Institutional entrepreneurship:a literature review and analysis of the maturing consulting field

With few exceptions (e.g. Fincham & Clark, 2002; Lounsbury, 2002, 2007; Montgomery & Oliver, 2007), we know little about how emerging professions, such as management consulting, professionalize and establish their services as a taken-for-granted element of social life. This is surprising given that professionals have long been recognized as “institutional agents” (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Scott, 2008) (see Chapter 17) and professionalization projects have been closely associated with institutionalization (DiMaggio, 1991). Therefore, in this chapter we take a closer look at a specific type of entrepreneurship in PSFs; drawing on the concept of “institutional entrepreneurship” (DiMaggio, 1988; Garud, Hardy, & Maguire, 2007; Hardy & Maguire, 2008) we describe some generic strategies by which proto-professions can enhance their “institutional capital” (Oliver, 1997), that is, their capacity to extract institutionally contingent resources such as legitimacy, reputation, or client relationships from their environment

Management consulting firms as institutional agents:strategies for creating and sustaining institutional capital

We classify the strategies by which management consultancies can create and sustain the institutional capital that makes it possible for them to extract competitive resources from their institutional context. Using examples from the German consulting industry, we show how localized competitive actions can enhance both individual firms’ positions, and also strengthen the collective institutional capital of the consulting industry thus legitimizing consulting services in broader sectors of society and facilitating access to requisite resources. Our findings counter the image of institutional entrepreneurship as individualistic, “heroic” action. We demonstrate how distributed, embedded actors can collectively shape the institutional context from within to enhance their institutional capital

Managing in an economic crisis: The role of market orientation in an international law firm

This research paper contributes to the understanding of the relationship between market orientation and performance in the context of a law firm during a time of economic crisis. The contribution is twofold, adding to the fairly limited research on market orientation within law firms, and to the limited research on the role of market orientation in times of economic crisis. The findings, from the questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews within practice groups of a large multinational law firm, conclude that market orientation is important during an economic crisis. Those practice groups with higher market orientation scores withstand the increased turbulence and outperform those practice groups with lower market orientation scores

Knowledge production in consulting teams

Summary The central thesis of this paper is that the production of knowledge in consulting teams can neither be understood as the result of an internal interaction between clients and consultants decoupled from the wider socio-political environment nor as externally determined by socially constructed industry recipes or management fashions detached from the cognitive uniqueness of the client-consultant team. Instead, we argue that knowledge production in consulting teams is intrinsically linked to the institutional environment that not only provides resources such as funding, manpower, or legitimacy but also offers cognitive feedback through which knowledge production is influenced. By applying the theory of self-organization to the knowledge production in consulting teams, we explain how consulting teams are structured by the socio-cultural environment and are structuring this environment to continue their work. The consulting team's knowledge is shaped and influenced by cognitive feedback loops that involve external collective actors such as the client organization, practice groups of consulting firms, the academic/professional community, and the general public who essentially become co-producers of consulting knowledge.Self-organization Management consulting Consulting teams Knowledge production Cognitive feedback

Internationalization as Strategic Change: The Case of Deutsche Treuhand-Gesellschaft

Building on Hinings and Greenwood’s (1988) concept for the explanation of strategic change processes, this paper examines the organizational transformations in the internationalization process of Deutsche Treuhand-Gesellschaft. We identify three archetypes of the international organization of DTG/KPMG, which developed from a correspondent network via an international federal network organization to become a global advisory firm, undergoing various stages of transition, de-coupling and re-orientation. Our analysis (a) provides an in-depth understanding of the longitudinal and contextual character of internationalization as a strategic change process of one of the most prominent international accounting firms with a European origin and (b) contributes to a rapprochement of strategic change and internationalization literatures.strategic change, archetypes, internationalization, accounting industry; professional services, KPMG

Client-consultant interaction: Capturing social practices of professional service production

Summary Based on the investigation of seven consultancy projects within an international technical consulting firm, we identify three major practices that characterize client-consultant interaction - shaping impressions, problem-solving, and negotiating expectations - and discuss their respective characteristics, activities, and contingencies. Our discussion of these practices provides not only a more differentiated picture of client-consultant interaction but also uncovers the critical role that clients play in these practices.Consulting Client-consultant interaction Project management Consulting success