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This research demonstrates the relevance of the evaluative cycle and its diverse methodological designs in small and medium enterprise (SME) policy. We structure our arguments based on the most common phases of the cycle, namely policy justification, needs, policy theory, implementation, impact and efficiency assessments. We use an in-depth case study of public assistance to an SME to illustrate how findings from these phases go beyond the results of the additionality practice in SME policy. We employ the findings as starting points to discuss several methodological designs for the evaluation of entire programmes, policies and systems.

In one particular action research (AR) methodology, information systems prototyping (ISP), the goals are to involve the researcher in a facilitative and collaborative role with stakeholders in the development of an information system that satisfies their collective needs. But what happens when political and structural conflict and coercive action erupts? This article features an AR case, where the development of an electronic patient record in a heart clinic, resulted in a period of intense structural conflict, and the dismissal of an organizational member. Further analysis suggests that four factors can explain these unusual outcomes and their relationship with the use of an ISP method. These include: the specification of measures and perceptions of success within the AR method (goals); general problems with the AR methodology and/or its clear delineation (processes); problems in using a particular AR methodology in a specific time and place (contingency); and problems with the researcher's implementation of the AR processes (implementation). The study also highlights a number of areas for development of ISP.

Adapting and changing the systems and technologies involved in civic engagement with local government is among the key challenges of collaborative technologies for political participation. In such contexts, both existing sets of technologies and ingrained, often formalised practices, the 'rules of the game', constrain any opportunity for intervention. Additionally, 'civic' and expert groups with conflicting agendas and divergent demands on public choices assert their influence in these transformation programmes. The article argues that established methods in collaborative systems design have thus far overlooked the role of recurring actions involved in public participation as well as the formal rules and ingrained practices that construct them. Yet, such patterns present a valuable resource for design interventions. Thus, based on an institutional approach, the article outlines a methodology for requirement gathering by mapping the relations of actors, software and their use along identifiable action situations. The method called for a dialogue between socio-technical-spatial contexts of public service and specific actions taking place within it. Drawing on a case of organising civic engagement in urban planning, the article discusses how to find and trace existing practices across social settings, information technologies and material contexts where engagements take place. The approach underscores the existing institutional contexts in inspiring, opening and constraining the opportunities to support 'civics'.

This research investigates a relevant gap in the academic literature on enterprise policy—namely, the nature of discretion and the causes that permit it during policy implementation. We found in our case studies that the programme workers who deliver policies exerted considerable discretion. Further evidence suggests that the main influences on what we call informal discretion—discretion clearly outside programme objectives—include the design of programme evaluation and audit as well as the influence of evaluators and auditors in these processes. We also found evidence of formal discretion—discretion allowed within programme objectives—through broad and ambiguous policies and procedures. Our findings and theoretical framework illustrate how discretion cannot be so easily curtailed by the market logics and strict rules of the new public management practice. Instead, we conclude that the possibility of refraining policy statements and evaluation as a learning process, from programme successes and failures, would transform our approach to policy implementation. This would require a number of institutional and incentive changes for policy actors and the public.