Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Statistics
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login

Popular critiques of consultancy and a politics of management learning?

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Sturdy, Andrew. (2009) Popular critiques of consultancy and a politics of management learning? Management Learning, Vol.40 (No.4). pp. 457-463. ISSN 1350-5076

[img]
Preview
PDF
WRAP_Sturdy_consulting_critiques.pdf - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader

Download (74Kb)
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350507609339686

Abstract

In this short article, I argue that popular business discourse on the role of management consultancy in the promotion and translation of management ideas is often critical, informed by more or less implicit ethical and political concerns with employee security, equity, openness and the transparency and legitimacy of responsibility. These concerns are, in part, ‘sayable’ because their object is seen as a scapegoat for management. Nevertheless, combined with the popular form of their expression, they can support and legitimize critical studies of management learning, a discipline which otherwise has become overly concerned with processual and situational phenomena at the expense of broader political dynamics and of the content and consequences of management and management knowledge

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Divisions: Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Business consultants -- Research, Management -- Research, Organizational learning, Knowledge management, Management -- Philosophy
Journal or Publication Title: Management Learning
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd.
ISSN: 1350-5076
Date: September 2009
Volume: Vol.40
Number: No.4
Page Range: pp. 457-463
Identification Number: 10.1177/1350507609339686
Status: Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version: Restricted or Subscription Access
References: Anand, V, Glick, W H and Manz, C C (2002) ‘Thriving on the Knowledge of Outsiders: Tapping Organizational Social Capital’, Academy of Management Executive, 16, 1, 87-101. Antal, A B and Krebsbach-Gnath, C (2001) Consultants as Agents of Organisational Learning’, in Dierkes, M, Berthoin, A, Child, J and Nonaka, I (Eds) Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge, Oxford: OUP. Barley, S and Kunda, G (1993) ‘Design and devotion: Surges of rational and normative ideologies of control in managerial discourse’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 37, 2, 363-399. Contu, A and Willmott, H (2003) ‘Re-Embedding Situatedness: The Importance of Power Relations in Learning Theory’, Organisation Science, 14, 3, 283-296 Coopey, J (1995) ‘The Learning Organisation, Power, Politics and Ideology’, Management Learning, 26, 193-213. Craig, D (2005) Rip Off! The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine. London: The Original Book Company. Galanter, M. (2006) Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press. Handley, K., Clark, T., Fincham, R. and Sturdy A. J. (2007) ‘Researching situated learning: participation, identity and practices in client-management consultant relationships’, Management Learning, 38, 2, 173-191. Jacques, R (1996) Manufacturing the Employee - Management Knowledge from the 19th to 21st Centuries, London: Sage. Karreman, D and Rylander, A (2008) ‘Managing meaning through branding – the case of a consulting firm’, Organization Studies, 29, 1, 103-125. Kipping, M and Armbruster, T (2002) ‘The Burden of Otherness – Limits of Consultancy Interventions in Historical Case Studies’, in Kipping, M and Engwall, L (Eds) Management Consulting – Emergence and Dynamics of a Knowledge Industry, Oxford: OUP. Kipping, M and Engwall, L (Eds) (2002) Management Consulting – Emergence and Dynamics of a Knowledge Industry, Oxford: OUP. McKenna, C (2006) The World’s Newest Profession, Cambridge: CUP. Micklewait, J and Wooldridge, A (1996) The Witch Doctors – What the Management Gurus are Saying, Why it Matters and How to Make Sense of it, London: Heinemann. O’Shea, J and Madigan, C (1998) Dangerous company, New York: Penguin. Parker, M (2002) Against management, Cambridge:Polity. Pinault, L (2001) Consulting Demons: Inside the Unscrupulous World of Global Corporate Consulting, New York: Harper Business. Reilly W (1987) ‘Management Consultancies in the Developing World: The Case of a Training Needs Assessment’, Management Learning, 18; 289-298. Saint-Martin, D (2004/2000) Building the New Managerialist State: Consultants and the Politics of Public Sector Reform in Comparative Perspective, Oxford University Press Sennett, R (2006) The culture of the new capitalism, London: Yale University Press. Sturdy, A J, Clark, T, Fincham, R and Handley, K (2004) ‘Silence, Procrustes and Colonisation - A Response to Clegg et al’s ‘Noise, Parasites and Translation – Theory and Practice in Management Consulting’, Management Learning, 35, 3, 337-340. Thrift, N (2005) Knowing capitalism, London: Sage. Tichy, N M (1975) ‘How different types of change agents diagnose organizations’, Human Relations, 28, 9, 771-799. Williams, K. and Savage, M. (Eds) (2008) Remembering Elites, Oxford:Blackwell/ Sociological Review.
URI: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/2428

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Document Downloads

More statistics for this item...
twitter

Email us: publications@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us