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The paper arose from an experienced qualitative market researcher's desire to challenge her working methodologies in analysing and interpreting data for commercial clients. Faced with tight deadlines, and working largely on her own, the researcher wished to consider if alternative working practices might be worth the necessary time investment and if outputs could actually be enhanced.

This paper compares the results of projective techniques of qualitative data collection analysed manually with computer‐aided analysis of the same data. Four focus groups were set up. Various creative and projective techniques were incorporated into the groups in order to explore and test the boundaries of both the manual and computer‐based analysis data to the full.

The organisation of data was aided by the use of CAQDAS file management structure, but a general overview of the results was somewhat lost to the researcher. Moreover, visual rather than textual data do not lend itself to computer‐aided analysis, minimising their utility in analysing results from a wide range of projective techniques.

While the objectivity of this introspective, reflective approach may be questionable, using a separate researcher to undertake different methods was neither deemed to enable a direct comparison of the process nor the experience, as seen reflectively through the eyes of the same researcher.

Insights can benefit other commercial market researchers who may be considering using CAQDAS.

The paper explores the analysis of data gathered using projective techniques – a recognised gap in the literature.

Media and academic attention on Airbnb focuses on user experiences, implications for traditional accommodation establishments and negative sociocultural impacts. The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of Barcelona residents who have been impacted by the proliferation of Airbnb rentals.

A qualitative approach was adopted, involving semi-structured interviews with residents of Barcelona.

It highlights the problem of unregistered Airbnb rentals throughout the city, carrying implications for the gentrification of neighbourhoods, the displacement of local residents and anti-social guest behaviour. This study points to a consequent rise in anti-tourist feeling. It also reveals that the authentic experience promised by the sharing economy is illusory.

This paper presents a model that highlights a clash between the vaunted benefits of the sharing economy for hosts and tourists and the negative implications for a city’s residents.

The history of economics has often been described as the “history of economic thought.” In this essay, I explore an alternative perspective that builds on the French tradition of historical epistemology and treats economics as a social practice. I argue that a practice-based view provides a more philosophically robust conception of historiography and a richer field of investigation for historians of economics.

The chapter investigates the relationship between environmental management practices (EMPs) and financial performance (FP).

The study is based on a sample of 187 SMEs and uses data on six EMPs (energy, water, waste, material, emissions, and biodiversity) collected through a self-administered questionnaire from owner-managers of SMEs. Ordinary least squares regression is employed to model the hypothesized paths.

The results suggest a positive and significant relationship between EMPs (energy, water, and material) and FP. There is also a significant positive relationship between an aggregate EMP measure and FP. However, other EMPs (waste, emissions, and biodiversity) are not significantly associated with FP. Overall, these results provide empirical support to the mostly normative suggestion that the conflicting results on the environmental management and financial performance relationship are partly due to the EMP measure used.

The study is based on cross-sectional data, and therefore, it is impossible to determine any changes over time. Longitudinal studies could help confirm the relationship between EMP and FP over a longer period. From a policy perspective, this results mean that the Ghanaian EPA must monitor more closely for violations of laws and regulations relating to waste, emissions, and biodiversity since SMEs do not have incentives to manage these impacts without commensurate return.

The study contributes by documenting evidence of the relationship between multiple measures of EMP and FP. This unlike most existing studies has enabled us to report evidence of how each EMP measure affects FP differently and where win–win opportunities are for SMEs. Thus, the win–win opportunities are associated with some EMP measures but not all.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of professional competency in current digital curation literature through the lens of competency theories in management science and organizational studies. This paper also aims to provide recommendations to articulate and expand professional competencies in future digital curation research and professional education.

The outcomes presented in this paper are based on a multi-disciplinary literature review and a qualitative content analysis. The literature review explores theoretical foundations of professional competency in management science and organizational studies and how the concept of professional competency is used in digital curation literature. The content analysis scrutinizes 16 digital curation publications that have discussed professional competency, with an in-depth examination of seven empirical studies in these publications.

The findings include: the concept of professional competency is inconsistently used in digital curation literature, the digital curation literature exhibits disparate coverage of different types of professional competencies, and the digital curation empirical studies often narrowly operationalize the concept of professional competency but the empirical studies using multiple or in-depth qualitative methods yield more comprehensive findings reflecting a broader scope of the concept.

Although past research focused on the competencies required for digital curation, there is no research scrutinizing the conceptual construct of professional competency in the digital curation literature. This paper will be of value to digital curation researchers and educators to better determine the competencies needed for digital curators as an emerging profession.