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Academic research on public affairs which aims to reconstruct the rationale for the involvement in public affairs, and the possible outsourcing thereof, focuses mainly on the perspective of the principal. Even though consultants are undoubtedly increasing in importance, their relevance as agents is often downplayed. This study seeks to empirically supplement the perspective of the consultant in order to identify potential inimitable functions that could explain why public affairs work is often contracted‐out.

A nation‐wide survey about public affairs consultants in Switzerland is based on an inductive empirical research design, which facilitates questions regarding which services consultants actually perform and what indispensable functions they claim to provide.

The results highlight lobbying, political PR, and [referendums and election] campaigns as the main areas of service. These services are associated with different functions. Lobbyists in particular define themselves as partisan players closely involved in political decision making. In contrast, political PR and campaigning are understood in terms of horizontal or vertical boundary‐spanning. A somewhat technical justification for contracting out, referring to a special infrastructure and costs issues, is downplayed. Instead, the independent outside view facilitating innovation forms the most important generalizable frame when explaining the unique added value consultants have to offer.

The paper shows that the real or supposed independence of the consultant vis‐à‐vis the client constitutes an inimitable resource. The outsider‐status facilitates the successful fulfilment of public affairs functions such as innovation, boundary‐spanning, access and legitimising. Thus, it is vitally important for consultants to build up a reputation. When it comes to contracting‐out decisions, impression management theories are capable of enriching public affairs theories that focus on cost‐benefit‐calculations.

I evaluate how the tax reform of 2012 reduced informality in Colombia both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, I develop a labor market model and obtain simulations indicating that the reform should reduce informality significantly. Empirically, I obtain difference-in-difference estimates from two household surveys. Estimates from the repeated cross-sections data indicate small, short-term effects and large long-term effects. Estimates from the household survey panel data are in line with these results. I also simulate difference-in-difference estimates with different combinations of changes in payroll taxes and enforcement indicating that large improvements would have been needed to obtain the corresponding econometric estimates.

The airline industry has been significantly hit by the occurrence of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, facing one of its worst crises in history. In this context, the present paper analyses one of the well-known boarding methods used in practice by the airlines before and during the coronavirus outbreak, namely back-to-front and suggests which variations of this method to use when three passenger boarding groups are considered and a jet bridge connects the airport terminal with the airplane.

Based on the importance accorded by the airlines to operational performance, health risks, and passengers' comfort, the variations in three passenger groups back-to-front boarding are divided into three clusters using the grey clustering approach offered by the grey systems theory.

Having the clusters based on the selected metrics and considering the social distance among the passengers, airlines can better understand how the variations in back-to-front perform in the new conditions imposed by the novel coronavirus and choose the boarding approach that better fits its policy and goals.

The paper combines the advantages offered by grey clustering and agent-based modelling for offering to determine which are the best configurations that offer a reduced boarding time, while accounting for reduced passengers' health risk, measured through three indicators: aisle risk, seat risk and type-3 seat interferences and for an increased comfort for the passengers manifested through a continuous walking flow while boarding.

This article explores the little understood practice of school interior design and the manner in which school interiors give form to ideas about what the work of children and teachers could and should look like. Its focus is a perceived link between the concepts of school work made material in the design of new twenty‐first century learning environments and those expressed in the design of Modernist progressive schools such as Richard Neutra’s Corona Ave, Elementary School, California. The article’s impetus comes from current interest in the inter‐relationship between the design of physical learning environments and pedagogy reform as governments in Australia and internationally, work to transform teaching and learning practices through innovative school building and refurbishment projects. Government campaigns, for example the UK’s Schools for the Future Program and Australia’s Victorian Schools Plan, use a promotional rhetoric that calls for the final dismantling of the cellular classroom with its industrial model of work so that ‘different pedagogical approaches and the different ways that children learn [can] be represented in the design of new learning environments’, in buildings and interiors designed to support contemporary constructivist‐inspired pedagogies.

Strategy consultants have much to offer a top executive in terms of improving the bottom line. Yet little is known about the strategy consulting industry, because the firms and their clients are often reluctant to disclose details of their activities. This article surveys the leading strategy consulting firms and explores trends affecting the future of the industry.

Building on past debates and incorporating recent knowledge on the revised principles and definition of ecotourism as set out by the Global Ecotourism Network and The International Ecotourism Society, this chapter assesses consumptive activities, such as hunting and fishing, through a lens of authenticity. This examination of ecotourism extends to tourists’ predispositions, ethics, and motivations responsible for their choices of ecotourism destinations, activities, and observable behaviors, which often lead them to personal transformation. As the idea of authenticity gains momentum in marketing, certifications, and regulations, this chapter tackles its significance by drawing from literature on applied constructs such as Ecotourist Predisposition Scale and Ecotourist Ethics Scale, as well as fieldwork experience and research pointing to the historical roots of ecotourism philosophy and practice in Zambia.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

This chapter tells the story of how the concept of Pareto efficiency was shipped from Lausanne to the modern US theory of competitive general equilibrium, focusing on the specific role of Maurice Allais. It identifies similarities in both epistemological approach and theoretical achievements realized first by Pareto, then by Allais, and finally by Debreu and Arrow and Hahn. It also shows that these similarities are not casual, since historical circumstances account for the influence of Pareto on Allais and later of Allais on Arrow and Debreu.