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Educational institutions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are striving for better resource management and finance. The bottom-up budgeting approach plays an important role in motivating executives' performance. The main aim of this paper is to discover whether there is a significant difference between bottom-up and a top-down approaches to budgeting in terms of managers' performance.

Questionnaires were distributed to 453 university executives in 21 MENA educational institutions. The Kruskal–Wallis test was utilized to test the difference between the three groups (bottom-up, top-down and consultative approaches). Further analysis was conducted to test the difference between the two groups using the Mann–Whitney test.

The results show that there is a significant difference between a bottom-up and top-down approach in terms of managerial performance. The study's findings indicate that the bottom-up approach to budgeting leads to higher performance indicators than a top-down approach to budgeting.

The current study contributes to the research as it increases awareness of budgeting approaches that are used in higher education institutions, specifically in terms of the effect of these differences on executives' performance.

Lean implementations in hospitals tend to be lengthy or lack the desired results. In addressing the question, how can lean be implemented effectively in a hospital-wide setting, this paper aims to examine two opposing approaches.

The authors studied two Dutch university hospitals which engaged in different lean implementation approaches during the same four-year period: top-down vs bottom-up. Inductive qualitative analyses were made of 49 interviews; numerous documents; field notes; 13 frontline meeting observations; and objective hospital performance data. Longitudinally, the authors depict how the sequential events unfolded in both hospitals.

During the six implementation stages, the roles played by top, middle and frontline managers stood out. While the top managers of one hospital initiated the organization-wide implementation and then delegated it to others, the top managers of the other similar hospital merely tolerated the bottom-up lean activities. Eventually, only the hospital with the top-down approach achieved high organization-wide performance gains, but only in its fourth year after the top managers embraced lean in their own daily work practices and had started to co-create lean themselves. Then, the earlier developed lean infrastructure at the middle- and frontline ranks led to the desired hospital-wide lean implementation results.

Change-management insights, including basic tenets of social learning and goal-setting theory, are shown to advance the knowledge of effective lean implementation in hospitals. The authors found lean implementation “best-oiled” through role-modeling by top managers who use a phase-based process and engage in close cross-hierarchical or co-creative collaboration with middle and frontline managerial members.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify how end‐users' tacit knowledge can be captured and integrated in an overall business process management (BPM) approach. Current approaches to support stakeholders' collaboration in the modelling of business processes envision an egalitarian environment where stakeholders interact in the same context, using the same languages and sharing the same perspectives on the business process. Therefore, such stakeholders have to collaborate in the context of process modelling using a language that some of them do not master, and have to integrate their various perspectives.

The paper applies the SECI knowledge management process to analyse the problems of traditional top‐down BPM approaches and BPM collaborative modelling tools. Besides, the SECI model is also applied to Wikipedia, a successful Web 2.0‐based knowledge management environment, to identify how tacit knowledge is captured in a bottom‐up approach.

The paper identifies a set of requirements for a hybrid BPM approach, both top‐down and bottom‐up, and describes a new BPM method based on a stepwise discovery of knowledge.

This new approach, Processpedia, enhances collaborative modelling among stakeholders without enforcing egalitarianism. In Processpedia tacit knowledge is captured and standardised into the organisation's business processes by fostering an ecological participation of all the stakeholders and capitalising on stakeholders' distinctive characteristics.

Many service-oriented software engineering (SOSE) methods from industry and academia claim their compliance with SOA and SO, but there is a lack of framework to assess the existing methods or to provide new ones. First, the paper questions: (Q1) to what extent an approach would consider the three aspect: service, composition, and management to deliver software solutions that are conformed to SO and SOA principles; (Q2) to what extent an approach would consider the aggregates of a method, including representation techniques, assisting tools, and inspection techniques to assess the delivered solution (service and composition), in addition to the process; and (Q3) to what extent an approach would consider the alignment of business and IT through the application of model-driven development by using standards such as model-driven architecture. Then, the paper compares four generic approaches: top-down, bottom-up, green-field, and meet-in-the-middle, within a framework, to highlight their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, the paper aims to propose a business-oriented approach that focuses on the value a business can add to its customers, whereby the value must be specified in a contract to be largely re-used.

This work develops a framework as an abstract model for SOSE generic methods. Then, it uses the framework as an analytical study to compare the generic methods and come up with research issues and a new method for SOSE.

A set of guidelines that a SOSE method develops should consider when selecting or developing a new method.

Comparison of existing SOSE methods within the findings of the proposed framework. The paper has theoretical implications as the open issues provide a research roadmap towards the realization of SOA in accordance with a maturity model.

This has practical implications as it: provides a better understanding of the approaches, as they are ambiguously used by the existing methods; and assists developers in deciding an approach having the necessary knowledge related to its process, strengths and weaknesses.

None of the existing comparison framework has raised the level of abstraction up to generic methods such as top-down, green-filed, meet-in-the-middle and bottom-up.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the different concepts of innovation in the subsistence marketplace from top-down and bottom-up approaches. This study analyzes the literature on the theme and identified research gaps by constructing a framework based on approaches and innovation concepts, which can guide future research efforts. Additionally, this paper presents two case studies, which can improve the way innovation is developed and diffused in the subsistence marketplace.

Through a literature review, this study develops a framework by analyzing innovation concepts in the subsistence marketplace (i.e. base of the pyramid innovation, disruptive innovation, frugal innovation, reverse innovation and inclusive innovation) in light of subsistence marketplace approaches (top-down and bottom-up).

The analysis showed critical research gaps, especially a lack of studies involving disruptive and frugal innovations from a bottom-up approach. This paper also concludes that the top-down approach is more common than the bottom-up one. To fill these gaps, this study presents two business plans by illustrating disruptive innovation vs bottom-up approach and frugal innovation vs bottom-up approach.

The use of real business plans to illustrate proposals having an actual impact on subsistence marketplace regions sheds light on how to address these challenges. By doing so, this paper intends to fill the theoretical gap in disruptive and frugal innovations within a bottom-up approach to promote the development and diffusion of different types of innovation in the subsistence marketplace, and thus provide solutions to alleviate poverty.

This chapter investigates the geographical variations and approaches that shape the implementation of smart city projects on a global scale. Recognizing the significant influence of contextual factors on smart city initiatives, this chapter aims to comprehend the dynamics that drive the objectives and approaches of smart city projects across different countries. This chapter provides an overview of the strategic and geographical factors that impact smart city implementation, considering organizational drivers and practices, such as the Hofstede model in context. It explores the role of citizen-based, technology-based, and decision-making-based development in smart city implementation. Moreover, this chapter examines the strategic, cultural, socioeconomic, and geographical differences that influence smart city projects worldwide. It analyzes the geographical influence and internal drivers of smart city projects, focusing on Europe, North America, Latin America, and East and South Asia. This analysis offers insights into diverse approaches to smart city development, encompassing top-down and bottom-up approaches. By examining various perspectives and experiences from smart city initiatives worldwide, this chapter sheds light on the challenges and opportunities associated with implementing smart city strategies in different contexts.

This paper aims to explores consultants' experiences of communities of practice (CoPs) in one of the world's largest information technology companies against organisational strategies. The research focus concerns experiences of formal top‐down and underground CoPs.

The paper is an exploratory case study. Following a subjective approach the it draws on individual experiences of ten consultants. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted alongside documentary analysis to gain understanding of the organisation's approach to CoPs.

The paper finds that the one size fits all organisational approach to CoPs does not address the specific knowledge requirements of the consultancy unit where the majority of consultants work widely dispersed from clients' sites. The consultants report mistrust of top‐down CoPs and remain committed to underground CoPs. Since the skills and knowledge of the consultants are the unit's only asset, the top‐down approach to CoPs should be revisited in order to enable knowledge creation and continuous improvement of these assets, vital for future success of the consultancy business.

The research focuses on the consultancy unit; wider research exploring experiences of top‐down CoPs elsewhere in the organisation is an area of future research, as is exploring membership of bootlegged CoPs as resistance to organisational change.

This research is useful for practitioners, especially the management of consultancies, whose business success is reliant on their employees' skills and knowledge.

The researcher is a member of the organisation under exploration and is therefore able to include an inside view. The research was undertaken following the acquisition of an international consultancy by the information technology organisation.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigates a variety of approaches to supply disruption risk management for achieving effective responses for resilience at the supply management subunit level (e.g. category of items). Drawing on the attention-based view of the firm, the authors model the attentional antecedents of supply resilience as (1) attentional perspectives and (2) attentional selection. Attentional perspectives focus on either supply risk sources or supply network recoverability, and both are hypothesised to have a direct positive association with supply resilience. Attentional selection is top down or bottom up when it comes to disruption detection, and these are hypothesised to moderate the association between disruption risk management perspectives and resilience.

Conducted at the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study employs a hierarchical regression analysis on a multicountry survey of 190 procurement professionals, each responding from the perspective of their own subunit area of supply responsibility.

Both attentional disruption risk management perspectives are needed to achieve supply resilience, and neither is superior in terms of achieving supply resilience. Both the efficiency of the top down and exposure to the unexpected with the bottom up are needed – to a balanced degree – for improved supply resilience.

The results encourage firms to purposefully develop their supply risk management practices, first, to include both perspectives and, second, to avoid biases in attentional selection for disruption detection. Ensuring a more balanced approach may allow firms to improve their supply resilience.

The results contribute to the understanding of the microfoundations that underpin firms' operational capabilities for supply risk and disruption management and possible attentional biases.

In recent years, the term “smart city” has attracted a lot of attention from policy makers, business leaders and citizenship in general. Although there is not a unique definition of what a smart city is, it is generally accepted that “smart” urban policies refer to local governments’ initiatives that use information and communication technologies in order to increase the quality of life of their inhabitants while contributing to a sustainable development. So far, “smart city” approaches have generally been related to top-down processes of technology diffusion. The purpose of this paper is to present a broader view on “smart” initiatives to analyze both top-down and bottom-up dynamics in a smart city. The authors argue that these two perspectives are complementary and its combination can reinforce the collaboration between different city stakeholders. Top-down and bottom-up initiatives are not opposed forces but, on the contrary, can have a synergistic effect on the innovation capacity of the city. Both perspectives are illustrated by providing examples of different “smart” aspects in the city of Barcelona: smart districts, open collaborative spaces, infrastructures and open data.

To illustrate the arguments, the authors analyze the case of the city of Barcelona providing examples of top-down and bottom-up initiatives in four different smart city aspects: smart districts, open collaborative spaces, infrastructures and open data. The research method is based on a case study (Yin, 1984). The primary data consisted on interviews to city council representatives as well as managers of local public institutions, like economic development offices, and local organizations like for instance coworking spaces. The authors interviewed also specialists on the innovation history of the city in order to validate the data. In addition, the authors used secondary data such as reports on the 22@, and documentation on the Barcelona innovation policies, as well as doing a compilation of press articles and the online content of the institutional webpages. All together, the authors have followed a data triangulation strategy to seek data validation based on the cross-verification of the analyzed data sources.

The analysis suggests that the top-down and bottom-up perspectives are complementary and their combination can reinforce the collaboration between different city stakeholders. Top-down and bottom-up initiatives are not opposed forces but, on the contrary, can have a synergistic effect on the innovation capacity of the city. Both perspectives are illustrated by providing examples of different “smart” aspects in the city of Barcelona: smart districts, open collaborative spaces, infrastructures and open data.

Nevertheless, the analysis has its limitations. Even if the authors have emphasized the importance of the bottom-up initiatives, citizens do not have often the resources to act without governmental intervention. This is the case of services that require high-cost infrastructures or regulatory changes. Also, as it usually happens in the case of disruptive technology, it is hard for citizens to understand the possibilities of its use. In these cases, firms and institutions must play an important role in the first phases of the diffusion of innovations, by informing and incentivizing its use. It is also important to note that some of the emerging usages of technology are confronted to legal or regulatory issues. For instance, distributed and shared Wi-Fi networks might be in opposition to economic interests of internet providers, that often difficult its expansion. It is also the case of services of the sharing economy that represent a menace to established institutions (like the tensions between Uber and taxi companies, or Airbnb and hotels). In these cases, city halls like it is the case in Barcelona, tend to respond to these emergent uses of technology by regulating to ensure protection to existing corporate services.

In conclusion, the transformational process that leads a city to become a smart city has to take in consideration the complexity and the plurality of the urban reality. Beyond considering citizens as being users, testers or consumers of technology, local administrations that are able to identify, nourish and integrate the emerging citizens’ initiatives would contribute to the reinforcement of a smart city reality.

The contribution of the paper is to go beyond the generalized technologic discourse around smart cities by adding the layer of the citizens’ initiatives.

This paper aims to analyze the case of Cartagena, Colombia, as a case of a failed destination branding. It also broadens the findings by connecting them to the extant literature about place branding, thus making this paper more explanatory. It tries to fit the fieldwork’s findings into the two main streams of branding research (bottom-up vs top-down). This paper also gives practical insights into the destination’s network of stakeholders and discusses ways to improve the destination’s management and branding.

This paper uses a mixed methodology approach. Field work consisted of online questionnaire to hospitality employees in the city plus semi-structured interviews conducted with 18 “expert” stakeholders in the destination. This paper is of empirical nature.

The main cause of the destination’s brand failure is found to be the top-down approach to the place brand strategy. The literature shows that cases such as this one are more common than assumed, and a possible way out of the problem is the application of bottom-up or “mixed” approaches, as these may circumvent the problems found.

Cases like this one illustrate very well a local context but might be difficult to transfer to other contexts, so the generalization power of this paper is limited to similar places in the sociopolitical sense of the term.

For place branding practitioners and destination management organizations , this paper is a call for participative approaches which include all of the stakeholders of a place.

This paper offers an in-depth study of a branding case in Latin America, a part of the world relatively unexplored in the branding literature. On the basis of the presented case, this paper pitches top-down versus bottom-up approaches. Finally, it explains the findings by connecting the place to its broad geographical context.