Management Consulting Emergence and Dynamics of a Knowledge Industry

by Kipping, Matthias; Engwall, Lars

• ISBN13: 9780199267118
• ISBN10: 0199267111
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-11
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This volume makes an important contribution to the growing literature on management consulting. It brings together international contributors from a wide variety of backgrounds and draws on recent empirical research from a diverse range of countries, consultancy firms, and client companies.The analysis focuses on three key areas.The first part of the book looks at the emergence and development of the consulting industry in different countries and time periods. The interplay between national systemic context and outside influences is stressed, and the efforts of consultants to become recognized as 'legitimate' knowledgecarriers by their clients is highlighted, in competition -- and sometimes cooperation -- with other suppliers of management knowledge, notably academia.The volume goes on to consider the generation, management, and validation of consulting knowledge by consultancy organizations and management gurus, showing how these activities are influenced not only by the consultancies' own characteristics in terms of size, structure, and national origin, butalso by the (national and cultural) context in which they are operating, and by the role of 'gatekeepers', such as book publishers or journalists.The third part of the book focuses on the nature and dynamics of the consultancy-client relationship, focusing especially on the ways in which consultants convince managers of the need to hire outside advisors; on the reaction of those concerned in the client organization towards the consultants'recommendations; and on the methods used by the consultants to overcome the possible reluctance and resistance from within the organization.From a more theoretical point of view, the chapters in this volume also show that research on management consulting has to take into account different levels of analysis: the consulting industry as a whole and its position relative to other knowledge providers such as academia; the specificconsultancy organization and its relationships with internal and external sources of knowledge; and the particular consultancy project and notably the interplay between the consultants and the various stakeholders within and outside the client organization.

Author Biography

Matthias Kipping: Lecturer (1994-8), then (1998-) Reader in European Management at the School of Business, The University of Reading; Director of the Centre for International Business History (CIBH) at Reading (1998-2001); Visiting positions held at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales in Paris (1998), the Ecole Superieure Universitaire de Gestion at the University of Toulouse (2000) and the Institute of Innovation Research at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo (2000). Lars Engwall: Visiting Scholar, the Graduate School of Business Administration, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA and the Graduate School of Business Administration, University of California at Berkeley, CA (1970-1); Associate Professor (1972-81) and Professor (1981-) of Business Administration, Uppsala University; Professor of Management, the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels (1977-8); Directeur de Recherche, Centre de Recherche en Gestion, Ecole Polytechnique, Paris (Spring Semester 1995).

Table of Contents

Lists of Figures and Tables	ix
List of Abbreviations	x
Notes on Contributors	xii
1. Introduction: Management Consulting as a Knowledge Industry	1	(18)
Lars Engwall and Matthias Kipping
Part I. Historical Perspectives on the Consulting Industry
2. The Acquisition of Symbolic Capital by Consultants: The French Case	19	(17)
Odile Henry
3. The Changing Relationship between Management Consulting and Academia: Evidence from Sweden	36	(16)
Lars Engwall, Staffan Furusten, and Eva Wallerstedt
4. Management Consultancies in the Netherlands in the 1950's and 1960's: Between Systemic Context and External Influences	52	(18)
Luchien Karsten and Kees van Veen
5. The Rise and Fall of a Local Version of Management Consulting in Finland	70	(21)
Antti Ainamo and Janne Tienari
Part II. Organizational Perspectives on the Consultancy Firm
6. The Internal Creation of Consulting Knowledge: A Question of Structuring Experience	91	(18)
Andreas Werr
7. Knowledge Management at the Country Level: A Large Consulting Firm in Italy	109	(20)
Cristina Crucini
8. Collaborative Relationships in the Creation and Fashioning of Management Ideas: Gurus, Editors, and Managers	129	(17)
Timothy Clark and David Greatbatch
9. Consultancies as Actors in Knowledge Arenas: Evidence from Germany	146
Michael Faust
Part III. Relationship Perspectives on the Consultancy Project
10. Managers as Marionettes? Using Fashion Theories to Explain the Success of Consultancies	167	(17)
Alfred Kieser
11. Promoting Demand, Gaining Legitimacy, and Broadening Expertise: The Evolution of Consultancy-Client Relationships in Australia	184	(19)
Christopher Wright
12. The Burden of Otherness: Limits of Consultancy Interventions in Historical Case Studies	203	(19)
Matthias Kipping and Thomas Armbruster
13. Managers and Consultants as Embedded Actors: Evidence from Norway	222	(16)
Hallgeir Gammelsater
References	238	(24)
Name Index	262	(3)
Subject Index	265