Type Dr. Joe author O’Mahoney names and hereCalvert Markham O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Chapter 9: Critical Themes in Consulting © Oxford University Press, 2013. All rights reserved. Chapter Objectives By the end of this lecture, you will be able to: • Explain the history and importance of critical thinking. • Outline the role of consultants in developing the knowledge economy. • Assess if consultants can be described as innovators. • Explain the professionalisation of the consulting industry. • Outline the relationship between consultancy and the risks inherent in modern capitalism. • Describe the approaches academics have taken to explain consulting identities. • Examine consultancy as a contributor to the spread of capitalism. O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition 9.1 Thinking Critically O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Introduction: Thinking Critically • What being critical means. • What being critical is important • Unitarism vs. the sociological perspective • Critical management studies O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition 9.2 Knowledge & Innovation O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Knowledge and innovation • The growth of information • The specialisation of work • Consultancies as innovators – – – – – The market Fads & fashions Networks Evolving knowledge? Not so innovative after all? O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Consultants as knowledge managers • Applying knowledge • Commodifying knowledge • Legitimising knowledge O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition 9.3 Professions O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Professions • What is a profession? • Why are professions interesting? • Is consultancy a profession? O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Should consultants professionalise? • Reducing ethical problems? • Helping clients? • Helping consultants? O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition 9.3 Trust, Risk and Ambiguity O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Trust, risk and ambiguity • Conditions of modernity • Sources of uncertainty • Dealing with ambiguity – – – – – Legitimating institutions Trust Distrust Living in liminality Charisma and the leap of faith O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition 9.4 Consulting identities O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Consulting identities • From rationality to postmodernism • Consulting identities – – – – Consulting as the elite Consultants as scientists Consultants as magicians Too many identities? O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition 9.5 Culture, Colonisation and Capitalism O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Colonisation and capitalism • The neo-liberal agenda • Missionaries for capitalism? • Aiding and abetting New Public Management • Cultural Relativism O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Summary O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition Summary This chapter has shown that consultants: • Epitomise the rise of ‘knowledge workers’. • Contribute to the creation and diffusion of management innovations. • Find, apply, commodify and legitimate knowledge. • Exhibit some characteristics of becoming a profession. • Incorporate considerable ambiguities but there are also mechanisms for dealing with these. • Have identities that are complex, fragmented and contested. • Have been integral to the diffusion of neo-liberal capitalism. O’Mahoney and Markham: Management Consultancy, 2nd edition
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