Call for papers
Special Issue of INTERNATIONAL STUDIES OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATIONS (ISMO)
Topic: "UNCERTAINTY AND MANAGEMENT CONSULTING"
Guest editors:
Robin Fincham, University of Stirling, Scotland
Michael Mohe, University of Oldenburg, Germany
David Seidl, University of Zurich, Switzerland
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF PAPERS: February 27th, 2011
Please submit your paper via email to Michael Mohe (michael.mohe@uni-oldenburg.de)
Any management of organizations makes decisions that influence the organization's future, although future developments depend on numerous influences that are intensely difficult to prognosticate. The many different forms of uncertainty that organizations constantly have to deal with emanate from such sources as the market environment and the networks and competitive structures they operate in (Beckman, Haunschild, & Philipps, 2004; Jauch & Kraft, 1985) as well as the inherent ambiguities and complexities of management itself (Mosakowski, 1997; Pich, Loch, & De Meyer, 2002). Management theories have so far dealt rather systematically with the topic of uncertainty, and how it can be reduced and absorbed, though it remains a kind of defining dilemma of the management task (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Thompson, 1967).
We can observe that organizations develop different strategies to cope with uncertainty. One frequently applied "solution" is the engagement of management consultants since they are widely known as importers of "outside expertise" (Sturdy, Handley, Clark, & Fincham, 2009) or "agents of change" (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996). The all-important act of establishing "rapport" with the client represents the moment when initial uncertainties are overcome, yet is rather shrouded in mystery and at any rate difficult to achieve. For example, Furusten (2009) revealed that a key function of management consultants was to reduce clients' uncertainty or, at least, to give clients the feeling of reducing uncertainties, and consultants acted rather as "agents of stability" than as agents of change within organizations. From the client's point of view, uncertainty is also involved in the hiring and use of management consultants (Höner & Mohe 2009; Mohe 2005; Werr and Pemer 2007). This implies that clients have to develop another layer of strategies to attempt to overcome further uncertainties. These frequently rely on trust and reputation and refer to forms of symbolic capital which essentially remove consultancy from the realm of a simple market purchase to that of relational contracting (Glückler & Armbrüster, 2003). Certainly by introducing the client perspective, the client-consultant relationship typically becomes more socially embedded and the relevant expertise that clients seek is defined by complex logics and structures of prior understanding (Fincham, forthcoming).
Management consultants are not free of uncertainty themselves. As Sturdy (1997) argues, in this "insecure business" defined by pressures from demanding clients and premature burn-out, consultants share in the existential anxiety of the managerial task. Consultants struggle with forms of "weak knowledge" that is complex, esoteric and beset by uncertainties, and certainly not able to deliver straightforward diagnoses and solutions for clients' problems (Sturdy et al., 2009). Consultants are located outside their organizational contexts in the liminal spaces of project teams (Czarniawska & Mazza, 2003) or contact systems (Mohe & Seidl, 2009) and hence experience uncertainty about their position and identity. Similarly, due to the difficulties of specifying the boundaries and targets of consultants' tasks, consultancy firms have to face uncertainties about the management of their employees and project teams. Robertson and Swan (2003) revealed that the management of a consultancy firm has to deal with uncertainty caused by the characteristics of the consulting service, such as measuring the efficiency of employees as well as estimating the required time and resources for a project. As Fincham (2002, p. 68) has argued regarding consultants' dealings with uncertainty: "Uncertainty has long been seen as integral to management, which revolves around skills that are social and political in character. Correspondingly any agent who takes up these tasks inherits this uncertainty, adding to the quota of 'agency problems.' In this sense, the consultant role is seen as reproducing in heightened form the uncertainties of managerial work."
These complexities around the role of absorbing and dealing with uncertaintyare reflected in critical concerns about the wider role of consultants in management structures. For some indeed the world of corporate managers represents a house of cards and a cycle of uncertainties around the interactions of powerful groups and their constituents, which notably include consultant collaborators, descending almost into chaos (Jackall, 1988). Consultants themselves may generate uncertainty, or shape managerial problems to fit stock solutions or even manipulate client perceptions and play on fears and anxieties to create demand for their services. Whether this is an explanation of the success and growth of the consulting industry is debated (Kieser, 2002) but it is certainly possible to discern cycles of threat and salvation in the narratives that consultants employ.
Despite the growing interest in management consulting topics in recent years (Mohe, Birkner, & Sieweke, 2009) our knowledge regarding the question how management consultants and consultancies relate to and cope with uncertainties is still rather sparse, and therefore the aim of this special issue is to illuminate this topic. Possible research questions for papers are:
- What uncertainties are management consultancies confronted with when dealing with clients?
- How do consultants cope with client uncertainties? What are their strategies?
- Are consultants able to reduce the uncertainties perceived by clients if they are themselves confronted with similar problems? If so how can they reduce them?
- What specific uncertainties occur within management consultancies and between consultant firms and project teams? How does the management of consultancies deal with these uncertainties?
- What wider relationships do consultants have to management and what part do these play in generating new uncertainties.
References
Beckman, C. M., Haunschild, P. R., & Philipps, D. J. (2004). Friends or strangers? Firm specific uncertainty, market uncertainty, and network partner selection. Organization Science, 15, 259-275.
Czarniawska, B., Joerges, B. (1996). Travel of Ideas, in: Czarniawska, B., Sevón, G. (eds.): Translating Organizational Change. Berlin, New York, pp. 13-48.
Czarniawska, B., & Mazza, C. (2003). Consulting as a liminal space. Human Relations, 56, 267-290.
Fincham, R. (2002). The agent's agent. International Studies of Management & Organization, 32, 67-86.
Fincham, R. (forthcoming). The client in the client-consultant relationship. In T. Clark & M. Kipping (Eds.), Handbook of management consultancy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Furusten, S. (2009). Management consultants as improvising agents of stability. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 25, 264-274.
Glückler, J., & Armbrüster, T. (2003). Bridging uncertainty in management consulting: The mechanisms of trust and networked reputation. Organization Studies, 24, 269-297.
Höner, D., Mohe, M (2009): Behind Clients' Doors – What Hinders Client Firms from "Professionally" Dealing with Consultancy? Scandinavian Journal of Management, 25(3), pp. 299-312.
Jackall, R. (1988). Moral mazes: The world of corporate managers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jauch, L. R., & Kraft, K. L. (1985). Strategic management of uncertainty. Academy of Management Review, 11, 777-790.
Kieser, A. (2002). Managers as marionettes? Using fashion theories to explain the success of consultancies. In M. Kipping & L. Engwall (Eds.), Management consulting. Emergence and dynamics of a knowledge industry (pp. 167-183). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lawrence, P. R., & Lorsch, J. W. (1967). Organization and environment. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mohe, M., Birkner, S., & Sieweke, J. (2009). Unrelated research isles or a discipline with many faces? An analysis of the state of the art in consulting research. Paper presented at the 25th EGOS Colloquium.
Mohe, M. (2005). Generic strategies for managing consultants: insights from clients' companies in Germany, Journal of Change Management, 5(3), 357–365.
Mohe, M., & Seidl, D. (2009). Theorising the client-consultant relationship from the perspective of social-systems theory. Organization, Online first: 1350508409353834.
Mosakowski, E. (1997). Strategy making under causal ambiguity: Conceptual issues and empirical evidence. Organization Science, 8, 414-442.
Pich, M. T., Loch, C. H., & De Meyer, A. (2002). On uncertainty, ambiguity, and complexity in project management. Management Science, 48, 1008-1023.
Robertson, M., & Swan, J. (2003). 'Control - what control?' Culture and ambiguity within a knowledge intensive firm. Journal of Management Studies, 40, 831-858.
Sturdy, A. (1997). The Consultancy Process - An Insecure Business. Journal of Management Studies, 34, 389-413.
Sturdy, A., Handley, K., Clark, T., & Fincham, R. (2009). Management consultancy. Boundaries and knowledge in action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thompson, J. D. (1967). Organizations in action: social science bases of administrative theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Werr A, Pemer F (2007). Purchasing management consulting services - From management autonomy to purchasing involvement. Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management 13: 98-112.
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Prof. David Seidl, PhD | Chair of Organization and Management
University of Zurich | Institute of Organization & Administrative Science
Universitaetsstrasse 84 | 8006 Zurich | Switzerland
Phone +41.44.6343750 | Fax +41.44.6343749
www.om.uzh.ch | david.seidl@iou.uzh.ch
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