Stefan Heusinkveld

Contested commodification: Consultancies and their struggle with new concept development

This article draws on a product innovation perspective to explore the process of knowledge commodification. It is argued that key suppliers of management knowledge do not particularly regard this process as unproblematic. Using interviews with management consultants, this study provides an understanding of the internal elements that may inhibit or encourage the development of new knowledge products. Exploratory results reveal several major impediments to linking commodification efforts with the consultancy and suggest the importance of internal legitimation efforts before market launch. The findings indicate the importance of considering the process in which management ideas gain ‘good currency’ within the system of knowledge supply. This has some notable implications for research on knowledge commodification and management fashion.

Institutional explanations for managers’ attitudes towards telehomeworking

Building on recent research that stresses the important role of managers in the adoption process of telehomeworking, or telecommuting, this study examines the influence of the institutional context on managers’ attitude formation. Drawing on large-scale survey data from 96 CEOs and 380 HR managers in Dutch organizations, we show that normative and mimetic pressures affect managers’ beliefs, which are reflected in their perceptions of the relative (dis)advantage of telehomeworking. We also find that the perceived improvements of work outcomes and perceived social costs/benefits vary among managers from different ‘occupational communities’. CEOs’ beliefs are more susceptible to mimetic pressures, while HR managers’ attitudes towards telehomeworking are positively fed by pressures from their occupational community. These findings support the view that current debates on work—life initiatives’ diffusion and organizational changes in relation to these initiatives should pay much more attention to the importance of the institutional environment and managers’ subcultures.

The balanced scorecard in The Netherlands: An analysis of its evolution using print‐media indicators

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to better understand the production and diffusion of the balanced scorecard (BSC) by analyzing the reception pattern of the BSC in The Netherlands.Design/methodology/approach – Print‐media indicators and content analysis.Findings – The BSC is popular yet not transient. Consultants are the leading BSC disseminators, while on the “consumption side” the BSC tends to be interpreted differently in varying professional communities. Compared to its intensive discourse actual BSC use in praxis appears to be limited and lags intended use as strategic management system.Research limitations/implications – Use of secondary data limits insight into use of the BSC in organizations. Further research should focus on the influence of subsets of discourse on the evolution of the BSC in organizational praxis.Practical implications – Discourse is loosely coupled to organizational praxis: publications on the BSC may affect organizational behavior but also reflect that behavior. In additi...

Surges and sediments: shaping the reception of reengineering

The business community is continuously confronted with allegedly new concepts. These are often temporarily intensely advocated, yet are at the same time likely to be portrayed as transitory or ‘faddish’ phenomena. To trace the reception of these concepts, this paper examines the Dutch discourse on business process reengineering (BPR). Instead of showing a single transitory pattern, empirical evidence revealed a complex and multifaceted dynamic. Though BPR has been propagated extensively, it has been exploited as an umbrella to encompass divergent organizational insights. At the same time, the reception pattern of the concept varied significantly across distinct social contexts. Particularly, BPR had a significant and sustained impact within the Dutch IS community. Although the concept has been criticized since its inception, it has undoubtedly induced discourse that has been used widely to shape contemporary IS problems and solutions. As a result, this concept has played a significant role in the dissemination and understanding of organizational knowledge.

The Co-consumption of Management Ideas and Practices

How does the impact of the growing management knowledge industry on management and organizational practice take shape? In answering this question, the article aims to address some key shortcomings in the productionist view that dominates the present literature on management ideas and practices by developing the concept of co-consumption. The three articles that comprise this special issue not only give voice to consumers of management knowledge as a neglected actor in the field, but also provide important insights into the complexities and dynamics of co-consumption by (1) moving the discussion beyond conceptualizations of consumption as merely a matter of implementing a management idea, (2) pointing to the limited influence of knowledge entrepreneurs in defining management and organizational practice, and (3) presenting a more dynamic and differentiated conceptualization of the management knowledge consumer. On the basis of these articles we develop some fruitful areas for further research.

Commodifying the Commodifiers: The Impact of Procurement on Management Knowledge

Current conceptualizations of the commodification of management knowledge prioritize the agency of knowledge producers, such as consultancies, but downplay the role of other actors such as intermediaries. Using a qualitative multi-method study of the role of procurement in sourcing consultancy knowledge, we demonstrate how intermediaries also commodify management knowledge, thereby limiting the exchange value of that knowledge. Through our analysis we develop a more sophisticated model of the processes and consequences of knowledge commodification. This model clarifies and extends prior research by highlighting the role of commensuration, comparison and valuation, as well as the related tactics that consultants and client managers use to resist procurements attempts to commodify management knowledge.

Stretching Concepts: The Role of Competing Pressures and Decoupling in the Evolution of Organization Concepts

To contribute to the understanding of the evolution of organization concepts, this article focuses on how consultants respond to competing pressures during the maturity and decline phases of an initially popular concept. Management consultants are important fashion setters, but the actual strategies they use to deal with the pressures to remain legitimate, increase efficiency and differentiate themselves from competitors remain unclear. Such supply-side dynamics likely influence how organization concepts evolve and are relevant for understanding how management knowledge may survive a fashion boom and bust. Using interview and print media data from 32 consultants from 14 consultancies, we identify seven response strategies, and show how these are associated with multiple pressures, and comprise different implications for the evolution of a concept. We argue that this variety of responses is essential to better understand the evolution of organization concepts and opens several fruitful research directions.

Reflections on a Reflective Cycle: Building Legitimacy in Design Knowledge Development:

In this article we seek to develop a better understanding of how design knowledge development (DKD) ventures may gain ‘good currency’. The reflective cycle is generally considered to be a key element in the accumulation of design knowledge and crucial to the interface of science and design. However, the elements that may encourage or inhibit the enactment of this cycle in development ventures have received scant attention in the literature on organizational design. In our analysis, we show how DKD ventures face important barriers related to the institutional context and institutional entrepreneurship. We argue that the current conceptualizations and practices of knowledge development in organizational design need to pay much more attention to building legitimacy.

On sedimentation in management fashion: An institutional perspective

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how management practitioners make sense of management fashions as sedimented elements within organizations.Design/methodology/approach – To further understanding about sedimentation in management fashion, an institutional perspective was used.Findings – This analysis reveals that sedimented fashions within organizations are framed as comprising different forms that are systematically associated with divergent evolution patterns.Research limitations/implications – This study extends the current literature on management fashion by showing how, unlike present conceptualizations, the long‐term impact of fashionable ideas in organizations cannot be considered a single entity with a uniform pattern of development. Building on this, the paper seeks to develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the evolution of popular management ideas in organizational practice, which opens fruitful new research directions.Practical implications – This paper may help managers, as impo...

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.