Measuring the unknown: evaluative practices and performance indicators for digital platforms

Purpose In the current digital era where online content is riddled with fabricated metrics and rankings, this research aims to investigate the underpinning mechanisms of the calculative practices which actors engage with to evaluate digital platform content in the absence of well-defined performance measures. Design/methodology/approach The paper focuses on the online, photo-sharing platform Instagram which is devoid of common performance measures such as rankings, ratings and reviews. The authors applied netnographic methods to capture users' actions and interactions at the Greek Instagram community. The authors adopt a practice lens as informed by Schatzki's ‘site ontology’ to capture actors' calculative practices as organised by rules, teleoaffective structures and general and practical understandings. Findings Platform actors engage in aesthetic and palpable evaluations of other user profiles and their posted content. They employ permissible (e.g., using third-party apps) and illicit (e.g., lobbying and procuring engagement) tactics to measure and manage digital platform performance, fabricate metrics and blur others' evaluations, in pursuit of prestige and material teleologies. Their calculative practices are conditioned by an implicit social etiquette, which permeates the platform both horizontally and vertically. Originality/value First, the paper captures and theorises the mechanisms which underpin actors' calculative practices for performance measurement in the absence of robust judgement devices. Second, it demonstrates how ambiguous assemblages of material and prestige teleologies, aesthetic and palpable evaluative regimes and implicit rules and practical expertise collectively invoke platform actors' calculative practices and the construction of performance measures. In doing so, it contributes to performance measurement literature via demonstrating how management accounting is implicated in the evaluation of digital platform outputs. Practical implications The paper provides insight on how platform actors fabricate performance metrics, what they perceive as ‘good’ online content and what constitutes an ‘impactful’ user account or a ‘successful’ social media campaign. Such findings are valuable to management accountants, entrepreneurs and practitioners who seek to evaluate digital platform performance

Hybridization as practice: clinical engagement with performance metrics and accounting technologies in the English NHS

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the hybridization practices that medical managers engage with to promote accounting and performance measurement in the hybrid setting of healthcare. In doing so, the authors explore how medical managers enact and become practitioners of hybridity.Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopt a practice lens to conceptualize hybridization as an emergent, situated practice and capture the micro-activities that medical managers engage with when they enact hybridity. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with medical managers, business managers and coding professionals and collected documents at an English National Health Service (NHS) hospital over the course of five years.FindingsThe findings accentuate two emergent practices through which medical managers instill hybridity to individuals who are hesitant or resistant to hybridization. Medical managers engage in equivocalizing and de-stigmatizing practices to broaden the understandings, further diversify or reconcile the teleologies of clinicians in non-managerial roles. In doing so, the authors signal the merits of accounting in improving care outcomes and remove the stigma associated to clinical engagement with costs.Originality/valueThe study contributes to hybridization and practice theory literature via capturing how hybridity is enacted in practice in a healthcare setting. As medical managers engage with and promote accounting information and performance measurement technologies in their practice environment, they transcend professional boundaries and hybridize the professional spaces that surround them.</jats:sec

Strategizing for digital innovations: value propositions for transcending market boundaries

Digital entrepreneurs often exploit market opportunities across boundaries by constantly designing value propositions rather than innovating. We conceptualize this as a strategizing practice, which we aim to investigate further. This paper explores the mechanisms that digital entrepreneurs use to design and redesign value propositions to exploit market opportunities across boundaries by drawing on a two-year in-depth case study of a digital venture. We argue that at the heart of designing value propositions are the following four mechanisms: excogitating functionality, self-reverberating benefits, designating interdependencies, and conforming intentionalities. The paper argues that through the constant enactment of these mechanisms and a pattern that acts as a catalyst, it is possible to redesign the value proposition to transcend market boundaries without constantly developing new digital products. Our paper offers significant implications for digital technology entrepreneurship and strategizing literature by (a) capturing and theorizing the continual design of the value proposition as a strategizing practice to transcend market boundaries, (b) enunciating the mechanisms underpinning the design of the value proposition, and (c) introducing a new theoretical approach to the study of value proposition drawing on a practice perspective

Justifying the value of art innovations: recurrent practices for business model development

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The process of becoming Insta-Famous: organizing for digital entrepreneurship

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