Evaluating Public Policy Formation and Support Mechanisms for Technological Innovation

Policy evaluation is a complex task. Most approaches now adopt a mixed method approach combining both quantitative and qualitative techniques. A shortcoming of the standard approaches is that they fail to measure or investigate deeper perceptions of the policy. In this paper the usefulness of projective techniques as a tool for policy evaluation is investigated. Projective techniques are widely used in psychology and consumer studies but their usefulness in policy evaluation has still to be assessed. A simple evaluation is done in this paper by reporting on a study of owner-managers of tradeable-services small and medium size enterprises attitudes to Government e-business policy. The survey included firms from Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and New Zealand. Traditional quantitative and qualitative survey techniques were used, however these failed to produce conclusive evidence. To overcome this limitation two projective techniques- word association and completion tests were employed as an additional evaluation method. The paper illustrates how the results of projective techniques can be analysed using both context and matrix analysis. Given that the area of e-business is dynamic and fast changing and that SMEs are extremely heterogeneous, it is argued that the application of projective techniques to assess their attitudes and perceptions of government policy is a good test of the usefulness of the method. The results of the projective techniques lead to more insight into the perceptions and attitudes of the owner-managers and provide interesting individual perspectives into the issues. Problems with the method, such as costs, the level of skill needed to apply the technique and generalization are highlighted. The overall conclusions are that projective techniques could provide an interesting additional tool for policy evaluation and that further assessment of its usefulness is needed.Policy evaluation; Projective techniques: E-business; SMEs

Projective techniques: Are they a victim of clashing paradigms?

This paper reviews the concept and historical development of projective techniques. It considers why, given the importance of their psychoanalytical foundations to the underlying paradigms of management theory, they have been generally marginalised as a mainstream business and management research tool. Projective techniques are defined and their historical origins delineated. This is followed by an overview of projective ‘types’. Some of the general advantages and current issues associated with employing projective techniques are also presented. Thereafter a discussion of the reasons projective techniques have not been widely adopted by positivist academic management researchers is made. We put forward the central argument that since many of the challenges facing management research are due to the restrictions introduced by bounded rationality, projective techniques offer a possible alternative to traditional mixed methods.Projective Techniques; Management Research;

Reviews

Martin Oliver (ed.), Innovation in the Evaluation of Learning Technology, London: University of North London, 1998. ISBN: 1–85377–256–9. Softback, 242 pages, £15.00

The effect of selected health, environmental, and socioeconomic variables on energy and protein intake in the Dominican Republic

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1985 R337Master of Scienc

Trailgazers: A Scoping Study of Footfall Sensors to Aid Tourist Trail Management in Ireland and Other Atlantic Areas of Europe

This paper examines the current state of the art of commercially available outdoor footfall sensor technologies and defines individually tailored solutions for the walking trails involved in an ongoing research project. Effective implementation of footfall sensors can facilitate quantitative analysis of user patterns, inform maintenance schedules and assist in achieving management objectives, such as identifying future user trends like cyclo-tourism. This paper is informed by primary research conducted for the EU funded project TrailGazersBid (hereafter referred to as TrailGazers), led by Donegal County Council, and has Sligo County Council and Causeway Coast and Glens Council (NI) among the 10 project partners. The project involves three trails in Ireland and five other trails from Europe for comparison. It incorporates the footfall capture and management experiences of trail management within the EU Atlantic area and desk-based research on current footfall technologies and data capture strategies. We have examined 6 individual types of sensor and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. We provide key learnings and insights that can help to inform trail managers on sensor options, along with a decision-making tool based on the key factors of the power source and mounting method. The research findings can also be applied to other outdoor footfall monitoring scenarios

Evaluating Public Policy Formation and Support Mechanisms for Technological Innovation

Policy evaluation is a complex task. Most approaches now adopt a mixed method approach combining both quantitative and qualitative techniques. A shortcoming of the standard approaches is that they fail to measure or investigate deeper perceptions of the policy. In this paper the usefulness of projective techniques as a tool for policy evaluation is investigated. Projective techniques are widely used in psychology and consumer studies but their usefulness in policy evaluation has still to be assessed. A simple evaluation is done in this paper by reporting on a study of owner-managers of tradeable-services small and medium size enterprises attitudes to Government e-business policy. The survey included firms from Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and New Zealand. Traditional quantitative and qualitative survey techniques were used, however these failed to produce conclusive evidence. To overcome this limitation two projective techniques- word association and completion tests were employed as an additional evaluation method. The paper illustrates how the results of projective techniques can be analysed using both context and matrix analysis. Given that the area of e-business is dynamic and fast changing and that SMEs are extremely heterogeneous, it is argued that the application of projective techniques to assess their attitudes and perceptions of government policy is a good test of the usefulness of the method. The results of the projective techniques lead to more insight into the perceptions and attitudes of the owner-managers and provide interesting individual perspectives into the issues. Problems with the method, such as costs, the level of skill needed to apply the technique and generalization are highlighted. The overall conclusions are that projective techniques could provide an interesting additional tool for policy evaluation and that further assessment of its usefulness is needed

Small business and information systems

We are pleased to present this AJIS featured theme on Small Business and Information Systems, which is the result of a merger between AJIS and the Journal of Information Systems and Small Business. The co-editors of both journals felt that the merger would help raise the profile of small business research in Australia (since AJIS is more highly recognised than JISSB) and that it would increase the number of publications in AJIS. It is also a global featured theme, with papers from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland