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The paper aims to provide a decision-support model to ensure a proper use of the limited resources, financial and not, for the enhancement of the cultural heritage and comprehensive development of small towns from sustainable perspective.

The assessment model is set up using a multi-criteria method that combines elements of linear planning with a performance indicators system that may represent the complexity of the territory’s cultural identity as a result of existing cultural-historical assets.

The model reliability is tested in a case study in a Municipality in southern Italy. The case study’s findings highlight the advantages for the public/private operators, who can consciously choose which preservation and restoration projects to fund while taking into account the effects those decisions will have on the economic, social and environmental context of reference.

Due to the suggested operational approach and the selection of variables for accounting economic, social and environmental impacts by the renewal project, the research findings may not be generalizable. Therefore, it is recommended that researchers look into the suggested theories in more detail.

The study offers implications for designing a user-friendly tool to help decision-making processes from a private–public viewpoint in a reasonable allocation of financial resources among investments for cultural property asset enhancement.

The suggested operational approach provides a reliable information apparatus to depict the decision-making process under small-town development in accordance with sustainability dimensions.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems – the inter-related forces that promote and sustain regional entrepreneurship – are receiving intense academic, policymaker and practitioner attention. Prior research primarily focuses on mature entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in large, urban areas. Scholars are slow to examine the functioning of EEs in small towns, which face unique challenges in spurring entrepreneurial activity. Most notably, small town EEs are dependent on a key stakeholder group – local customers – which receives almost no attention in prior research on ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the role of customers in EEs.

This paper integrates work on the service-dominant logic and service ecosystems with entrepreneurship research to theorize about the influence of customers in small town EEs.

The proposed theory draws attention to the role of customers in evaluating the services provided by entrepreneurs and co-creating value in small town EEs. Theory is developed about the influence of three sets of customer characteristics on entrepreneurial activities: the local market potential (based on the number of local and transient customers), customers’ abilities to access the ecosystem (based on income levels) and customers’ preferences for services provided by the ecosystem’s entrepreneurs (based on preferences for innovativeness, local versus global brands and in- versus out-shopping).

Entrepreneurial ecosystems research has implicitly adopted a producer-dominant logic focusing on entrepreneurs and their ventures as the primary creators of value. The proposed theoretical framework applies the service-dominant logic to EEs and conceptualizes EEs as a unique type of service ecosystem. The theorizing generates implications for scholars and practitioners and suggests that more work is needed at the interface of entrepreneurship, marketing and regional economic development.

This conceptual article focuses on the small‐town municipal‐level police department, as a distinctive model within the mosaic of US policing. As an example of the success of a low‐tech, nonmilitarized, open systems model, the small‐town police department stands in stark contrast to its urban counterpart. As a result of its affinity towards generalization as opposed to specialization, the small‐town department has higher crime clearance rates and is organizationally receptive to the demands and requirements of community‐oriented policing. The small‐town police department’s absence of “professionalism” and militarism is key to its community connectedness, the foundation of its efficacy.

With the development of small towns in China, the country pays more and more attention to the protection of landscape resources. It is an urgent problem that is how to protect landscape resources and ecological environment while developing economic industry in small towns. Establishing an ecotourism evaluation model can provide valuable reference for ecotourism planning, development protection and sustainable development of small towns.

This paper uses the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to construct the ecotourism evaluation system that accords with the characteristics of small towns. A judgment matrix is constructed to determine specific indicators and factor values based on expert survey results. Based on the AHP theory and considering 4 aspects, construction conditions of featured small towns, ecological and environmental conditions, ecotourism resources endowment and development conditions and tourism capacity. In addition, 16 factor evaluations were selected, evaluation model of ecotourism resources were built and each evaluation index value was confirmed by adopting expert's advice.

Ecological environment, socioeconomic, uniqueness, esthetic ornamental value, small-scale industry scale, type and development level, type and scale, tourism talent level, therapeutic and leisure value were the indispensable components of evaluation of ecotourism resources in featured small towns.

The ideas of ecological environment development are rooted in the hearts of the people with the development of times. The model in this research is pertinent, typical and universal to some extent. Thus it is worth popularizing and applying.

Ecological small towns can attract a large number of rural surplus labors and ease the population pressure, how to carry out the planning and construction ecological town becomes a hotspot of research. Based on this, planning and construction of ecological small towns absorbing surplus rural labor based on fuzzy evaluation method were proposed. First of all, planning and construction of small towns under the concept of ecology were elaborated; and then the planning and construction strategies of small towns integrating ecological concepts were put forward, including the utilization of water resources, ecological the landscape and transportation planning; at the same time, a project for ecological small town in Hebei Province was taken as an example for the planning and design; in addition, the planning objectives and layout planning were analyzed and evaluated by fuzzy evaluation method, and the results confirmed the success of planning and design.

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are receiving growing attention from scholars, practitioners and policy-makers in both developed and developing countries. Studies of this phenomenon have focused almost exclusively on ecosystems in large, urbanized regions and metropolitan areas, located primarily in developed economies. However, the prevalence of small cities across the globe and the increasing acknowledgment that entrepreneurship in small towns is a key determinant of their economic development and rejuvenation suggests that entrepreneurial ecosystems research would benefit from a broader lens of inquiry. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework for studying entrepreneurial ecosystems in small towns.

This conceptual paper introduces the concept of small town entrepreneurial ecosystems (STEEs), draws from a wide-ranging set of disciplines to delineate the ways in which small town ecosystems are similar to and different than their larger counterparts and theorizes about several strategies STEEs use to overcome their limitations.

It is theorized that entrepreneurship in small cities is best conceptualized as the outcome of an ecosystem, which means that although small towns may not have some of the same key components as entrepreneurial ecosystems in large urban centers, other elements of the ecosystem may be able to bolster these deficiencies. It also suggests that those attempting to create or develop small town ecosystems may need to be entrepreneurial in the way they attract, view and utilize resources. Finally, it is theorized that small cities may be able to engage in several strategies to overcome their limitations and create vibrant entrepreneurial communities.

The theory developed produces implications for scholars focused on entrepreneurial ecosystems, economic development and emerging economies and suggests practical implications for policy-makers and development organizations seeking to improve the economic landscape of small cities.

Explorations of the police work world in the USA typically involve non‐random, unrepresentative samples of widely dispersed law enforcement agencies. Questions about officer selection, training and performance standards make comparisons of agency‐based studies – especially among large city, small town, and rural law enforcers – difficult. In the present study, unique region‐specific comparisons (i.e. metropolitan vs small‐town vs rural duty stations) of the New Zealand Police (NZP) add to this body of knowledge for several reasons. First, the sample includes both sworn and non‐sworn personnel, a rarity in US policing studies. Second, the “police agency” under study is a unified, national policing organization. This fact minimizes the vagaries of recruitment, selection and training found in the USA. Third, the data represents a random stratified sample of all official personnel who provide a wide range of police‐related services in New Zealand, achieving a level of representativeness that is rare in police studies. Fourth, the shared common law tradition and more recent focus on community‐oriented policing provide a unique opportunity to examine topics relevant to both New Zealand and the USA. The policy and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Faced with an increasingly open society, retail concentration and population change, the purpose of this paper is to consider the challenges and potential for small towns to compete for custom from their residents.

Retail challenges and potential are considered through exploring the attitudes and behaviour of residents in a range of towns, where the key factors affecting trade are identified using regression analysis and then explored further using more open‐ended approaches.

The resident surveys illustrate a sizeable leakage of retail expenditure out of the towns, particularly for comparison goods. Regression analysis shows that this leakage is more part of a general trend rather than being associated with high levels of migration into the towns. Residents seem to fit into two different groupings: first, those whose expectations can be met at the small town level; and second, those wanting a different offer and tending to go elsewhere. Encouraging trade from the former provides the most realistic policy objective.

Key issues relate to getting the basics right, providing support to independent/specialist shops, encouraging firms to fill missing key elements of the retail offer and, where population change is occurring, ensuring that the expansion of services does not have detrimental effects for town centres.

This paper illustrates that although there are many retail challenges‐facing small towns, there is potential for them to maintain their viability and vitality.

To identify factors that influence small‐town consumers' satisfaction with local independent retailers and the subsequent relationships of consumer satisfaction to in‐shopping, community attachment, and support of local independent retailers.

Oliver's expectancy‐disconfirmation model (1980) was used as the framework to predict consumer satisfaction. Consumer mailing addresses were attained from independent retailers in three small Midwest communities in the USA wherein at least one big box retailer was located. A survey questionnaire was sent to 903 consumers of independent retailers. The return rate was 36 per cent with 328 responses.

Most strategies performed by small‐town independent retailers did not meet their local consumers' expectations. Specially, merchandise assortment and availability, such as offering a unique and large selection of products, showed the largest discrepancy between respondents' expectations and retailers' performance, indicating that independent retailers are not meeting their consumers' needs in these areas. Participants who were satisfied with their independent retailers, shopped locally, were strongly attached to their communities, and were willing to support their local independent retailers.

Small‐town independent retailers need to continuously examine and re‐examine their business strategies to meet the changing expectations of their local consumers. Small‐town consumers' expectations of local independent retailers are shifting due to varying dynamics of retail environment including the entry of big‐box retailers. It is essential that independent retailers know their local customers and exploit niche strategies that big‐box retailers do not provide.

The authors adopted the concepts of satisfaction and disconfirmation from Oliver's expectancy‐disconfirmation model. On the basis of Oliver's model, the authorss predicted that consumer satisfaction with local independent retailers would be affected by possible disconfirmation between consumers' expectations and independent retailers' performance.

Much of extant literature on entrepreneurship ecosystems is geared toward mid- and large-size metropolitan areas, and small cities are considered disadvantageous without essential elements for the ecosystem. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on understanding how small cities can have vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystems.

This study conducted 42 semistructured interviews of entrepreneurs and supporters in small towns of Montana, USA. This study also supplemented with a survey of 178 firms.

Entrepreneurs in small cities enjoy dense support networks including experienced entrepreneurs, key business and civic leaders and elected officials. They also attend entrepreneurial events and establish connections with support organizations with a distance of 200 miles.

The cases in this paper demonstrate that small cities can have vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystems without urban diversity and agglomeration. That additionally means that we should not apply the theoretical framework developed with large urban areas to small cities and consider different models of development for small cities.