debate about the governance and management of national cultural institutions has largely focused on the problematic relationship between art and the economy. However, several more recent changes have made this discussion outdated. These include loss of autonomy in the art world, transformation of cultural production and distribution and instrumentalisation of cultural policies to generate a new context leading to the emergence of art managers.

In terms of cultural policy, the interplay between the governance and management of national cultural institutions is currently problematic, with the work of art managers now replacing the previous “art versus economy” binomial. Here, we demonstrate the growing centrality of the governance paradigm and generation of public value in the local context, by qualitatively examining the discourses of politicians and national cultural institution managers in Barcelona.

We concluded that a new interface between policymakers and managers has appeared in twenty-first century cultural institutions, and that this has replaced the previous antagonism between artistic directors and managers. Finally, although there is a consensus that the objective of national cultural institutions should be to enhance public value, we also identified the presence of a symbolic battle over how this public value is defined and who should evaluate it.

This paper reveals the centrality of this new debate: policymakers and managers have developed discourses and strategies so that their vision of public value now predominates. In turn, this debate has become the new “battlefield” of cultural policy and reflects a rebalancing between the artistic and political spheres.

The objectives of this study are to identify which inputs are most relevant for development and successful introduction of product and process innovations and identify the impacts of these two types of innovation on the performance of Brazilian manufacturing companies.

This study analyzes the relationships between input, output and outcome for a sample of 5,586 Brazilian manufacturing companies by using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results indicate that (1) product innovations are favored by internal resources, (2) process innovations are favored by external resources, (3) product innovations mainly affect a range of products offered by companies and (4) process innovations mainly affect performance in manufacturing capacity, flexibility and costs.

By identifying the main efforts to improve the innovation performance and input-output-outcome relationships, the results can contribute to a better decision-making process for innovation investments and management in companies as well as for policymakers. The results are particularly relevant given that the Brazilian case can serve as a reference for other emerging countries.

Analyses of the innovation in input-output-outcome relationships were performed in a comprehensive way by using a set of variables for defining each construct. This allowed each construct to be better measured, which improved the understanding of the relationships between inputs and outcomes mediated by product and process innovations.

This chapter develops a conceptual taxonomy of five emerging digital citizenship regimes: (1) the globalised and generalisable regime called pandemic citizenship that clarifies how post-COVID-19 datafication processes have amplified the emergence of four intertwined, non-mutually exclusive and non-generalisable new technopoliticalised and city-regionalised digital citizenship regimes in certain European nation-states’ urban areas; (2) algorithmic citizenship, which is driven by blockchain and has allowed the implementation of an e-Residency programme in Tallinn; (3) liquid citizenship, driven by dataism – the deterministic ideology of big data – and contested through claims for digital rights in Barcelona and Amsterdam; (4) metropolitan citizenship, as revindicated in reaction to Brexit and reshuffled through data co-operatives in Cardiff; and (5) stateless citizenship, driven by devolution and reinvigorated through data sovereignty in Barcelona, Glasgow and Bilbao. This chapter challenges the existing interpretation of how these emerging digital citizenship regimes together are ubiquitously rescaling the associated spaces/practices of European nation-states.

While marketing analytics can be used to improve organizational decision-making and performance significantly, little research exists to examine how the configurations of multiple conditions affect marketing analytics use. This study draws on configuration theory to investigate marketing analytics use in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This research employs a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis using data collected from a survey of 187 managers in UK SMEs.

The key findings show that (1) configurations of multiple conditions provide alternative pathways to marketing analytics use, and (2) the configurations for small firms are different from those for medium-sized firms.

The research results are based on several key configurational factors and a single key-informant method to collect subjective data from UK SME managers.

The study helps SMEs to understand that marketing analytics use is influenced by the interaction of multiple conditions, that there are alternative pathways to marketing analytics use, and that SMEs should choose the configuration that fits best with their organizational contexts.

The study contributes to the literature by addressing an important yet underresearched area, i.e. marketing analytics use in SMEs, applying a configurational approach to the research phenomenon. It highlights different pathways to marketing analytics use in SMEs. The findings provide empirical evidence on the possibility and implication of marketing analytics use being asymmetrical and different between small and medium-sized firms.

The purpose of this paper is to offer new insights regarding an issue that has attracted the interest of multitude academics and practitioners in business management and family firm literature: technological innovation (TI). Specifically, this study brings new knowledge regarding both the impact of TI efficiency on firm growth and the moderating role of family involvement in management on such relationship.

The authors use a matched-pairs design and an ordinary least squares regression analysis to examine a sample of 152 Spanish manufacturing firms.

First, the authors show that firms obtaining higher TI efficiency are also those that achieve superior growth. Second, the authors reveal that as family involvement in management increases, the positive effect that TI efficiency exerts on firm growth is strengthened.

This study suggests that family managers should essentially consider various aspects such as tacit knowledge, social capital and long-standing collaborations with stakeholders to reinforce the relationship between TI efficiency and firm growth.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the effect of TI efficiency on firm growth, as well as, when and to what extent family involvement in management influences the TI efficiency–growth relationship. Thus, this paper provides a deeper understanding of the importance that family managers could have on firm growth deriving from TI efficiency.