Carmelo Mazza

Consulting as a Liminal Space

The growing literature on management consulting views consultants as allies of management, in temporary positions of power. This article attempts to complement this perspective by assuming a metaphor of consulting as a liminal space. Liminality is a condition where the usual practice and order are suspended and replaced by new rites and rituals. We build on the anthropological analyses of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner to find theoretical support for the idea of liminality as applied to the consulting activity. This article is based on our experience as consultants and observers. It collects on-the-job reflections - ours and those of other consultants we have met. These participating observations support the suggestion that consulting can be represented as a liminal space for both consultants and their client organizations.

Haute Couture and Prêt-à-Porter: The Popular Press and the Diffusion of Management Practices

The transformation of management practices has recently become the object of many theoretical and empirical works. While most of these works focus mainly on universities, business schools and consulting firms, our paper aims at investigating the still largely unexplored role of the popular press in the production and legitimation of management ideas and practices. Based on the content analysis of the articles on human resource management published in the last decade in leading newspapers and magazines in Italy, we argue that popular press is the arena where the legitimacy of management ideas and practices is produced. We also suggest that the dynamics of management practice legitimation in Italy, described in this paper, is representative of similar processes occurring in other European countries.

European Constructions of an American Model Developments of Four MBA Programmes

In this article we study the patterns of proliferation, circulation and transformation of MBA programmes in Europe. The article seeks to address two important questions: First, why is it that the label MBA has travelled from the USA to Europe?, and second, to what extent does this label signify the proliferation of similar programmes across the Atlantic? We show that even though the label MBA has diffused around the globe, closer studies of a selection of MBA programmes show that the way in which these local programmes have been formed, clearly reflects their local contexts. Hence, this study is an example of local translations of globalized models. Moreover, the study suggests that we should not take labels as clearly signifying local practices. Instead, while labels of various kinds seem to travel easily and rapidly across the globe, local variations and distinctions remain. Based on case studies of four MBA programmes in Denmark, Italy, Spain and Sweden, we analyse how similarities and differences coexist among MBA programmes. While these case studies clearly show that programmes—in some aspects—are becoming increasingly similar, variations and distinctions among them remain. A few elements of MBA programmes remain stable (the ‘model’) as other elements change as they spread. Therefore, the circulation of a vague model—like an MBA in the management education field—allows for both variance in the local application and stabilization of specific elements. With the proliferation of programmes, the field as a whole displays homogenization as well as heterogenization. Two homogenizing forces, and two heterogenizing forces are identified.

Book Review: Managing and Organizations: An Introduction to Theory and Practice

To travel from topic to topic, from theory to theory, is the everyday experience of teachers and researchers in management. In the volume Managing and Organizations: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, S. Clegg, M. Kornberger and T. Pitsis provide a useful guide for management travellers aiming at the balance between practical advice and theoretical explanations. Routes are well designed and cover both well-known and hidden places. As in any good travel guide, the text is supported by images. The authors list other interesting sources such as academic articles, books and movies. A website, www.ckmanagement.net, also provides additional sources—cases, interviews, recent articles—helping both teachers and students. The metaphor of the travel guide is suggested by the authors themselves and effectively outlines the fil rouge of the volume. I think Managing and Organizations is a very useful guide for my personal travel within management, and I would expect those students who are newcomers to the field to find the volume an interesting guide as well. The volume is divided into three parts: ‘Making sense of management’, ‘Managing organizations’, and ‘Managing change’. Each part is then divided into chapters covering the key topics of management. Each chapter provides systematic accounts of the main theoretical approaches, the critical issues and recent developments. Within the huge literature on management, the authors are quite effective in selecting approaches and issues to deal with. Part I, ‘Making sense of management’, sets the scene for the whole volume. The authors make clear their perspective, which is a critical and postmodern view of management. However, they are very effective in leading the readers towards these perspectives without engaging in ‘the battle of the theories’ as sometimes happens in books offering a broad coverage of management issues. Approaches are presented as emerging from historical changes or from the evolution of key management practices. Recent developments are derived from questioning about issues like rationality, rules and social norms. Part II, ‘Managing organizations’, explores the traditional topics of management. Here the guide illustrates the main tourist places for management travellers—organizational design, power and politics, organizational behaviour, Reviews

Legitimation, Words, Organizational Politics: An Introduction to the Missing Links

This book is on organizational legitimacy. However, this is primarily a book on words. More precisely it is a book on those words organizations use to state their legitimacy. The tie between legitimacy and words appears to me as a very tight one. Although it is not a merely a symbolic or rhetorical feature, it looks clear that legitimacy is more in the words than in the eye of the beholder. Organizational legitimacy is affirmed and displayed by words: the words of the corporate communication strategy, the words of corporate advertising, the words of the top management interviews by the popular press journalists, the words of case studies in business education programs. Looking at organizational legitimacy from this perspective, two main questions arise: 1) where does legitimation come from and 2) where do words of legitimation come from? These questions also outline the two concurrent frames I adopt in this book. I address the first question by referring to the Social Sciences theoretical frameworks, from Sociology to Political Science and Law. As to the second question, the narrative perspective that combines linguistic approaches and post-modern interpretative strategies is of help.

Legitimacy of Organizational Missions and Missions of Organizational Legitimacy: Words and Narratives of Legitimation and Success

The process of organizational legitimation may be investigated through the symbolic representations that organizations adopt in their communication strategy. The symbolic representations are therefore rooted in the processes of cultural reproduction that take place at the society level. As a social process itself, the process of legitimation concurs in framing the existing worldviews; in this sense, it cannot be crystallized in a bounded definition of legitimacy. Legitimacy is tightly linked to the subjective framing of courses of action so that analytical tools founded on subjective interpretation are needed.

Beyond Legitimation: Sketches of a Political View of Organizational Action

The narratives of organizational legitimation are representation of representations. This simple assumption, derived from the descriptions in the previous chapters, opens a room for new theoretical thoughts and proposals. Since the several perspectives introduced by Sociology and Political Sciences concur in blurring the conceptual boundaries of the legitimacy concept, the representations of organizational legitimation may follow different directions and theoretical paths. To close the field of interpretation through proposing clear-cut definitions implies reductionism and poor explanation of the phenomenon. Conversely, I propose to keep open the field of intepretation, though I recognize the limitations of this approach as Hybels remarked in following lines: “More than anything, legitimacy and legitimation are profoundly malleable conceptual tools that have proved useful to social scientists again and again as where more precise devices have failed. Indeed, inherent vagueness has been the key to success of these constructs. As the tradesmen of social science have groped to build elaborate theoretical structures with which to shelter their careers and disciplines, legitimation has been a blind man’s hammer.” (1995: 241)

Organizational Legitimation and the Process of Management Discourse Legitimation

The analysis of organizational legitimation done by both sociologists and organizational scientists appears to ignore, at least in part, the overall process of legitimation of management that has been characterizing the last twenty years in Western society. Although in their seminal article, DiMaggio and Powell (1983) proposed a view of social rationalization that implies the legitimation of management rationality, most of the existing literature does not link organizational with management legitimation. At the same time, the legitimation of management is increasingly a hot topic in studies on education (Locke, 1996; Mazza, Sahlin-Andersson, Strandgaard-Pedersen, 1998), on the diffusion of management practices (Alvarez and Mazza, 1997), and on the spread of the marketization. It is interesting to underline the missing link between the social processes described and the legitimation strategies at the organizational level.

The Concept of Legitimacy: Landscapes and Organizational Dramas

Legitimacy is an old and inter-disciplinary concept that has been stimulating the interests of scholars for the last five centuries. This concept has been keeping a flavor of drama, reflecting “in filigrana” an atmosphere of strong social conflict to solve. In the Political Science treaties, the word legitimacy has been echoing the dramas of political turmoils and organizational downfalls. So, dramas and conflicts are always present in the landscape of the legitimacy concept. In the Law treaties, legitimacy is a sacred value to reinforce through the right normative machinery. Weber (1922) tied legitimacy, power, and charisma so that each element strengthened the overall stability of the social system. The concept of legitimacy is therefore central in the debate on the working of social systems, especially under radical change pressures or after revolutionary transformations. The pillars of Social Sciences’ reconstruction of such debate on legitimacy and legitimation come from Legal Theory, Political Science, and Sociology.