Mutual construction and reconstruction in client-consultant interaction

Based on preliminary interviews with client representatives and a pilot case study, the pa-per explores collaboration and mutual construction in client-consultant relationships. Both consultants and client actors take part in an active construction and reconstruction of knowledge that involve struggles over position, power and control. In the context of client-consultant interaction, it is thus not only ideas and solutions that are contested but also the power to define. Attention is paid to how ideas are brought into play and negotiated in the interaction between actors. The empirical material presented in the paper illustrates how consultancy projects evolve through processes of negotiation over whose interpretation should count and who should be in control. In the process, client actors with different posi-tions and interests play an active role in creating what become valid and what ideas are appropriated

Ethnography beyond the tribe: from immersion to “committed localism” in the study of relational work

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to propose a shift from the ideal of immersion to a practice of “committed localism” in the ethnographic study of relational work in the post-bureaucratic and service-based economy. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork following management consultancy projects in a hospital and a manufacturing company in Denmark. The approach was predicated on committed attention to the everyday of consultancy work activities and associated relational dynamics. This involved being present at the client sites, observing and listening in concrete situations of interaction and engaging in conversations with the multiple actors involved, both external consultants and members of client organisations. Findings – The paper shows how “committed localism” was practiced in the ethnographic study of management consultancy as it is relationally accomplished in and through concrete situations of interaction between consultants and different actors in client organizations and the associated meaning production of the involved actors. Originality/value – The paper develops the notion of “committed localism”, originally introduced by George Marcus, into a methodological concept to challenge the conventional ideal of immersion as the hallmark of “proper” ethnography. Such a shift is particularly pertinent for the ethnographic study of relational processes involving multiple actors occupying different positions in the temporary social spaces of contemporary workplaces

Value creation and ambiguity in client-consultant relations

Et godt og effektivt samarbejde mellem kunde og konsulent fremhæves generelt som en afgørende betingelse for at få succes med brug af eksterne konsulenter. Dansk Industri har sammen med Dansk Management Råd (DMR) og Copenhagen Business School (CBS) etableret et udviklingsprojekt, der under overskriften 'Vækst i Vidensamfundet' har til formål at udvikle det afgørende samarbejde mellem kundevirksomheder og konsulentvirksomheder. Nærværende ErhvervsPh.d.-afhandling er en del af dette udviklingsprojekt og sætter fokus på, hvad der sker i kunde-konsulent samspillet i konteksten af konsulentopgaver, hvor det handler om at implementere forandring. På sådanne forandringsprojekter forventes konsulenterne at bidrage med viden, værktøjer og løsninger samtidig med, at de fungerer som forandringsagenter i kundeorganisationen og involverer og arbejder med ledere og medarbejdere på forskellige niveauer. Det gør kunde-konsulent samspillet til en kompleks størrelse, der ikke bare handler om den personlige relation og godt samarbejde mellem konsulent og opdragsgiver/projektsponsor. Når vi har at gøre med ydelser, hvor konsulenterne går i clinch med organisationen for at implementere forandring, må kunde-konsulent relationer ses i et bredere perspektiv end fokus på personlige relationer mellem enkeltindivider tillader. Kunden er en organisation; en kompleks social konstellation af mennesker med forskellige positioner og interesser. Det afgørende er, hvilken rolle konsulenterne får, når de bevæger sig ind i denne sociale sammenhæng, og hvilke muligheder og begrænsninger det indebærer for at være med til at skabe forandring som ekstern part i processen. Afhandlingen stiller skarpt på disse sociale aspekter af samspillet mellem konsulenter og interne aktører i konteksten af kundeorganisation. Forskningen, der ligger til grund for afhandlingen, er udført som antropologisk feltarbejde på to forandringsprojekter; den ene i en industrivirksomhed og det andet på et hospital. Dette indebar både observation af konkrete situationer, hvor konsulenter og interne aktører arbejdede sammen, og efterfølgende interviews med både konsulenter og de relevante ledere og medarbejdere om deres oplevelse af samspillet

The Emergence of a Transnational Elite In and Around Foreign-based Headquarters of MNCs

Within international management it has become somewhat of an aspirational ideal that a truly global corporation should have no national home base (Ghemawat 2011). MNCs should transcend their national administrative heritage and become ‘placeless’ and stateless transnationals by moving their main global headquarters to neutral and strategically relevant locations (Birkinshaw, Braunerhjelm, Holm & Terjesen 2006). In practice, most MNCs and their main headquarters still remain firmly rooted in their home countries (Ghemawat, 2011; Strauss-Kahn & Xavier, 2009). However, there are indications that many MNCs are moving in the direction of a growing dispersion of headquarter activities with the use of foreign-based divisional and regional headquarters (Barner-Rasmussen, Piekkari & Björkman 2007; Benito, Lunnan & Tomassen 2011; Birkinshaw et al. 2006, Forsgren, Holm & Johanson 1995). The number of European Regional Headquarters for instance has increased by 76% over the past decade alone and a similar rise can be observed in the Asia-Pacific region (Nell et al. 2011). Today most headquarters are located in developed countries but going forward the number being placed in emerging countries is predicted to increase (McKinsey Global Institute, 2013). Regional or divisional headquarters are organizational units with a formal mandate to manage a region or a division within the MNC’s global structure, here termed foreign-based headquarters. They are often located in central, technologically advanced, internationallyoriented, metropolitan hubs where other MNC headquarters are similarly located, where there is easy access to major airports with direct flights across the globe and an international work force. In this paper we explore how the transnational professionals who manage and staff such foreign-based headquarters, develop a sense of community and identity based on an idea of being non-national which is closely linked with the ‘placelessness’ of the organizations in which they work. As such the paper aims to contribute to new perspectives on global elites in the context of MNCs addressing the sub-theme call for submissions exploring the emergence of transnational communities

The Other side of ‘us’: Alterity construction and identification work in the context of planned change

How do we use the Other to make sense of who we are? A common assumption is that people positively affirm social identities by excluding an inferior Other. This paper challenges that restricted notion by focusing on the variation and situational fluidity of alterity construction (othering) in identification work. Based on an ethnographic study of a change project in a public hospital, we examine how nurses, surgeons, medical secretaries, and external management consultants constructed Others/otherness. Depending on micro-situations, different actors reciprocally differentiated one another horizontally and/or vertically and some also appropriated otherness in certain situations by either crossing boundaries or by collapsing them. The paper contributes to theorizing on identification work and its consequences by offering a conceptualisation of the variety of othering in everyday interaction. It further highlights relational agency in the co-construction of social identities/alterities. Through reciprocal othering, ‘self’ and ‘other’ mutually construct one another in interaction, enabled and constrained by structural contexts while simultaneously taking part in constituting them. As such, othering plays a key role in organizing processes that involve encounters and negotiations between different work- and occupational groups

Attribution and contestation: Relations between elites and other social groups

In this article we explore the often ambiguous relations between elites and other social groups, both subordinate and of relatively equal standing. The article draws on two distinctive ethnographic cases: the white Franco-Mauritian elite, and the expert elite of management consultants in a Western European context. Our analysis of the two cases provides insights into how the power and status of elites is both contested and attributed by the people they interact with and relate to in concrete, yet substantially different contexts and situations. The aim is to show how the position and power of different kinds of elites is relationally negotiated and achieved. As we argue, a better understanding of the role of other social groups in the attribution, maintenance and contestation of status is relevant for understanding both more traditional economic elites and expert elites without tight networks

Imagining ‘non-nationality’: Cosmopolitanism as a source of identity and belonging

Current literature tends to see cosmopolitan identity formation as an individual endeavour of developing a stance of openness, and transcending discourses of national and other cultural identities. This article challenges the essentialism inherent in this model by proposing a different framing of cosmopolitan identity formation that shifts the focus to how people collectively mobilize cosmopolitanism as a resource for cultural identity construction. The article is based on an anthropological study of transnational professionals who are part of a diverse expatriate community in Amsterdam. The analysis shows how these professionals draw on cosmopolitanism to define themselves as ‘non-nationals’. This involves downplaying national affiliations and cultural differences while also marking national identity categories and ‘cultural features’ to maintain the difference they collectively embrace. This however does not imply openness to all otherness. Boundary drawing to demarcate the cosmopolitan ‘us’ in relation to national (mono)culture is equally important. The article argues that cosmopolitan identities are socially accomplished as particular modes of collective belonging that are part of – not beyond – a global discursive sphere of identity politics

Cosmopolitanism and Place

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Management Consulting in Action: Value Creation and ambiguity in client-consultant relations

Et godt og effektivt samarbejde mellem kunde og konsulent fremhæves generelt som en afgørende betingelse for at få succes med brug af eksterne konsulenter. Dansk Industri har sammen med Dansk Management Råd (DMR) og Copenhagen Business School (CBS) etableret et udviklingsprojekt, der under overskriften 'Vækst i Vidensamfundet' har til formål at udvikle det afgørende samarbejde mellem kundevirksomheder og konsulentvirksomheder. Nærværende ErhvervsPh.d.-afhandling er en del af dette udviklingsprojekt og sætter fokus på, hvad der sker i kunde-konsulent samspillet i konteksten af konsulentopgaver, hvor det handler om at implementere forandring. På sådanne forandringsprojekter forventes konsulenterne at bidrage med viden, værktøjer og løsninger samtidig med, at de fungerer som forandringsagenter i kundeorganisationen og involverer og arbejder med ledere og medarbejdere på forskellige niveauer. Det gør kunde-konsulent samspillet til en kompleks størrelse, der ikke bare handler om den personlige relation og godt samarbejde mellem konsulent og opdragsgiver/projektsponsor. Når vi har at gøre med ydelser, hvor konsulenterne går i clinch med organisationen for at implementere forandring, må kunde-konsulent relationer ses i et bredere perspektiv end fokus på personlige relationer mellem enkeltindivider tillader. Kunden er en organisation; en kompleks social konstellation af mennesker med forskellige positioner og interesser. Det afgørende er, hvilken rolle konsulenterne får, når de bevæger sig ind i denne sociale sammenhæng, og hvilke muligheder og begrænsninger det indebærer for at være med til at skabe forandring som ekstern part i processen. Afhandlingen stiller skarpt på disse sociale aspekter af samspillet mellem konsulenter og interne aktører i konteksten af kundeorganisation. Forskningen, der ligger til grund for afhandlingen, er udført som antropologisk feltarbejde på to forandringsprojekter; den ene i en industrivirksomhed og det andet på et hospital. Dette indebar både observation af konkrete situationer, hvor konsulenter og interne aktører arbejdede sammen, og efterfølgende interviews med både konsulenter og de relevante ledere og medarbejdere om deres oplevelse af samspillet