Project management between will and representation

This article challenges some deep-rooted assumptions of project management. Inspired by the work of the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, it calls for looking at projects through two complementary lenses: one that accounts for cognitive and representational aspects and one that accounts for material and volitional aspects. Understanding the many ways in which these aspects transpire and interact in projects sheds new light on project organizations, as imperfect and fragile representations that chase a shifting nexus of intractable human, social, technical, and material processes. This, in turn, can bring about a new grasp of notions such as value,\ud knowledge, complexity, and risk

Measuring risk attitude of agricultural producers using a mail survey: how consistent are the methods?

A mail survey is used to examine the consistency of alternative risk preference elicitation procedures using five commonly used methods. These elicitation procedures have been used in previous studies to characterise risk preference. Results show little consistency across procedures, supporting strength-of-preference studies. A general recommendation for mail surveys is the development of relatively easy-to-understand risk-preference elicitation procedures that are framed according to the situational construct in question. Copyright Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Inc. and Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006.