Λεπτομέρειες βιβλιογραφικής εγγραφής
| Τίτλος: |
Threadbare consultancy: Straining budget margins in for-profit international development programmes. |
| Συγγραφείς: |
Phelan, Sarah-Jane1 (AUTHOR) s.phelan@sussex.ac.uk, Whitty, Brendan2 (AUTHOR) bw205@st-andrews.ac.uk |
| Πηγή: |
Economy & Society. Aug2026, Vol. 55 Issue 3, p578-601. 24p. |
| Θεματικοί όροι: |
*Profit margins, *Consulting firms, *Consultants, *Contracting out, *Government contractors, *Government purchasing, Skepticism |
| Γεωγραφικοί όροι: |
United Kingdom |
| Εταιρία/Οντότητα: |
Great Britain. Foreign & Commonwealth Office |
| Περίληψη: |
Critical understandings of public outsourcing often caricature private contractors and consultancies as profiteering, giving little consideration to either end-beneficiaries or taxpayers. Drawing on qualitative interviews across a range of for-profit development firms in the United Kingdom, this paper shows how growing political scepticism has generated commercial pressure and an adversarial contracting environment, constraining operational possibilities as well as profit margins in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's supplier market. We introduce the concept of 'threadbare consultancy' to describe this phenomenon, with resources stretched too thinly to allow firms to feel they can 'do well, whilst doing good'. Rather than single-minded capital extraction, contractor staff describe encountering growing everyday and existential difficulties in reconciling commercial and operational demands, straining translation work at the various seams where the project budgets that mediate exchange and action are created, maintained and (re)negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
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| Βάση Δεδομένων: |
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