TY - JOUR
T1 - The failure of consulting professionalism? A longitudinal analysis of the Institute of Management Consultants
AU - Butler, Nick
AU - Collins, David
PY - 2016/1/2
Y1 - 2016/1/2
N2 - Abstract: This paper offers a longitudinal analysis of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC). Drawing on archive sources, we consider the manner in which the IMC sought to institutionalize a form of expertise specific to management consultants. Rejecting attempts to locate the boundaries of such expertise within idealized, archetypal frameworks, we analyse the IMC’s attempts to secure occupational closure in the field of consulting by means of normative, cognitive and symbolic mechanisms. While others account for the Institute’s professional project as a failure consequent upon consulting’s fragmentary knowledge base, we suggest that this project did not so much fail as drift towards another ‘hybrid’ form. In an attempt (a) to account for this shift and (b) to outline its key contours, we offer an archival analysis that explores the manner in which the Institute sought to reconcile the multiple interests and competing logics that construct professionalism within the field of consulting.
AB - Abstract: This paper offers a longitudinal analysis of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC). Drawing on archive sources, we consider the manner in which the IMC sought to institutionalize a form of expertise specific to management consultants. Rejecting attempts to locate the boundaries of such expertise within idealized, archetypal frameworks, we analyse the IMC’s attempts to secure occupational closure in the field of consulting by means of normative, cognitive and symbolic mechanisms. While others account for the Institute’s professional project as a failure consequent upon consulting’s fragmentary knowledge base, we suggest that this project did not so much fail as drift towards another ‘hybrid’ form. In an attempt (a) to account for this shift and (b) to outline its key contours, we offer an archival analysis that explores the manner in which the Institute sought to reconcile the multiple interests and competing logics that construct professionalism within the field of consulting.
KW - hybridity
KW - Management consultants
KW - professional project
KW - professionalism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84961241914&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17449359.2016.1151363
DO - 10.1080/17449359.2016.1151363
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84961241914
SN - 1744-9359
VL - 11
SP - 48
EP - 65
JO - Management and Organizational History
JF - Management and Organizational History
IS - 1
ER -