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This article addresses recent calls in the literature for advancing our understanding of public affairs consultants and their role conceptions. By testing and further exploring self-perceptions of public affairs consultants the study aims to offer new insight into how consultants define and view their occupational role.

The study draws on a nationwide survey with public affairs consultants in Sweden.

Four main role conceptions were identified (advocate, do-gooder, expert and intermediary). Further, the study tests how personal and professional characteristics correlate with different role conceptions, by viewing professional experience and consultants' selection of clients. Data also suggest that consultants' background in politics does not promote any specific role perception. Finally, the findings also show that how consultants choose clients is a divider in the industry, where some act as passive intermediaries while other take a more active role in their choice of clients.

The findings enhance our understanding of public affairs as a field, and specifically about the modelling of professional roles amongst consultants. The empirical results in this study show how contemporary role typologies needs to be extended to better capture the specificities of consultants' roles in public affairs. By addressing the issue of how consultants choose clients the study engages with the complex debate of whether consultants ought to act as objective or subjective agents and hence join the conversation on ethics in public affairs.

In the present study, we assessed how school improvement consultants, as part of a six-year model project conducted in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, were perceived by school leaders and how they defined their role(s), tasks and working methods as external consultants at the beginning of the project.

Our analyses are based on a mixed-methods approach, involving a standardized online survey of school leaders and 18 guideline-based interviews with school improvement consultants, which were conducted at the beginning of the model project. The interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and typifying structuring of the interview material.

Our results based on the quantitative survey data showed that the school administrators generally rated the collaboration with the external consultants as not very positive. Furthermore, our qualitative findings showed that the school improvement consultants in the model project faced resistance to their coaching efforts, which may be attributed to the obligatory nature of their work on the project. In general, the consulting process appeared to be little differentiated according to the school principals' perceptions of the school needs, with the consultants mainly proceeding as they also do in other coaching processes.

This study contributes to our understanding of coaching in improvement activities among schools serving disadvantaged communities by offering insights into the role(s) and working methods of external school improvement consultants.

The current research aims to answer the following question: To what extent and under what conditions does hiring consultants to implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system produce performance gains for companies? To answer this question, this research delves into the critical interdependent roles of CRM consultant resources (CR) and user involvement (UI) in overcoming CRM’s technological and organizational implementation challenges.

A quantitative field study methodology was used to empirically test the research hypotheses. Cross-sectional data (N = 126) were collected from large client companies using CRM technology. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling was used to estimate the significance levels of the structural model.

The findings indicate that the extent to which CRM consultants improve CRM system quality (SQ) and, ultimately, firm performance, largely depends on UI, which acts as the key facilitating mechanism to cope with application complexity (APP) and requirements uncertainty (REQ).

This research probes into the largely unexplored interactions between CRM CR, UI, APP and REQ. Using these parameters, this model successfully predicts CRM SQ and firm performance.

The aim of the research is to identify and prioritise the implementation challenges of blockchain technology and suggests ways for its implementation in supply chains.

Underlined by the technology, organisational, and external environment model, a conceptual framework with four challenge categories and sixteen challenges is proposed. Data collected from three stakeholder groups with experience in the implementation of blockchain technology in India is analysed by employing an analytical hierarchy process method-based case study. Further, a criticality–effort matrix analysis is performed to group challenges and suggest ways for implementation.

The analysis revels that all stakeholders perceive complexity challenge associated with the technology, organisational structure, and external environment, and issues of compatibility with existing systems, software, and business practices to be high on the criticality and effort scales, which thus require meticulous planning to manage. Likewise, top-management support issues related to insufficient understanding of how technology fits with the organisation’s policy and benefits offered by the technology requires high effort to address this challenge.

The results were obtained by focusing on the Indian context and therefore may not apply to other nations’ contexts.

By investigating the challenges that the developers, consultants, and client organisations need to address, this study assists managers in developing plans to facilitate coordination among these organisations for successful blockchain implementation.

To the authors’ knowledge this study is the first to identify and prioritise the challenges from the perspectives of multiple stakeholder groups with experience in blockchain technology implementation.

Although there is a growing body of work on immigrants' information behavior, little is known about the pre-arrival information experiences of immigrants who consult formal information sources such as immigration agents. Drawn from a larger study on the information behavior of immigrants, this paper mainly reports the semi-structured interview findings on the pre-arrival information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants who used formal information sources with discussion on how that affected their post-arrival settlement into Canada.

The study used a mixed method approach with semi-structured interviews (n = 60) and surveys (n = 205) with participants who arrived in Canada between the years of 1971 and 2017. Data were collected from May 2017 to February 2018.

Although the overall scope of the original study is much larger, this paper features findings on the pre-arrival information experiences derived mainly from an analysis of interview data. This study provides insights into the pre-arrival information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants consulting formal information sources such as immigration firms, individual immigration consultants and more formal government agencies. The author introduces a new concept of “information crafting” by exploring the negative consequences of selective information sharing by immigration consultants/agents in newcomers' settlements in Canada, primarily positive information about life in Canada, sometimes with exaggeration and falsification. The interview participants shared story after the story of the settlement challenges they faced after arriving in Canada and how the expectations they built through the information received from immigration consultants and government agencies did not match after arrival. This study emphasizes the importance of providing comprehensive information about life in Canada to potential newcomers so that they can make informed decisions even before they apply.

The findings of this study have theoretical and practical implications for policy and research. This study provides insights into the complicated culturally situated pre-arrival information experiences of Bangladeshi immigrants. Moreover, the study findings encourage researchers in various disciplines, including psychology, migration studies and geography, to delve more deeply into newcomers' information experiences using an informational lens to examine the information newcomers receive from diverse sources and their effects on their post-arrival settlement in a new country. The study challenges the general assumptions that formal information sources are always reputable, useful, and comprehensive, and it provides some future directions for research that seeks to understand the culturally situated information behavior of diverse immigrant groups.

Uncertainty management (UM) in projects has been a point of attention for researchers for many years. Research on UM has mainly been aimed at uncertainty analyses in the front-end and managing uncertainty in the construction phase. In contrast, UM components in the design phase have received less attention. This research aims to improve knowledge about the key components of UM in the design phase of large road projects.

This study adopted a literature review and case study. The literature review was used to identify relevant criteria for UM. These criteria helped to design the interview guide. Multiple case study research was conducted, and data were collected through document study and interviews with project stakeholders in two road projects. Each case's owners, contractors and consultants were interviewed individually.

The data analysis obtained helpful information on the involved parties, process and exploit tools and techniques during the design phase. Johansen's (2015) framework [(a) human and organisation, (b) process and (c) tools and techniques)] was completed and developed by identifying relevant criteria (such as risk averse or risk-taker, culture and documentation level) for each component. These criteria help to measure UM performance. The authors found that owners and contractors are major formal UM actors, not consultants. Empirical data showed the effectiveness of Web-based tools in UM.

The studied cases were Norwegian, and this study focussed on uncertainties in the project's design phase. Relevant criteria did not cover all the criteria for evaluating the performance of UM. Qualitative evaluation of criteria allows further quantitative analysis in the future.

This paper gave project owners and managers a better understanding of relevant criteria for measuring UM in the owners and managers' projects. The paper provides policy-makers with a deeper understanding of creating rigorous project criteria for UM during the design phase. This paper also provides a guideline for UM in road projects.

This research gives a holistic evaluation of UM by noticing relevant criteria and criteria's interconnection in the design phase.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the main causes of delays in the projects are from the client (relative importance index (RII)=0.716), labor and equipment (RII=0.701) and contractor (RII=0.698). Hence determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction projects and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule. Therefore, authors try to investigate all process-based techniques of delay claims and evaluated and conformed them with principles by Society of Construction Law (SCL) protocol and Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International (AACEI) in order to choose the best techniques based on the specific circumstances of each project.

This section is divided into two distinct parts: refers to the methods used to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in construction industry; and refers to advantages and disadvantages of various techniques used to analyze delays and their conform with SCL protocol. A questionnaire was developed to assess the perceptions of clients, consultants, and contractors on the relative importance of causes of delay in Iranian construction industry. The respondents were asked to indicate their response category on 78 well-recognized construction delay factors identified by authors.

In total, 78 causes of delay were identified through research. The identified causes are combined into seven groups. The field survey included 58 contractors, 55 consultants, and 62 client. Data collected were analyzed by RII and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The authors identified main causes of delay and ten most important causes, according to Table AII, from the perspective of three major groups of participants (clients, consultants and contractors). The ranking of categories of causes of delay, according to Table I, were: client-related causes (RII=0.716); labor and equipment category causes (RII=0.701); contractor-related causes (RII=0.698); material-related causes (RII=0.690); design-related causes (RII=0.666); external causes (RII=0.662); and consultant-related causes (RII=0.662). But according to the discussions and given that determining the contractual responsibility of delay is the most likely source of dispute in construction industry and many techniques have been used in the courts to demonstrate the criticalities of a delay event on the project schedule.

All process-based techniques of delay analysis have been present in this paper and categorized in 11 groups. In order to understand the advantages and disadvantages of them by clients, contractor and consultant, a thorough review conducted to reveal the nature of techniques. In the next step, given that selecting the most appropriate technique based on constraints and specific conditions of each project is one of the most important steps to carry out a successful delay analysis. The authors conformed, all process-based techniques of delay analysis, by SCL protocol and AACEI principles. Finally, the result of this match was brought in order to choose the best technique based on the specific circumstances of each project.

This paper aims to focus on the changing role of universities in university–industry collaboration (UIC) for enriching the regional business ecosystem network. For this, the authors analyze “Business Clinic Day,” (BCD) a specific UIC program which provides a consulting service for firms, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) having a specific problem, by a group of facilitators. It includes consultants such as chief executive officers (CEOs), professors and heads of regional public or private service providers. This study illustrates that various types of networks are formed between consultants and problem-owners by facilitation of university after the program.

This study has analyzed with social network analysis how the business network was changed from clinic day program. Furthermore, the networks surrounding SMEs are extended to the other people connected to them. This means that the business network of SMEs had been diversified via the facilitation of “BCD” provided as UIC program.

Local SMEs have difficulties in enhancing their competitiveness in the market both in terms of internal resources and networks with external organizations. Thus, universities need to promote university–industry collaboration programs to enable SMEs to strengthen their competitiveness by building networks in local business ecosystems.

This study throws new highlights on the facilitator role of a university as a network promoter, in addition to the partner as a technology provider, in the regional business ecosystem.

This paper aims to demonstrate the value of combining the strategic planning process with psychoanalytically informed interpretation through an exploratory case study.

The authors present their experiences and findings from a consulting engagement that began as a strategic planning assignment and soon evolved into an opportunity to explore unconscious forces inhibiting organizational change. The authors, trained in both areas, chose to infuse the two into a combined process that ultimately benefited the organization and suggested novel ways to think about the common process of strategic planning going forward.

The organization's strategic planning process was considerably enhanced, and its outcomes sustained, by illuminating the unconscious forces at work, particularly as they pertain to issues of power and authority in a male organizational culture found to have a profound negative influence upon the quality of the work environment and employee morale. Findings suggest that without a psychoanalytically informed approach, strategic planning would have failed to produce sustainable change.

While the findings reported are from a single case study, the themes explored are likely shared across multiple organizations. There is, therefore, significant potential in combining strategic planning with a psychoanalytic approach to improve organizational effectiveness and employee morale.

Although common in organizations, strategic planning is rarely augmented with psychoanalytic insights. This case study is the first of its kind to show how the two interventions may complement each other.