Knowledge Sharing & Transfer – Interpretation Methodology and Experiences

Abstract

The contribution at hand presents a methodology for assessing the performance of economic sectors. It intends to determine the relative strengths and weaknesses of sectors and thus to help regional authorities with their decision about the allocation of financial and non-financial resources in a purposeful way. The methodology was developed within a project for an Austrian regional agency which faced the challenge to decide about the advancement of predefined sectors in an objective manner. The necessity for the assessment instrument was due to the fact that there were no impartial performance criteria according to which it could be decided on the economic potential of diverse sectors. In the following chapters the methodology is introduced alongside its single steps reaching from the general definition of economic sectors via their representation by means of observable measures to the elicitation of data. Also lessons learned and an outlook to future work is given.