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Digitalising cities requires new urban governance processes that account for rapidly changing environments and technological advances. In this context, agile development methods have become valuable, if not necessary. However, agile development contradicts public administration practices of risk aversion and long-term planning. The purpose of this study is to discuss practical avenues for navigating these two contradictions by adapting agile development to the needs of public sector organisations.

The authors review the collaborative elaboration of Dresden’s smart city strategy as a critical case study. Dresden’s smart city strategy was developed using agile development and quadruple-helix innovation. The year-long co-creation process involved stakeholders from various groups to conceive an integrated and sustainable vision for digitalisation-based urban development.

Despite the apparent contradictions, this study finds that key aspects of agile development are feasible for public sector innovation. Firstly, risks can be strategically managed and distributed among administration and non-administration stakeholders. Secondly, while delivering value through short iterative loops, adherence to formal processes remains possible. Informal feedback cycles can be harmoniously combined with official statements, allowing iterative progress.

The empirical material is based on a single case study and thus risks overemphasising the general applicability of the proposed methods.

This paper outlines practical steps to greater agility for public administration engaged in digitalising cities. The paper conceptualises a forward and lateral momentum for the agile development of a smart city strategy that aims to reconcile formal policymaking processes with short-term loops and risk aversion with experimental value creation. This approach balanced risks, created value and enhanced the strategy‘s alignment with strategic frameworks, ultimately promoting innovation in the public sector.

This paper proposes a novel, empirically grounded conceptualisation of implementing agile methods that explicitly recognises the peculiarities of public administrations. It conceptualises the orchestrated and pragmatic use of specific agile development methods to advance the digitalisation of cities.

Taking the dialogic organizational development perspective, this study aims to investigate the framing processes when engaging in dialogue for strategy implementation and how these enable the evolution of implementation opportunities.

Through a qualitative exploratory study conducted in a large multinational, the authors analyse the dialogue and interactions among 25 dyads when identifying opportunities to contribute to strategy implementation. The data analysis relies on a process-coding approach and linkography, a valuable protocol analysis for identifying recursive interaction schemas in conversations.

The authors identify four main framing processes – shaping, unveiling, scattering and shifting – and provide a framework of how these processes affect individuals’ mental models through increasing the tangibility of opportunities or elevating them to new value hierarchies.

From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to the strategy implementation and organizational development literature, providing a micro-perspective of how dialogue allows early knowledge structures to emerge and shape the development of opportunities for strategy implementation.

From a managerial perspective, the authors offer insights to trigger action and change in individuals to contribute to strategy when moving from formulation to implementation.

Rather than focusing on the structural control view of strategy implementation and the role of the top management team, this study considers strategy implementation as a practice and what it takes for organizational actors who do not take part in strategy formulation to enact and shape opportunities for strategy implementation through constructive dialogue.

This study aims to apply the appreciative inquiry approach (AI) to develop a tourism strategy for poverty alleviation in marginalised communities. The focus is to provide practical insights for leveraging tourism to drive positive socio-economic change for the impoverished, using Rosetta, a port city in Egypt with cultural and historical significance, as a case study.

This qualitative applied study uses the four-D phases of AI and thematic analysis to strategise tourism development in Rosetta. Through interviews, focus groups and field visits, the study identifies tourism potential, stakeholder aspirations and actionable strategies for sustainable development. The approach prioritises a bottom-up, community-centric and stakeholder-involved process, aiming for inclusive and equitable growth.

The study revealed Rosetta’s underutilised tourism potential, emphasising heritage tourism. Although tourism offers some economic benefits, its impact on alleviating poverty in Rosetta remains limited. A holistic strategy for tourism development in Rosetta is proposed for economic growth and poverty reduction, focusing on sustainable management, local empowerment, enhanced marketing, improved infrastructure and diversified tourism offerings.

While AI is not new in qualitative studies, the novelty of this study lies in its application to tourism planning for poverty alleviation in a marginalised community like Rosetta, introducing a comprehensive tourism strategy with an original framework applicable to comparable destinations. The study’s significance is emphasised by providing actionable strategies for policymakers, valuable insights for practitioners and enriching the discourse and methodology on pro-poor tourism for academics, representing a step towards filling the gap between theoretical concepts and practical strategies.

This study aims to draw observations on the current status and potentials of the Philippines as a farm tourism destination and identify the underlying factors that inhibit farm tourism development. It intends to gauge the challenges that Filipino farmers face in diversifying farms and operating farm sites and uses these challenges in crafting strategies and policies for relevant stakeholders. It also provides Philippine farm tourism literature to address the limitations of references in the topic.

The study adopts an exploratory type of inquiry method and secondary data collection from various sources, such as published journal articles, news articles and reports, to gain insights and relevant information on farm tourism. The study also uses a threats, opportunities, weaknesses and strengths analysis approach to develop competitive farm tourism strategies.

The Philippines, with vast agricultural land, has the necessary base for farm tourism, and the enactment of the Farm Tourism Development Act of 2016 bridges this potential. With low agricultural outputs, the country draws relevance for farm tourism as a farm diversification strategy to supplement income in rural communities. While having these potentials, crucial initiatives in physical characteristics, product development, education and training, management and entrepreneurship, marketing and customer relations and government support must be implemented. Farmers' lack of skills, training and capital investment potential to convert their farms into farm tourism sites serves as the major drawback. Thus, developing entrepreneurial and hospitality skills is crucial.

This work presents a historical narrative of initiatives and measures of the Philippine farm tourism sector. It also provides a holistic discussion and in-depth analysis of the current state, potentials, strategies and forward insights for farm tourism development.

This paper explores a five-year case example of two educators engaged in practice-based professional development (PBPD) for the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model in a middle school. It examines the transformative effects and challenges of improving writing instruction, the activities involved and alternative PBPD delivery methods. Highlighting a collaborative effort between an institute of higher education (IHE), a middle school and ThinkSRSD, a PBPD for SRSD developer, the example underscores the long-term benefits and innovative insights into engaging with PBPD for SRSD over multiple years.

The case involves analyzing survey data collected over five years. These surveys, which included specific SRSD-related queries and open-ended questions, were instrumental in assessing the evolution of the educators’ perceptions regarding SRSD and their engagement with PBPD. Additionally, the paper details PBPD activities as documented in a research journal, providing a comprehensive account of the developmental process.

Through a cross-institutional partnership, two middle school general educators participated in PBPD for SRSD for 30 h across five years. Their engagement with PBPD progressed from initial introduction and implementation to facilitating PBPD for SRSD among peers and at the national level. Over time, the most consistently enacted SRSD action was “memorize it,” while actions such as “discuss it,” “support it” and “independent performance” showed greater variability. Both educators consistently praised SRSD and sought continued PBPD engagement over the five years.

Our case example is the first five-year analysis of PBPD for SRSD among general middle school educators, highlighting the benefits and challenges of adopting evidence-based writing instruction. Our example emphasizes the need for continuous and focused professional development in areas crucial for student success, including self-regulation, prewriting strategies and techniques for fostering independent performance. Moreover, the two middle school educators’ critical feedback is invaluable for refining PBPD for SRSD. This work also enriches professional development schools (PDS) literature by offering effective strategies to support middle school teachers in developing a vibrant writing community, a cornerstone for student advancement in writing.

The circular economy (CE) has been endorsed as representing a model that is able to achieve environmental protection through decreased use of raw materials, together with changing economic values and social inclusion thanks to its demand for a wide variety of skill profiles. This has motivated many policy initiatives to support the implementation of the CE. The purpose of this study is to follow such policy initiatives in three geographically anchored industry-specific networks.

The study contributes to the research debate on the CE through a spatial approach with a focus on how the implementation of the CE is conditioned by spatial and regional contexts. The authors investigate three different networks in Sweden for CE with different locations and industrial profiles.

The findings reveal the difficulty that exist in relation to the implementation of the CE. The network and support functions in combination with private industry are vital. The risk of sustaining an uneven regional economic development is evident.

Although research on the development of the CE has proliferated, geographical approaches to this development are comparably rare to date. The authors seek to contextualise the strategy development and policy implementation of a CE policy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore international market development for mature products and practices used in a novel business context.

Taking a qualitative approach, the case study method was chosen to investigate how firms develop markets in relation to a new international business context. Critical international decisions are analysed using a managerial perspective.

The success of international ventures depends on managerial learning and effectiveness. In this paper, the authors argue that decisions about international market development can add significantly to the understanding of how business firms enter and develop markets in novel business contexts. Two case studies show different approaches for meeting challenges in distant markets. Four propositions are developed.

A theoretical contribution of this study is the importance of factors that explain international market development decisions in novel business contexts. The balance between incomplete knowledge and making resource commitments is of central concern to international managers. Some of this is tacit knowledge that a firm achieves and learns during the process of market development and other knowledge can only become available after an actual market entry. A second theoretical contribution of this study is the significance of contextual market knowledge in a novel business context.

Although trends such as digitisation, demographic change and flexibilisation of work have been recognised by many human resource (HR) practitioners, this viewpoint paper argues that future-orientation in the HR sector could benefit from making use of the foresight perspective. Foresight is understood as the systematic, method-guided analysis and discussion of possible future developments. The goal is to build future-robust structures in organisations at an early stage and to identify emerging skill needs. This paper aims to make HR professionals aware of the potential of foresight for their strategic activities.

Introducing the approach of strategic foresight to the field of HR, this study derives the argumentation from a discussion of literature and practitioners’ experiences.

So far, foresight in companies has mainly been conducted by strategy and innovation units, with HR and organisational development playing a subordinate role. However, foresight can contribute to gaining a competitive advantage and proactively shape future success factors in the organisation.

The authors advise practitioners to begin implementing strategic foresight within HR departments and organisational development to build future-proof organisations.

This paper introduces strategic foresight to the field of HR and points to a lack of integration between potentially existing foresight activities and people and culture considerations for the future.