Unpacking the client(s): constructions, positions and client–consultant dynamics

Research on management consultancy usually emphasizes the role and perspective of the consultants. Whilst important, consultants are only one element in a dynamic relationship involving both consultants and their clients. In much of the literature, the client is neglected, or is assumed to represent a distinct, immutable entity. In this paper, we argue that the client organisation is not uniform but is instead (like organisations generally) a more or less heterogeneous assemblage of actors, interests and inclinations involved in multiple and varied ways in consultancy projects. This paper draws upon three empirical cases and emphasizes three key aspects of clients in the context of consultancy projects: (a) client diversity, including, but not limited to diversity arising solely from (pre-)structured contact relations and interests; (b) processes of constructing ‘the client’ (including negotiation, conflict, and reconstruction) and the client identities which are thereby produced; and (c) the dynamics of client–consultant relations and how these influence the construction of multiple and perhaps contested client positions and identities

Os Estudos em Administração se Perderam no Meio do Caminho? Ideias para Pesquisas mais Construtivas e Inovadoras

Apesar do grande crescimento no número de artigos em administração publicados durante as últimas três décadas, existe uma escassez de pesquisas de alto impacto em estudos sobre administração. Nós acreditamos que a principal razão por trás dessa escassez paradoxal é o predomínio quase total de pesquisas de identificação de lacunas em estudos sobre administração. Esse predomínio é ainda mais paradoxal quando é bem sabido que pesquisas de identificação de lacunas raramente culminam em teorias influentes. Identificamos três principais forças agindo por trás desse duplo paradoxo: condições institucionais, normas profissionais e as construções de identidade dos pesquisadores. Discutimos o quanto algumas mudanças específicas nessas forças podem reduzir a escassez de teorias influentes de estudos em administração. Também apontamos para duas metodologias que podem encorajar e facilitar uma pesquisa mais construtiva e inovadora e revisões de normas e identidades acadêmicas

Pre-understanding : an interpretation-enhancer and horizon-expander in research

Pre-understanding – our presuppositions of reality – underlies all research. Many researchers probably also draw productively on their pre-understanding in their studies. However, very few rationales and methodological resources exist for how researchers can enrich their research by mobilising their pre-understanding more actively and systematically. We elaborate and propose a framework for how researchers more actively, systematically and visibly can bring forward their pre-understanding and use it as a positive input in research, alongside formal data and theory. In particular, we show how researchers, in dialogue with data and theory, can mobilize their pre-understanding as an interpretation-enhancer and horizon-expander throughout the research process, including stimulating imagination and idea generation, broadening the empirical base, and evaluating what empirical material and theoretical ideas are interesting and relevant to pursue

Meanings of theory : clarifying theory through typification

Developing and evaluating scientific knowledge and its value requires a clear – or at least not too unclear – understanding of what ‘theory’ means. We argue that common definitions of theory are too restrictive, as they do not acknowledge the existence of multiple kinds of scientific knowledge, but largely recognize only one kind as ‘theory’, namely explanatory knowledge. We elaborate a typology that broadens and clarifies the meaning of ‘theory’. Consisting of five basic theory types – explaining, comprehending, ordering, enacting and provoking theories – the typology offers a framework that enables researchers to develop and assess knowledge in more varied ways and for a broader set of purposes than is typically recognized, as well as providing a more level playing field within the academic community

The problematizing review : a counterpoint to Elsbach and Van Knippenberg’s argument for integrative reviews

In this paper we provide a counterpoint to conventional views on integrative reviews in knowledge development, as exemplified by Elsbach and Van Knippenberg (2020). First, we critique their proposed integrative review by identifying and problematizing several key assumptions underlying it, particularly their idea that the integrative review can simply build on existing studies and lead the way to knowledge. Second, based on this critique, we propose as an alternative the problematizing review, which is based on the following four core principles: the ideal of reflexivity, reading more broadly but selectively, not accumulating but problematizing, and the concept that ‘less is more’. In contrast to the integrative review, which regards reviews as a ‘building exercise’, the problematizing review regards reviews as an ‘opening up exercise’ that enables researchers to imagine how to rethink existing literature in ways that generate new and ‘better’ ways of thinking about specific phenomena

(Un)Conditional surrender? Why do professionals willingly comply with managerialism

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to explore the question – why do professionals surrender their autonomy? This paper looks at the case of academics, in particular business school academics. It traces how this group of professionals have progressively surrendered their autonomy and complied with the demands of managerialism. Design/methodology/approach: – This largely theoretical paper looks to develop an understanding of (over)compliance with the bureaucratization of research using the four faces of power – coercive, agenda setting, ideological and discursive. Findings: – The discussion of this paper argues that the surrendering of autonomy has been reinforced through coercive forms of power like rewards and punishment and bureaucratization; manipulation and mainstreaming through pushing a particular version of research to the top of the agenda; domination through shaping norms and values; and subjectification through creating new identities. Originality/value: – The paper explores how academics deal with tensions and paradoxes such as compliance and resistance, as well as love of work and loathing of it. To deal with these paradoxes, academics often treat their work as a game and see themselves as players. While this process enables academics to reconcile themselves with their loss of autonomy, it has troubling collective outcomes: the production of increasing uninteresting and irrelevant research

Neo-Institutional Theory and Organization Studies: A Mid-Life Crisis?

We trace the development of neo-institutional theory in Organization Studies from a marginal topic to the dominant theory. We show how it has evolved from infancy, through adolescence and early adulthood to being a fully mature theory, which we think is now facing a mid-life crisis. Some of the features of this mid-life crisis include over-reach, myopia, tautology, pseudo-progress and re-inventing the wheel. To address these problems, we argue that institutional theorists should limit the range of the concept, sharpen their lens, avoid tautologies and problematize the concept. By doing this, we think institutional theorists could develop a narrower and more focused conception of institutions

Institutional leadership—the historical case study of a religious organisation

In this chapter, I discuss institutional leadership vis-à-vis the value of poverty. To do so, I analyse how poverty has been conceptualised within a Catholic religious organisation, the Jesuits. The chapter shows that, in the Jesuit case, poverty is not strictly defined. Instead, poverty results from the constant dialogue between the individual Jesuit and their leader. This means that the understanding of what constitutes poverty is neither explicit nor implicit. The chapter contributes to our understanding of institutional leadership as the promotion and protection of values, as per Selznick’s classical definition. However, we discuss a less known part of Selznick’s work in which the ambiguous character of values is highlighted. In this sense, and after the Jesuit case, we advance the possibility that the promotion and protection of institutional values by institutional leaders does not necessarily imply the definition of what a value is. As values are not defined beforehand but the result of a constant dialogue between the leader and their followers, institutional leadership can be revisited and freed from the heroic view that has long characterised it