Premium
For or Against ‘The Business of Benchmarking’?
Author(s) -
White James Merricks,
Kitchin Rob
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal of urban and regional research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.456
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1468-2427
pISSN - 0309-1317
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2427.12978
Subject(s) - benchmarking , reflexivity , constructive , principal (computer security) , sociology , intervention (counseling) , ethnography , work (physics) , epistemology , computer science , management , social science , economics , psychology , engineering , mechanical engineering , philosophy , process (computing) , psychiatry , anthropology , operating system
This short response does two things. First, it argues that urban benchmarks have specific and structural limits not identified in the principal essay in this intervention, which curtail the kinds of constructive and critical work such benchmarks might be expected to perform. ISO 37120 is discussed as an example. Second, it proposes a pluralistic approach to engagement and offers six suggestions for how academics might take urban benchmarks and their makers seriously without becoming fully embedded in their business. These are: ethnography, discourse analysis, self‐reflexive critique, critical urban benchmarking, alternative publication channels and scholarly debate.