Consultant supported ERP implementation – a learning opportunity?

Management consultants are often described as accumulators, generators and disseminators of knowledge in the business world. Little research has however been devoted to the extent to which and the processes by which organizations hiring management consultants learn. This issue is addressed in the current paper based on a study of a consultant-supported ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) implementation project. It is concluded, that projects in which consultants and employees of the hiring organization interact extensively provide large opportunities for individual learning. This learning is facilitated by the braking down of organizational boundaries in the improvement project, enabling open and intense interaction. Tensions were however observed between the improvement project and employees in day-to-day operations. The collaboration in this interface was more strained and thus impeded learning and knowledge creation within the day-to-day business. These barriers between the improvement project and the daily operations were created by the same forces that created the open atmosphere between consultants and client personnel in the project.Management Consulting; Learning; Knowledge transfer; ERP implementation

Boundaryless Management - Creating, transforming and using knowledge in inter-organizational collaboration. A literature review

Current literature on organizations often argues that firms are becoming increasingly dependent on knowledge residing outside their own boundaries requiring organizations to increase their entrepreneurial abilities and make their boundaries more flexible and permeable. This paper reviews the literature on what might be called interorganizational knowledge work. Implied in this focus is an assumption of clear organizaitonal boundaries. Rather than taking these boundaries and their importance for granted, the current review, however, aims at relativizing these boundaries. By focusing the empirical phenomenon of collaboration between individuals in different organizations, four different streams of literature with different constructions of the organizational boundary and its importance were identified: the literature on learning in alliances and joint ventures, the literature on collaboration in industrial networks, the literature on social networks and communities of practice and finally the literature on geographical clusters and innovation systems. The above four streams of the literature are reviewed with a special focus on the following three questions: 1. What is the role of (organizational) boundaries in interorganizational knowledge work? 2. What do we know about how these boundaries can be overcome? 3. What are the implications for managing interorganizational knowledge work spelled out in the literature?Interorganizational collaboration; Knowledge Management; Literature review

The construction of global management consulting - a study of consultancies’ web presentations

Management consulting increasingly appears as a global endeavour as reflected in the increasing dominance of a few large, global management-consulting firms. However, features of the consulting service (e.g. its immaterial and interactional character) as well as aspects of management (e.g. its cultural anchoredness) highlight the locality of management consulting. In this paper we approach this tension between the global and the local by seeing consulting as involving the creation of generalised myths. More specifically, we ask the question: How do global consulting companies construct the viability and desirability of their services? Based on a view of management consultants as mythmakers, we study the argumentation on corporate web sites of four leading global consultancies in five different countries. Applying a framework based on the sociology of translation, we analyze the translation strategies used in making the service of global consultancies both viable and indispensable. We find that the need for consultants is to a large extent constructed through defining management as an expert activity, thus creating a need for external advisors possessing globally applicable expert knowledge. In this effort, the consultants ally with three widely spread rationalized managerial myths – the rationality myth, the globalization myth and the universality myth. We conclude, that global consulting firms are actively involved in creating and reinforcing the very same institutions, which are the prerequisites for their future success.management consulting; globalization; myth making

Between exploitation and control – Clients’ conceptions of the consultant-client relationship

During the past years, the use of management consultants has increased significantly, giving managers repeated experiences of both hiring and working with them. In an effort to understand the managers’ use of management consultants, this paper sets out to investigate managers’ conceptions of management consultants, as they are assumed to influence how consultants are used and managed. Based on the study of ten managers, four conceptions of management consultants, their roles and how they should be managed were identified, representing four different kinds of buyers of consulting services – the disappointed buyer, the trustful buyer, the strong buyer and the instrumental buyer. These conceptions and their relations to the three types of buyers found in the literature are discussed, showing that the instrumental buyer is a “new” type with no equivalent in the literature. The paper ends with a discussion of possible explanations for the distribution of the conceptions over the ten studied managers, where seven of them could be categorized as strong or instrumental buyers, and what implications this may have on how management consultants are used.Management Consulting; client; purchasing

The construction of global management consulting - a study of consultancies’ web presentations

Management consulting increasingly appears as a global endeavour as reflected in the increasing dominance of a few large, global management-consulting firms. However, features of the consulting service (e.g. its immaterial and interactional character) as well as aspects of management (e.g. its cultural anchoredness) highlight the locality of management consulting. In this paper we approach this tension between the global and the local by seeing consulting as involving the creation of generalised myths. More specifically, we ask the question: How do global consulting companies construct the viability and desirability of their services? Based on a view of management consultants as mythmakers, we study the argumentation on corporate web sites of four leading global consultancies in five different countries. Applying a framework based on the sociology of translation, we analyze the translation strategies used in making the service of global consultancies both viable and indispensable. We find that the need for consultants is to a large extent constructed through defining management as an expert activity, thus creating a need for external advisors possessing globally applicable expert knowledge. In this effort, the consultants ally with three widely spread rationalized managerial myths – the rationality myth, the globalization myth and the universality myth. We conclude, that global consulting firms are actively involved in creating and reinforcing the very same institutions, which are the prerequisites for their future success.management consulting; globalization; myth making

Professions and (new) management occupations as a contested terrain:Redefining jurisdictional claims

In this article, we discuss how research on professions and organizations may benefit from a better understanding of the emergence and prevalence of 'new' management occupations or 'corporate professions' and their interactions with 'traditional' professions. To this end, we explore the theoretical and empirical implications of selected studies, analysing how professional and occupational jurisdictions, as well as inter-occupational relationships, are redefined. This occurs as new areas of management expertise emerge and gain influence in relation to broader organizational, technical and institutional developments

Professional identities at stake in strategic change - on the formation of professional selves in changing PSFs

Professional Service Firms (PSFs) are increasingly pressured to strategic changes by evolutions in their environments. Research has especially emphasized changing client behaviours and demands, globalization and increasing competition. However, the internal dynamics of strategic change in PSFs remain under-investigated. The current paper focuses specifically on the role of professional identities in processes of strategic change, as identity has emerged as a key variable for understanding PSFs in recent research. The current paper introduces an analytical framework in four steps for understanding strategic change implementation and the role of professional identities. These steps comprise: 1. The nature of the strategic change; 2. Changes in organisational processes and in professional roles; 3. Identity moves by the professionals; 4. The outcomes of the strategic change process. The framework is applied to three different PSFs representing three typical strategic changes. Based on the analysis of the case studies we argue that the nexus of analyzing strategic change in PSFs lies in the intertwined processes of evolving organizational roles, practices and professional identities. The paper also spells out managerial implications for role design and effects for professionals in strategic changes

The cultural embeddedness of professional service purchasing-A comparative study of German and Swedish companies

Research on professional service purchasing generally takes a culturally universalistic approach, implicitly assuming the generalizability of research findings and normative models to different cultural contexts. However, research in related disciplines points to the influence of national culture on managers' decisions, thereby questioning the culturally universalistic approach. The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in professional service purchasing in different cultural contexts. Based on a survey of large organizations, we analyze how the purchasing process for a specific type of professional services - management consulting services - is organized in two cultural contexts (i.e. Germany and Sweden). The results indicate that organizations in Germany and Sweden differ in the way they approach key aspects of the purchasing process. These differences are discussed in relation to two central cultural dimensions - uncertainty avoidance and masculinity-femininity - in which Germany and Sweden take very different positions. It is proposed that uncertainty avoidance mainly influences the first steps in the purchasing process (specify, select and contract) whereas masculinity-femininity mainly influences the remaining steps (order, expedite and evaluate). The paper contributes to the purchasing and supply management literature by empirically illustrating differences in purchasing practices in different cultural contexts and developing theory-driven propositions for the influence of national culture on the professional service purchasing process

In vivo imaging and quantitative analysis of leukocyte directional migration and polarization in inflamed tissue

Directional migration of transmigrated leukocytes to the site of injury is a central event in the inflammatory response. Here, we present an in vivo chemotaxis assay enabling the visualization and quantitative analysis of subtype-specific directional motility and polarization of leukocytes in their natural 3D microenvironment. Our technique comprises the combination of i) semi-automated in situ microinjection of chemoattractants or bacteria as local chemotactic stimulus, ii) in vivo near-infrared reflected-light oblique transillumination (RLOT) microscopy for the visualization of leukocyte motility and morphology, and iii) in vivo fluorescence microscopy for the visualization of different leukocyte subpopulations or fluorescence-labeled bacteria. Leukocyte motility parameters are quantified off-line in digitized video sequences using computer-assisted single cell tracking. Here, we show that perivenular microinjection of chemoattractants [macrophage inflammatory protein-1alpha (MIP-1alpha/Ccl3), platelet-activating factor (PAF)] or E. coli into the murine cremaster muscle induces target-oriented intravascular adhesion and transmigration as well as polarization and directional interstitial migration of leukocytes towards the locally administered stimuli. Moreover, we describe a crucial role of Rho kinase for the regulation of directional motility and polarization of transmigrated leukocytes in vivo. Finally, combining in vivo RLOT and fluorescence microscopy in Cx3CR1(gfp/gfp) mice (mice exhibiting green fluorescent protein-labeled monocytes), we are able to demonstrate differences in the migratory behavior of monocytes and neutrophils.Taken together, we propose a novel approach for investigating the mechanisms and spatiotemporal dynamics of subtype-specific motility and polarization of leukocytes during their directional interstitial migration in vivo