Unpacking the client(s): Constructions, positions and client–consultant dynamics

Research on management consultancy usually emphasizes the role and perspective of the consultants. Whilst important, consultants are only one element in a dynamic relationship involving both consultants and their clients. In much of the literature, the client is neglected, or is assumed to represent a distinct, immutable entity. In this paper, we argue that the client organisation is not uniform but is instead (like organisations generally) a more or less heterogeneous assemblage of actors, interests and inclinations involved in multiple and varied ways in consultancy projects. This paper draws upon three empirical cases and emphasizes three key aspects of clients in the context of consultancy projects: (a) client diversity, including, but not limited to diversity arising solely from (pre-)structured contact relations and interests; (b) processes of constructing ‘the client’ (including negotiation, conflict, and reconstruction) and the client identities which are thereby produced; and (c) the dynamics of client–consultant relations and how these influence the construction of multiple and perhaps contested client positions and identities.     

Procuring complex performance in construction: London Heathrow Terminal 5 and a Private Finance Initiative hospital

This paper takes as its starting point the fact that complex projects, interpreted as multiple dependent interactions between many stakeholders over time, challenge traditional procurement practices based on the serial purchase of discrete components. The paper examines how the procurement management of such projects – procuring complex performance – can be conducted. The paper utilises two contrasting case study examples of high-profile UK construction project procurement. The findings suggest that the choice of mechanisms or interfaces for the governance of upstream supply relationships critically relates to subsequent performance. The theoretical contribution is a fusion of procurement literature with the influential CoPS literature.     

Dynamics of partisan representation the American south, 1898–2010

This study addresses institutional representation in legislative delegations through the decomposition of the southern U.S. House delegation over time. Linear first-order difference equations are calculated to show the shift from the Solid South and the disintegration of Democratic dominance. These calculations also show that the qualitative behavior of partisan control varies over time given a series of critical events, including the Dixiecrat experience, the Congressional reforms of the 1970s, and the Republican Revolution of 1994. However, I also argue that the Republican Revolution was actually predictable, given the twentieth-century experience of the southern delegation.     

Cognitive reflection and economic order quantity inventory management: An experimental investigation

We use laboratory experiments to evaluate the effects of individuals' cognitive abilities on their behavior in a finite horizon economic order quantity model. Participants' abilities to balance intuitive judgment with cognitive deliberations are measured by the cognitive reflection test (CRT). Participants then complete a sequence of ordering decisions. Our results show that participants with higher CRT scores on average earn greater profit and choose more effective policies. However, these gaps are transitory as participants with lower CRT scores exhibit faster learning. We also show gender differences in performance do not hold when we control for individual CRT scores.     

Shrinking Cities,Shrinking Households,or Both?

Household size decline accounts for a substantial portion of population loss in shrinking cities, yet little research has focused on it. Much of the literature presents a simple growth/decline binary that is largely determined via population figures. In this paper, we highlight the importance and assess the impact of household size changes on population decline, and determine what types of household size declines are more acute in shrinking cities than other locales. We find that elderly households and households with school-aged children are under-represented in shrinking cities, while households with pre-school-aged children are over-represented. More tellingly, we find the biggest source of household-related loss in shrinking cities to be the growth of single-person households now living in houses that were once home to entire families. These findings puncture the binary on which much of the shrinking cities discourse is based. The population dynamics of most cities are subtler than either practitioners or critical scholars assert. We argue that plans and development strategies for shrinking cities should reflect a range of demographic changes, including outmigration and internal household restructuring.     

Contradictions of the Climate-Friendly City: New Perspectives on Eco-Gentrification and Housing Justice

As local governments and corporations promote ‘climate friendliness’, and a low-carbon lifestyle becomes increasingly desirable, more middle- and upper-income urban residents are choosing to live near public transit, on bike- and pedestrian-friendly streets, and in higher-density mixed-use areas. This rejection of classical forms of suburbanization has, in part, increased property values in neighborhoods offering these amenities, displacing lower-income, often non-white, residents. Increased prevalence of creative and technology workers appears to accelerate this trend. We argue that a significant and understudied socio-environmental contradiction also occurs where the actual environmental outcomes of neighborhood transformation may not be what we expect. New research on greenhouse gas emissions shows that more affluent residents have much larger carbon footprints because of their consumption, even when reductions in transportation or building energy emissions are included. We describe an area in Seattle, Washington, the location of Amazon's headquarters, experiencing this contradiction and show a distinct convergence of city investments in low-carbon infrastructure, significant rises in housing prices and decreases in lower-income and non-white residents. We conclude with a discussion of a range of issues that require more attention by scholars interested in housing justice and/or urban sustainability.     

THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME AND WEALTH IN JAPAN

This paper reviews research on the distribution of income and wealth in Japan, identifies sources of data on income and wealth, and describes limitations of these data. Evidence that Japan's poorest income groups are relatively well-off is convincing, but there is less evidence that the overall distribution of income in Japan is more equal than in other OECD countries. Agricultural policy, social welfare policy, the tax system, trends in earnings differentials, and the role of the Japanese family are among the many factors that have shaped Japan's income distribution. The rapid appreciation of the stock market and land prices during the late 1980s led to greater inequality in the distribution of wealth. Rapid population aging is expected to lead to an increase in total national wealth relative to national income which may have an adverse impact on the distribution of income.     

Rent-seeking and the tragedy of the commons: two approaches to problems of collective action in biology and economics

I am interested in how models, practices, and concepts travel across specialties and thereby change and are changed in turn. In the present essay I discuss Gordon Tullock’s ideas about the relationship between biology and economics in the light of his correspondence with the biologist Garrett Hardin. Tullock contributed to one of Hardin’s edited projects, but they took different approaches to related problems, which I characterize as problems of coordinated action. Tullock saw that he and Hardin were up to a similar line of inquiry, and Hardin engaged with him up to a point, but ultimately the biologist differed with the economist regarding the potential for the reliability of a regulating power such as the state.     

The Use and Abuse of Environmental Knowledge: A Bloomington School Interpretation of the Canadian Fisheries Act of 1868

This paper will focus on the ambitious plan for regulation embodied in the Dominion Fisheries Act of 1868, a law passed by the Canadian federal parliament in its very first year of existence. The 1868 law was intended to bring the nation's fisheries firmly under the control of officials employed by the new federal government. The paper argues that 1868 law, which was designed to address what would today be called Tragedy of the Commons problems, was a product of the hubris identified by Hayek as "the fatal conceit." The centralized and bureaucratic approach to governing fisheries represented by the 1868 Fisheries Act did not work well because the knowledge that would have been required for successful management of fisheries was highly dispersed. Drawing on Hayek and the Bloomington School, this paper argues that the experience of Canada's fisheries sector in the generation after 1868 illustrates the problems with centralized management Common-Pool Resources. In the 1890s, the centralized approach represented by the Fisheries Act of 1868 was replaced by a more flexible and decentralized system Hayek's theory of knowledge would suggest the reversal of centralization over environmental policy in the 1890s was a positive development that helped Canadians to reconcile the goals of economic development and the protection of the environment. The Hayekian paradigm suggests that control over environmental policy should be devolved downwards to the levels of government closest to resource users.     

Liberalizing Reforms and the European Union: Accession,Membership, and Convergence

The European Union (EU) may promote reforms to policies and institutions through at least two distinct mechanisms. First, accession to the EU requires countries to undertake reforms. Second, the EU common market may promote Tiebout jurisdictional competition. We empirically evaluate these two mechanisms using an unbalanced panel of up to 45 European countries during 1970–2010. We find that relationships between EU accession/membership and measures of policies/institutions are often statistically insignificant. Furthermore, when the estimated effects are statistically significant they are generally modest.