ABSTRACT Metropolitan reforms in centralized governance systems frequently privilege territorial standardization over spatial‐functional differentiation. This tension becomes particularly visible where uniform institutional frameworks are applied across structurally diverse metropolitan configurations. This article examines metropolitan governance reform in Türkiye through a city‐regional lens, conceptualizing city‐regionalization as a governance‐relevant process linking spatial restructuring to institutional alignment challenges. Employing a two‐stage analytical design, the study integrates morphological spatial clustering with structural functional indicators to classify metropolitan configurations across 30 metropolitan provinces. The findings point to substantial spatial‐functional differentiation beneath Türkiye's territorially standardized metropolitan system, and reveal that morphological clustering does not automatically translate into structural functional capacity, nor does metropolitan designation guarantee city‐regional consolidation. The study develops the first systematic classification of Türkiye's metropolitan areas according to their city‐regionalization potential. By empirically operationalizing differentiated metropolitan configurations, the paper attempts to reframe metropolitan reform as an institutional alignment challenge rather than a question of territorial expansion. In doing so, it contributes to public administration debates on coordination capacity, multilevel governance, and differentiated institutional design in centralized states. The analysis suggests that uniform metropolitan governance frameworks may obscure meaningful structural heterogeneity and that calibrated institutional responses are necessary to address differentiated coordination demands across metropolitan regions.
ABSTRACT This study aligns with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10 by addressing income inequality in South Africa through competition policy, particularly mergers and acquisitions (M&A). While prior literature has focused on the corporate and market power effects of M&As, the socioeconomic implications for inequality remain underexplored. This study fills this gap by analyzing the impact of M&A adjudications on income distribution in South Africa, using household‐level and cross‐provincial data. The main methodology involves the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MMQR), allowing for a nuanced analysis across different income groups. At the micro level, the study finds that cumulative mergers (LMA) positively impact household expenditures, particularly for lower‐ and middle‐income groups. At the same time, the interaction between LMA and regulatory conditions (SMC) suggests that well‐designed regulations can enhance consumer benefits. At the macro level, LMA disproportionately benefits wealthier households, exacerbating inequality, though regulatory interventions mitigate this effect. For South Africa, the findings suggest that M&A policies should enhance market efficiency while ensuring equitable benefits across income groups. The key policy takeaway is that regulatory frameworks must balance competition and consumer welfare to prevent wealth concentration and promote inclusive economic growth.
ABSTRACT This study examines the relationships between technostress and job satisfaction, employee performance, and turnover intention among public employees within the Job Demands–Resources (JD‐R) framework. Drawing on survey data collected from 236 public employees working at a public university in southern Türkiye, the study employs structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the proposed relationships. The results indicate that technostress is negatively associated with job satisfaction and employee performance and positively associated with turnover intention. Job satisfaction is found to play a significant mediating role in the relationships between technostress and both employee performance and turnover intention. These findings suggest that digitalization constitutes a substantial job demand in public organizations, where limited managerial discretion and bureaucratic constraints may intensify its effects on employees. By highlighting job satisfaction as a key psychological mechanism, the study contributes to the JD‐R literature by extending its applicability to public‐sector contexts and offers important implications for public managers and policymakers seeking to sustain employee well‐being, performance, and career sustainability in digital work environments.
ABSTRACT The coronavirus vaccine, available at the end of 2020, can be seen as a scarce resource where the nation state created hierarchies within the society in terms of who was in and who was out of a social group, with tangible effects of some receiving the vaccine faster than others. Through a comparative document analysis, this paper investigates how symbolic boundaries were made by looking at risk groups and essential workers as well as the vaccine strategies in Europe. While these two groups were theoretically constructed as either vulnerable or exposed during the pandemic, results indicate that group boundaries were in fact fluid. This finding adds to the literature on symbolic boundaries by showcasing how the state created social and medical hierarchies by classifying certain social and professional groups as worthy of protection but also how new classifications were created for a specific segment of the population during the COVID‐19 pandemic health crisis.
ABSTRACT This study examines how public–private partnership (PPP) investment in energy affects energy consumption in BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) from 1998 to 2022. The study incorporates political cooperation, research and development (R&D) expenditure, technological innovation, urbanisation, and GDP as key determinants. The CS‐ARDL approach is employed to estimate both long‐run and short‐run effects while addressing cross‐sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity. The results indicate that PPP investment and technological innovation significantly increase the share of renewable energy consumption in the long run, while R&D expenditure has a positive but only weakly significant long‐run effect. PPP investment and technological innovation also significantly reduce the share of non‐renewable energy consumption in the long run, with political cooperation exerting a weaker (10% level) negative effect, whereas R&D expenditure reduces non‐renewable energy consumption only in the short run. Technological innovation also raises total per capita energy use, consistent with rebound and scale effects. Urbanisation and GDP increase both total and non‐renewable energy use. The findings highlight the need for governments to strengthen PPP frameworks, scale up targeted R&D funding for clean energy, pair innovation policy with measures that contain rebound effects, and work jointly within BRICS cooperation platforms to accelerate the transition to renewable energy in BRICS countries.
