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This article looks at the importance of community‐based organisations in delivering culturally sensitive services, and how the pressures of efficiency may challenge this approach and the viability of small providers. It explores some ways in which providers and commissioners are trying to meet this challenge. It examines the developing local government framework in providing a way forward.

This paper sets out to review the business history of consumerism and to ask whether over‐consumption is leading to an unacceptable level of inappropriate social behavior that is detrimental to both society and business.

The paper reviews Peter Drucker's writings on management and explores the meaning of consumerism and how it could have led to the over‐use of marketing. The paper discusses how the word “consumerism” has evolved and brings attention to the role of the internet in consumerism. It explains why poor knowledge management strategies are presenting a new set of challenges for business. Finally, it discusses the reasons why the balance of power between businesses and consumers needs to revert to a status of equilibrium.

The paper contends that the growth of consumerism has led to the over‐use of marketing and it explains why, in twenty‐first century marketing, social responsibility should be extended to a wider group of stakeholders that includes government, businesses and consumers.

The “consumer is king” concept has implications for management because of the emphasis businesses have placed on their customers. The paper asks managers to review their knowledge management systems and processes. Electronic document management systems (EDMS) and business process management systems (BPMS) will protect corporations from some of the cybercrime examples discussed here.

The research reviews Drucker's work on knowledge management and asks why management continues to fail to implement appropriate knowledge‐based systems for protecting their business.

The purpose of this paper is to contextualise the architect–client relationship and evaluate the factors responsible for its deterioration, and then define the impact of these factors on the future needs of architects and clients, including how such knowledge can help emerging architects to develop an understanding of the profession at an early stage. It will attempt to reveal new insights and build consensus around issues, such as functionality and aesthetics, per cent-based fee structure, conflict of interest amongst architects, contractors and clients.

A combination of qualitative online survey, semi-structured interviews and online focus group discussions under the comprehensive umbrella of the case study method has been used to construct a pragmatic framework. The data collection was focused on revealed preferences rather than stated preferences, in terms of likes and dislikes, in a standard survey.

Overall, this paper strengthens the idea that the predicament of the profession and the marginalisation of architects is due to their detachment from clients. The findings suggest that the fee structure might be a major source of discontent and there is an urgent need for alternative routes of procurement, particularly for private residential clients. While most clients prefer functionality over aesthetics and want architects to be affordable, they are more willing to invest their trust in architects who can deliver from concept to completion.

The arguments contested in this paper attempt to demystify the dynamics that are at play during the construction stage. It looks at power sharing, responsibilities and silent hierarchies that transpire between architects, clients and contractors, particularly in private residential projects.

The main recommendation of this paper is that to secure the future of the architecture profession emerging architects need to be trained more in client-centric skills than design-centric aptitude.

Building and maintaining strong customer relationships has been suggested as a means for gaining a competitive advantage. Despite this, few studies have examined the link between written communication and relationship perceptions. Yet understanding the establishment of this link is a necessary precursor for the development of concrete relationship management strategies. This paper aims to test the effectiveness of well‐known and cited written communication elements in enhancing relationship perceptions. The paper specifically seeks to identify which elements of written communication are relationally conducive by examining the impact of these elements on customers' perceptions of the relationship they have with their service provider.

The paper reports the results of an empirical survey of 422 distance education customers in which customers were asked to assess relationally conducive written communication elements and the importance of these elements on relationship development.

It was found that four components of written communication – message clarity, aesthetics, accuracy and physical features – were perceived by customers as relational cues that influence their relationship with the service organisation.

These findings are of value to service managers developing written communication that is conducive to relationship development. The contribution of the paper is that it empirically establishes a link between written communication and service relationships; an untested link that has been presumed in the literature. This basic empirical foundation is a necessary first step in the development of this research area.

The purpose of this paper is to question the taken for granted assumptions that underpin a liberal or lay view of consumer empowerment implicit to this special edition. In particular, the idea that it benefits consumers to have more choice is questioned.

The key constructs of Michel Foucault – disciplinary power, governmentality and technologies of self – are used to argue that people can never escape from the operation of power. Rather it is shown how power operates to produce consumers.

The liberal view of the empowerment of consumers through choice is questioned. Rather we suggest the opposite; that choice is a disciplinary power and that more and more choice can lead to choice paralysis. The contemporary phenomenon known as blogging is described as a Foucauldian technology of self. Managerial implications are discussed.

The value of a Foucauldian inspired theory of empowerment is that it represents a more sophisticated understanding of the fluidity of power relationships between producers and consumers than can be captured by a liberal view of power and empowerment.

This paper considers the notion of consumer empowerment across the financial, legal and medical service sectors in the UK. Although the advent of the internet is generally seen as potentially enabling consumer empowerment, theoretical papers divide on the question of efficacy. On the one hand, it is argued the much‐vaunted internet opportunity must not be simply taken as evidence of change in the consumer‐producer relationship. On the other the change must not be unquestioningly be taken as advantageous to the consumer.

Empirical data were generated through ten consumer focus groups and eight interviews with professionals.

The paper supports the contention that empowerment is partial and unevenly distributed among consumers. It is argued that characterisations of consumer indifference and producer discipline as preventing effective empowerment are too simplistic. Additionally, any taboo restraining the questioning of professional judgement is largely absent from the assumption of choice and of recognition/respect among the consumers participating in the research.

Focus group research does not enable a judgement about the prevalence or distribution of empowerment assumptions among consumers.

It is inevitable that in the broader consumer market professionals will be required to respond to a complex of consumer assumptions and these will include an assumption of empowerment.

Much of the services research in marketing has been set within the service recovery paradigm; given information, consumer power is an implied function of the market. In this paper, we see consumer empowerment as a process of negotiation partially facilitated by information.

The purpose of the paper is to explore how discourses of children's empowerment through goods have emerged and function as a key narrative among many in children's commercial industries, particularly in the USA and Canada.

The central philosophical and theoretical approach guiding this inquiry rests on the notion that the “child consumer” exists as a rhetorical figure which has an existence that is as consequential as “real,” biographical children. The child consumer arises from, and in many ways resides in, discourses produced by marketers, retailers, researchers and advertisers on the pages of marketing publications, often framing the imaginations and guiding the actions of advertisers, retailers, merchandisers and marketers. Articles from trade publications such as AdWeek, BrandWeek, Brandmarketing; KidScreen and Progressive Grocer, in addition to books written by marketers about the children's market since the 1990s, were examined.

Three key themes – choice, recognition and involvement – were found to be the most prominent in framing children's consumption as “empowering.”

For scholars and practitioners, the paper offers an approach to understand corporate practice as moral practice by highlighting the ideological justifications presented in defense of promoting children's consumption in the last decade. It offers a cautionary tale about the power of capital to produce and deploy social meaning.

To critically assesses the extent to which consumers are being empowered by the internet, focusing specifically on the role of the internet in the context of online pension information provision.

A mixed method study involving focus groups and observational research. Focus groups explored consumer meanings of empowerment and pension information needs. Actual information provision was measured using a content analysis of a sample of 20 pension web sites from 1996 to 2004 accessed from the internet archive.

While consumers generally feel that the internet is empowering, the sense of empowerment has not been fully realised in the context of pensions. The findings reveal gaps between consumer needs for information and information provision with implications for pension providers and consumers.

Relies on consumers' own reported information needs. Pensions are complex and consumers may not fully appreciate the most relevant information in order to make an informed pension decision. Researching professional financial advisors could close the loop and help understand what information consumers should be using to make decisions.

Provides useful insights for pension providers and employers in understanding the value of pension web sites and the features/facilities that consumers value most in using them.

Addresses a key concern of government – insufficient pension provision – and helps to understand how the internet can be used to engage consumers in pensions and encourage them to take greater responsibility for and ownership of their retirement saving.

This paper aims to address the role of psychological empowerment in proenvironmental consumer behaviour, focussing on climate protection.

Study 1 analyses the interaction of the effects of psychological empowerment and personal norms on two environmental behaviours with a sample of 600 individuals drawn form a representative online panel of the Australian population. Study 2 addresses the reinforcing influence of empowerment with a quasi-experimental design comparing 300 consumers of green electricity with 300 conventional electricity clients.

Psychological empowerment moderates the effects of personal norms on climate-protective consumer behaviour in a value-belief-norm (VBN) framework. Personal norms have a stronger influence for consumers experiencing high psychological empowerment than for disempowered feeling consumers. Furthermore, psychological empowerment experienced as an outcome of actual proenvironmental behaviour mediates the relationship between prior climate protection and future climate-protective intentions.

Future research should focus on the experimental manipulation of psychological empowerment with communicational claims, studying how perceived empowerment can be enhanced.

To promote climate friendly products and behaviours, marketers should use communication claims aimed at enhancing consumer’s subjective experience of empowerment.

Public policy aimed at climate protection should focus on consumer education increasing consumers’ awareness of their potential influence.

Psychological empowerment has not been studied previously as either an antecedent or outcome of proenvironmental behaviour. This is the first study to show that psychological empowerment moderates normative influences on climate-protective consumer behaviour. This research further reveals a novel behavioural reinforcement process, in which psychological empowerment intervenes as a behavioural outcome as well as an antecedent of climate-protective consumer behaviour. Findings contribute to the development of the VBN framework as well as to the consumer-empowerment perspective on proenvironmental behaviour.

Increasing numbers of consumers are expressing concerns about reports of questionable corporate practices and are responding through boycotts and buycotts. This paper compares competing theories of consumer empowerment and details findings that examine the applicability of the theory to “ethical consumer” narratives. The nature and impact of consumer empowerment in consumer decision making is then discussed.

The study takes an exploratory approach by conducting semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of ten consumers. These were recruited from an “ethical product” fair in Scotland.

Results indicate that the participating consumers embraced a voting metaphor, either explicitly or implicitly, to view consumption as an ethical/political domain. Setting their choices within perceived collective consumer behaviour, they characterised their consumption as empowering. This results in an ethical consumer project that can be seen as operating within the market. It, therefore, suggests some tensions between consumer power and sustainable living.

This small‐scale study relates to a single country and location. A particular group of accentuated consumers was recruited. Studies of the narratives of other consumer groupings would clearly be valuable.

To the extent that political democracy is perceived as failing, it appears that the profile of the market as a site of consumer engagement is raised. Marketers would be wise, therefore, to take increasingly account of “empowered” consumers.

Little attention has been paid to the theory of consumption as voting. However, a continuing rise in the consideration of ethics among consumers and producers suggests its rehabilitation and further exploration would be worthwhile.