title: Management consultant (process) performance in local government

authors: Deakins, Eric

subjects: consultants

abstract: Purpose – Broadly conceptualised, a consultant's work can be evaluated by the deliverables produced and by the process used to achieve those deliverables. This paper seeks to report the use of a survey instrument to assess and compare management consultant process performance and client performance (in specifying the contract), enabling meaningful dialogue between the parties. 
Design/methodology/approach – A validated instrument, previously developed by the authors, was employed to survey all local and regional authorities in New Zealand regarding the expectations they have of their management consultants and their perceptions of process performance. Congruence of the performance profiles was assessed with the aid of profile similarity indices. 
Findings – While results for the sector indicate that New Zealand local authorities appear to be generally well satisfied with the levels of service they are receiving from their management consultants, individual authorities are experiencing significant gaps between their expectations and what is being delivered. In addition, misalignments between client expectations and benchmark process performance measures indicate a lack of rigour when specifying contracts. 
Research limitations/implications – The research makes use of subjective measures of excellent consulting practice sourced from industry-respected consultants and authors in the field, rather than attempting to justify their choice from a theoretical basis. Conceptual difficulties with the use of profile similarity indices in alignment research are noted. The generalisability of the benchmark performance standards to consultants operating in other sectors remains to be tested. 
Practical implications – Benchmark consultant performance standards provide the basis for local authorities to insist upon internationally recognized and recommended standards of contract delivery. The use of well-developed process performance measures to assess differences between local authority expectations and perceived consultant performance, and between perceived consultant performance and benchmark expectations, provides the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful and objective dialogue. Skilled consultants will benefit from dialogue that should translate into greater respect and understanding of their true worth, and into the setting of contract specifications and pricing that reflect this assessment. 
Originality/value – Previous authors have argued the lack of well-developed performance measures and attendant benchmark performance standards expected of consultants. The present study directly addresses these gaps and focuses on the manner in which management consultants work with public sector clients to produce contract deliverables. Validated benchmark measures are used to detect process performance gaps, providing the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful dialogue.

text: Management consultant (process) performance in local government Purpose – Broadly conceptualised, a consultant's work can be evaluated by the deliverables produced and by the process used to achieve those deliverables. This paper seeks to report the use of a survey instrument to assess and compare management consultant process performance and client performance (in specifying the contract), enabling meaningful dialogue between the parties. 
Design/methodology/approach – A validated instrument, previously developed by the authors, was employed to survey all local and regional authorities in New Zealand regarding the expectations they have of their management consultants and their perceptions of process performance. Congruence of the performance profiles was assessed with the aid of profile similarity indices. 
Findings – While results for the sector indicate that New Zealand local authorities appear to be generally well satisfied with the levels of service they are receiving from their management consultants, individual authorities are experiencing significant gaps between their expectations and what is being delivered. In addition, misalignments between client expectations and benchmark process performance measures indicate a lack of rigour when specifying contracts. 
Research limitations/implications – The research makes use of subjective measures of excellent consulting practice sourced from industry-respected consultants and authors in the field, rather than attempting to justify their choice from a theoretical basis. Conceptual difficulties with the use of profile similarity indices in alignment research are noted. The generalisability of the benchmark performance standards to consultants operating in other sectors remains to be tested. 
Practical implications – Benchmark consultant performance standards provide the basis for local authorities to insist upon internationally recognized and recommended standards of contract delivery. The use of well-developed process performance measures to assess differences between local authority expectations and perceived consultant performance, and between perceived consultant performance and benchmark expectations, provides the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful and objective dialogue. Skilled consultants will benefit from dialogue that should translate into greater respect and understanding of their true worth, and into the setting of contract specifications and pricing that reflect this assessment. 
Originality/value – Previous authors have argued the lack of well-developed performance measures and attendant benchmark performance standards expected of consultants. The present study directly addresses these gaps and focuses on the manner in which management consultants work with public sector clients to produce contract deliverables. Validated benchmark measures are used to detect process performance gaps, providing the opportunity for local authorities and their consultants to engage in meaningful dialogue.

year: 2006

title: Coming home through football: A geographic exploration of long-distance fandom

authors: Baker, Tegan Alexandra

subjects: geography

abstract: This thesis focuses on the relationship between long-distance football fandom and home. It examines how the act of supporting non-domestic football clubs is a symbolic and material connection to multiple scales of home for 32 long-distance football fans, aged between 17–65, who live in Aotearoa New Zealand. I argue that football fans and homes are mutually constituted and continually reproduced through football fandom practices. Examining fan practice from the scale of the body through to the globe demonstrates how multiple homes interplay with fan practice. Literature on home and literature on sport have not yet been combined by scholars. Drawing these two bodies of work together offers the opportunity to unpack fans’ relationships to ‘things’, between ‘people’ and to ‘places’, providing a window into critical geographies of identities.
Social, cultural, feminist and emotional geographies of home and qualitative research methods frame this research. A range of methods are combined to create a holistic view of the complex and messy relationships which construct fan identities and homes. Semi-structured interviews with 27 men and five women participants along with self-directed photography, ‘going-alongs’, participant sensings and textual data analysis were used to examine participants experiences of football fandom and home. 
Findings are organised into three intersecting themes: things; people; and, places. The first theme focuses on how connections to a club are established and maintained through material cultures of home. Material objects construct home not only through a physical presence but also through becoming infused with emotions and memory. Unpacking the relationships between ‘people’ which shape fan identities is the second theme. Fans and their homes are gendered, raced and classed through the act of supporting a club. The relationship to ‘place’ is the third theme, where I examine the multiple places which influence fan identities. Here fan ‘homes’ are imagined as multi-scalar and I highlight the ways in which connections to a club are key to fluid notions of home and identity. 
This research demonstrates that football fandom offers a unique opportunity to geographers. Fandom spaces are under-researched and worthy of further scrutiny. Examining the relationships between home and fandom sheds light on the workings of power across a range of scales from the body, to the nation and the globe. Football fans’ homes are messy, complex, varied lived and felt.

text: Coming home through football: A geographic exploration of long-distance fandom This thesis focuses on the relationship between long-distance football fandom and home. It examines how the act of supporting non-domestic football clubs is a symbolic and material connection to multiple scales of home for 32 long-distance football fans, aged between 17–65, who live in Aotearoa New Zealand. I argue that football fans and homes are mutually constituted and continually reproduced through football fandom practices. Examining fan practice from the scale of the body through to the globe demonstrates how multiple homes interplay with fan practice. Literature on home and literature on sport have not yet been combined by scholars. Drawing these two bodies of work together offers the opportunity to unpack fans’ relationships to ‘things’, between ‘people’ and to ‘places’, providing a window into critical geographies of identities.
Social, cultural, feminist and emotional geographies of home and qualitative research methods frame this research. A range of methods are combined to create a holistic view of the complex and messy relationships which construct fan identities and homes. Semi-structured interviews with 27 men and five women participants along with self-directed photography, ‘going-alongs’, participant sensings and textual data analysis were used to examine participants experiences of football fandom and home. 
Findings are organised into three intersecting themes: things; people; and, places. The first theme focuses on how connections to a club are established and maintained through material cultures of home. Material objects construct home not only through a physical presence but also through becoming infused with emotions and memory. Unpacking the relationships between ‘people’ which shape fan identities is the second theme. Fans and their homes are gendered, raced and classed through the act of supporting a club. The relationship to ‘place’ is the third theme, where I examine the multiple places which influence fan identities. Here fan ‘homes’ are imagined as multi-scalar and I highlight the ways in which connections to a club are key to fluid notions of home and identity. 
This research demonstrates that football fandom offers a unique opportunity to geographers. Fandom spaces are under-researched and worthy of further scrutiny. Examining the relationships between home and fandom sheds light on the workings of power across a range of scales from the body, to the nation and the globe. Football fans’ homes are messy, complex, varied lived and felt.

year: 2018

title: Bite

authors: Mitchell, Tori

subjects: poetry

abstract: Bite is a collection of blunt confessional poetry draped in honesty, identity, and 21st century feminism, examined through lived experience with eating disorders, sexuality, trauma, disconnect from family and culture, love and loss, and what it means to be a girl growing up. The collection explores these raw concepts with vulnerability, through the eyes of ‘wolf girl’, in hopes that talking loudly about these topics will force the public to challenge the silence and stigma around them.  

This thesis was inspired by Maori Mythology, and all of the Polynesian poets who showed me how important it is for women of colour to share their stories and experiences. It was also influenced by feminist artists Jenny Holzer, Tracey Emin, and Barbara Kruger, whose art embodies the content of these poems in a literal way: freedom of expression, stripped bare and unflinching. The poetry in this collection is confronting, visceral, and filled with bite.

text: Bite Bite is a collection of blunt confessional poetry draped in honesty, identity, and 21st century feminism, examined through lived experience with eating disorders, sexuality, trauma, disconnect from family and culture, love and loss, and what it means to be a girl growing up. The collection explores these raw concepts with vulnerability, through the eyes of ‘wolf girl’, in hopes that talking loudly about these topics will force the public to challenge the silence and stigma around them.  

This thesis was inspired by Maori Mythology, and all of the Polynesian poets who showed me how important it is for women of colour to share their stories and experiences. It was also influenced by feminist artists Jenny Holzer, Tracey Emin, and Barbara Kruger, whose art embodies the content of these poems in a literal way: freedom of expression, stripped bare and unflinching. The poetry in this collection is confronting, visceral, and filled with bite.

year: 2020