Jos Benders

Hitch‐hiking on a hype: Dutch consultants engineering re‐engineering

Business process re‐engineering (BPR) is described as a management fashion. Manage‐ment fashions are introduced on the market for management knowledge by fashion‐setters, who are often consultants. Characteristic for management fashions are multi‐interpretability and promises of performance improvements. The demand for and supply of management fashions is constituted in iterative cycles. By drawing on primary and secondary data, we show how Dutch consultants handle the management fashion BPR. They tend to be highly pragmatic in using this fashionable label. In close interaction with clients, elements of the original BPR concept are dropped and notions of other concepts are included in what are called “BPR‐projects”. The label “BPR” is used for commercial reasons, yet it is easily decoupled from the original concepts and coupled to notions of other concepts. The consequences of these findings for the current literature on management fashions are discussed.

New practice development in professional service firms : The role of market sensing

although professions are often not associated with novelty and change (Greenwood, suddaby, & Hinings, 2002), recent research has emphasized the importance of innovation to psfs (anand, Gardner, & Morris, 2007; Gardner, anand, & Morris, 2008; Heusinkveld & benders, 2002, 2005; Morris, 2001). theorists suggest that, as with any organization involved in product or process innovation, constantly being involved in “new practice development” efforts is crucial for psfs if they are to keep their expertise in tune with market demand, build an innovative reputation, and enhance the performance of their services to their clientele (benders, van den berg, & van bijsterveld, 1998; kipping, 1999). this involves the development of a repertoire or distinctive base of expertise that supports performance of their services in a specific area (Morris, 2001; Morris & empson, 1998; Werr & stjernberg, 2003; Werr, stjernberg, & docherty, 1997). However, it is argued that a major complication in the case of new practices is that they lack a material component (Heusinkveld & benders, 2002) and therefore knowledgebased innovation is considered as particularly challenging for psfs (anand et al., 2007). the emerging literature on new practice development in psfs has provided important insights into the different key activities and “pathways” that may lead to new practice creation (Heusinkveld & benders, 2002; suddaby & Greenwood, 2001). in addition, various empirical studies revealed various factors that may influence the legitimacy and embedding of new practices within psfs (anand et al., 2007; Gardner et al., 2008; Heusinkveld & benders, 2005; Morris, 2001). for instance, these studies emphasize that developing innovative types of expertise does not necessarily fit with established organizational practices and does not automatically enjoy the support and collaboration of people within the knowledge entrepreneurs (see also dougherty & Heller, 1994). While these accounts have furthered our understanding into the intraorganizational processes and impediments to new practice development, the linkages with the client and the market for professional expertise received scant attention in current discussions on the process of developing new practices within psfs (see also chapters 4 and 5). indeed, theorists in this emerging research area stress that the client plays an important role in the possibilities for concept development in consultancies (fosstenlokken, lowendahl, & Revang, 2003). also the broader literature on knowledge commodification considers “sensing incipient preferences” (abrahamson, 1996: 264) of the knowledge consumers as vital in the development of new services that can be exploited on the market (ten bos & Heusinkveld, 2007; suddaby & Greenwood, 2001), but this literature still lacks comprehensive theorizing about how exactly this takes shape in psfs.

TRANSIENT CONTINUITY: TRACING ORGANIZATION CONCEPTS WITHIN CONSULTANCIES.

The aim of this paper is to explore how organization concepts evolve within consulting organizations. Current accounts stress that organization concepts are frequently propagated by management consultants and play a prominent role within their work. Though maintaining a fashionable concept that is suffering from a collapse in interest will likely be detrimental to a consultancy. This makes consultants easily considered important suppliers and commodifiers of transient management knowledge who fail to develop strong bases for entrenchment. We argue that most of these accounts lack a view on the way such fashionable concepts are developed within consultancies. Drawing on interviews with leading consultants from a large variety of different consulting firms, this study seeks to develop several central elements in the internal reception trajectories of organization concepts. Particularly, this paper demonstrates that alleged short-lived organization concepts leave a wide array of different traces that take di...