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The purpose of this paper is to stimulate changes to the way performance data is used to improve performance taking the government’s use of project data as an example.

This paper uses systems theory to review the way the government’s major projects portfolio should be analysed.

This paper concludes that broader engagement in the analytics process should be considered as a way of improving insights and learning from reviews. The paper suggests that report alone has limited value.

By taking a systems approach, this study raises questions about the methods used to manage data analysis and system improvements. Systems thinking is a useful tool to consider applications such as the performance of the government’s project portfolio, but there are many other approaches that can be applied.

This study makes very specific recommendations around the roles and responsibilities of people and teams at different levels in the system. Roles and activities are described together with recommendations about interfering in and overreaching these roles and activities.

This paper synthesises a number of systems approaches together with a view of why “we measure” to create a framework for analysing approaches to performance improvement. The practical application provided here gives insights into how these approaches can be used in real-life contexts.

This paper introduces the special issue on “Operations strategy and performance: a resource‐based perspective”. It assesses recent and current trends in operations strategy and performance management and points out that, although developments in resource‐based theory, together with the concepts of competence and capability, have led to alternative perspectives for analysing strategic and operational problems, there is a general paucity of literature available for practitioners. The seven papers in this special issue are published in order to fill this gap in the literature. Each paper is briefly introduced and discussed.

This paper describes research on the resources that underlie a manufacturing company’s service competence in its most established product group. Published methods for identifying and assessing resources are reviewed and, based on current theory, improvements are developed, tested and critiqued. A historical representation of the firm’s activities in its service provision over more than ten years is used to enable grounded identification of the resources involved. Sets of theory‐based questions are used to assess the value and sustainability of the resources identified. The plans and actions that appeared to relate to the intervention are then described over the following two years. Finally the methods are discussed from three perspectives – first, their appropriateness; second, the resource data they generated, and third, their apparent utility for managers.

It is argued that whilst operational and support processes deliver performance presently, it is the managerial processes that sustain performance over time. The purpose of this research paper is to better understand what these managerial processes are and how they influence organisational performance.

The theoretical background is reviewed covering literature on the subject of business process management, resourced‐based view (RBV), dynamic capabilities and managerial processes. A research framework leads to qualitative case study‐based research design. Data are collected from 37 organisations across Europe, classified according to their performance.

Findings suggest that the five managerial processes and their constituent managerial activities, identified through the empirical research, influence performance of organisations as an interconnected managerial system rather than as individual processes and activities. Also, the execution and maturity of this managerial system is influenced by the perceptions of the managers who organise it.

Within the limitation of the study the discussion leads to eight research propositions that contribute to our understanding of how managerial processes influence organisational performance. These propositions and ensuing discussion provide insights into the content and structure of managerial processes, as well as contributing to the debate on RBV by suggesting that managerial processes and activities could be considered as valuable, rare and inimitable resources. Furthermore, the discussion on how managerial perceptions influence the organisation and execution of the managerial system contributes towards our understanding of how and why dynamic capabilities develop.

The results suggest that in higher performing organisations, managers: demonstrate a wider awareness of the overall managerial system; achieve a balance between short‐term and future‐oriented activities; exploit their managerial activities for multiple purposes; demonstrate greater maturity of managerial activities; and pay greater attention to the organisation of the managerial system.

This paper presents one of the first empirical studies that attempt to understand how business processes, and particularly managerial processes, as an interconnected managerial system serve to sustain performance of organisations.

The paper aims to examine disputed interpretations of “key meanings” between the audit regulator and Big 4 firms during a highly contentious regulatory debate, showcasing their use of “strategies of resistance” to achieve their intended outcomes.

A qualitative analysis is performed of the discourse in a South African audit regulatory debate, set within the country's unique political and historical context. The analysis is informed by the theoretical construct of a “regulatory space” and an established typology of strategic responses to institutional pressures.

The study’s findings show how resistance to regulatory intentions from influential actors, notably the Big 4 firms, was dispelled. This was achieved by the regulator securing oversight independence, co-opting political support, shortening the debate timeline and unilaterally revising the interpretation of its statutory mandate. The regulator successfully incorporated race equality into its interpretation of how the public interest is advanced (in addition to audit quality). The social legitimacy of the Big 4 was then further undermined. The debate was highly contentious and unproductive and likely contributed to overall societal concerns regarding the legitimacy of, and the value ascribed to, the audit function.

A deeper appreciation of vested interests and differing interpretations of key concepts and regulatory logic could help to promote a less combative regulatory environment, in the interest of enhanced audit quality and the sustainability and legitimacy of the audit profession.

The context provides an example, contrary to that observed in many jurisdictions, where the Big 4 fail to actively resist or even dilute significant regulatory reform. Furthermore, the findings indicate that traditional conceptions of what it means to serve “the public interest” may be evolving in favour of a more liberal social democratic interpretation.

Performance-based contracting (PBC) is a business model for the adaptive and innovative delivery of product-service systems. In PBC, the provider is paid according to the service performance with the aim of providing monetary incentives to safeguard possible outcomes as much as possible for the PBC customer. Performance measurement and its management are crucial for PBC success and, in particular, for the pay-for-performance link. However, the literature on PBC performance management is rather sparse, and there has been no systematic review on the topic. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to fill that gap and to present a comprehensive and systematic review of performance measurement and management in the PBC context.

The paper builds on a literature review based on a sample of 102 subject-relevant articles from academic journals. The content analysis follows a two-step procedure. First, the articles are coded following a process-based research framework. Second, the content of each process step is assessed in a qualitative text analysis.

The results show a surprising scarcity of papers that explicitly address performance management topics in the context of PBC. Only the topics of performance specification and performance indicators are broadly addressed, whereas in all of the other areas, e.g., strategic alignment, data capture and reporting, only limited specific findings could be found.

The paper concludes that future research on performance management in PBC should expand its theoretical framework and empirical efforts in four specific proposed directions.

The paper provides an up-to-date review that is focused on performance management and measurement in the emerging context of PBC.

We've come to expect our retailing environments to look good, to be attractive to shoppers and to enhance the merchandise. There's nothing like a bright, new flashy fascia to catch the eye. Hut what lies behind the gleaming chrome and the glittering glass? The popular image of store design is often conceived of as something tacked on at the end — a quick job which a skilful team can carry out with speed. For Michael Peters, who until recently have concentrated on package design, to achieve the effortless‐looking end product a lot of hard graft has gone on before. Sue Sharpies reports on their philosophy and how they've carried this into practice.

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.