Timothy Clark

Communication, Organizing and Organization: An Overview and Introduction to the Special Issue

This paper provides an overview of previous work that has explored the processes and mechanisms by which communication constitutes organizing (as ongoing efforts at coordination and control of activity and knowledge) and organizations (as collective actors that are ‘talked’ into existence). We highlight differences between existing theories and analyses grounded in communication-as-constitutive (CCO) perspectives and describe six overarching premises for such perspectives; in so doing, we sharpen and bound the explanatory power of CCO perspectives for organization studies more generally. Building on these premises, we develop an agenda for further research, call for greater cross-fertilization between the communication and organization literatures, and illustrate ways in which communication-informed analyses have complemented and strengthened theories of the firm, organizational identity, sensemaking, and strategy as practice.

The Management Guru as Organizational Witchdoctor

This paper suggests that the work of management gurus resembles the performance of a witchdoctor. Central to the work of management gurus is the achievement of transformations of consciousness among their audiences of managers. The view of management gurus offered in this paper has three elements: (1) the key to understanding the power and impact of gurus is to see what they do as a performance; (2) that this performance is of a particular kind-that of a witchdoctor; (3) that management gurus act as the functional equivalents to witchdoctors in modern organizations. The paper argues that at the heart of the guru performance there lies a concern for, and an emphasis on, the irrational, emotional and symbolic aspects of organization. Successful gurus have always known and exploited what this article is arguing-that success depends upon the magic and mystery of the performance.

The fashion of management fashion : a surge too far?

In recent years there has been growing interest in the notion that management ideas and techniques are subject to swings in fashion in the same way that aesthetic aspects of life such as clothing styles, hair length, music tastes, furniture design, paint colours, and so forth are characterized by surges of popularity and then decline. Adopting a predominantly neo-institutional perspective, researchers have conceived of management fashions as techniques that fail to become firmly entrenched and institutionalized since organizations are attracted to them for a period and then abandon them in favour of apparently newer and more promising ones. Drawing on Gill and Whittle (1993), management fashions are seen to progress through a series of discrete stages: (1) invention, when the idea is initially created, (2) dissemination, when the idea is initially brought to the attention of its intended audience, (3) acceptance, when the idea becomes implemented, (4) disenchantment, when negative evaluations and frustrations with the idea emerge and (5) decline, or the abandonment of the idea. In the most influential model of the management fashion-setting process (Abrahamson, 1996), groups of interrelated knowledge entrepreneurs and industries, identified as management consultants, management gurus, business schools, and mass media organizations, are characterized as being in a ‘race’ to sense managers’ incipient collective preferences for new techniques. They then develop rhetorics which ‘convince fashion followers that a management technique is both rational and at the forefront of managerial progress’ (Abrahamson, 1996: 267). Their rhetorics must therefore articulate why it is imperative that managers should pursue certain organizational goals and why their particular technique offers the best means to achieve these goals. Thus, within this model the management fashion-setting community is viewed as supplying mass audiences with ideas and techniques that have the potential for developing mass followings. These may or may not become fashions, depending Volume 11(2): 297–306 ISSN 1350–5084 Copyright

Researching Situated Learning Participation, Identity and Practices in Client—Consultant Relationships

Situated learning theory has emerged as a radical alternative to conventional cognitivist theories of knowledge and learning, emphasizing the relational and structural aspects of learning as well as the dynamics of identity construction. However, although many researchers have embraced the theoretical strengths of this perspective, methodological and operational issues remain undeveloped in the literature. This article seeks to address these deficiencies by developing a conceptual framework informed by situated learning theory and by investigating the methodological implications. The framework is applied in the context of an empirical study of how management consultants learn the practices and identities appropriate to client—consultant projects. By presenting two vignettes and interpreting them using the conceptual framework, we show how learning is regulated by the consulting firm as well as individuals themselves, and that, paradoxically, `failure to learn may be an outcome of consultants efforts to construct a coherent sense of self.

Between Innovation and Legitimation— Boundaries and Knowledge Flow in Management Consultancy

Management consultancy is seen by many as a key agent in the adoption of new management ideas and practices in organizations. Two contrasting views are dominant—consultants as innovators, bringing new knowledge to their clients or as legitimating client knowledge. Those few studies which examine directly the flow of knowledge through consultancy in projects with clients favour the innovator view and highlight the important analytical and practical value of boundaries— consultants as both knowledge and organizational outsiders. Likewise, in the legitimator view, the consultants’ role is seen in terms of the primacy of the organizational boundary. By drawing on a wider social science literature on boundaries and studies of inter-organizational knowledge flow and management consultancy more generally, this polarity is seen as problematic, especially at the level of the consulting project. An alternative framework of boundary relations is developed and presented which incorporates their multiplicity, dynamism and situational specificity. This points to a greater complexity and variability in knowledge flow and its potential than is currently recognized. This is significant not only in terms of our understanding of management consultancy and inter-organizational knowledge dynamics and boundaries, but of a critical understanding of the role of management consultancy more generally.

Displaying Group Cohesiveness: Humour and Laughter in the Public Lectures of Management Gurus

As perhaps the highest profile group of management speakers in the world, so-called management gurus use their appearances on the international management lecture circuit todisseminate their ideas and to build their personal reputations with audiences of managers. This article examines the use of humour by management gurus during these public performances. Focusing on video recordings of lectures conducted by four leading management gurus (Tom Peters, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Peter Senge and Gary Hamel), the article explicates the verbal and nonverbal practices that the gurus use when they evoke audience laughter. These practices allow the gurus to project clear message completion points, to signal their humourous intent, to ‘invite’ audience laughter, and to manipulate the relationship between their use of humour and their core ideas and visions. The article concludes by suggesting that the ability of management gurus to use these practices effectively is significant because audience laughter can play an important role with respect to the expression of group cohesion and solidarity during their lectures.

Management Fashion as Image-Spectacle The Production of Best-Selling Management Books

Drawing on the work of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle and Daniel Boorstin’sThe Image, this article argues that aesthetic and management fashions are not separate forms, as both represent the preeminence of the image spectacle. Central to this is the increasing emergence of pseudoevents and synthetic products. Using empirical findings from a study of the production of six best-selling management books, it shows that they are manufactured coproductions that result from an intricate editorial process in which the original ideas are moulded in order for them to have a positive impact on the intended audience. Central to this is a set of conventions that stress the vivification of ideas. The editorial process thus seeks to enhance the aesthetic attractiveness of the ideas. The implications of the conceptual approach and empirical findings are considered with respect to current understandings of management fashion.

Management Speak : Why We Listen to What Management Gurus Tell Us

Based on primary research into the public lectures of management gurus, this fascinating new volume analyzes how such gurus disseminate their ideas, values and visions on the international management lecture circuit. Adopting a novel conceptual/theoretical perspective, it brings together insights from the fields of management, sociology, media studies, communications and social psychology. n nWritten by leading figures in the field, this topical book covers such broad ranging areas as the live presentation of management ideas, using rhetoric, legitimating ideas, values and visions, the grammar of persuasion and charisma and oratory and is a valuable resource for students academics and researchers in the fields of management, sociology, and communications.

Stripping to the Undercoat: A Review and Reflections on a Piece of Organization Theatre

In this article, we review one ‘tailor-made play’, one piece of organization theatre called Varnishing the Truth. We then reflect on the questions we asked of ourselves while watching this performance and reviewing the video of it: how does this activity relate to its claimed theoretical foundations (Boal’s forum theatre)? Is forum theatre an appropriate model for organization theatre? Can ‘things be made to move’ by an activity such as the one to which we were an audience? In the process of answering these questions, we emphasize the reductive adoption of radical techniques (that is, Boal’s forum theatre); the depoliticization of corporate theatre; and, the limitations of the theory of negotiated order as a model for learning, given the discursive construction of organizational roles.

The Oxford handbook of management consulting

SECTION 1: HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF MANAGEMENT CONSULTING SECTION 2: DISCIPLINARY AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES SECTION 3: CONSULTING AS A KNOWLEDGE BUSINESS SECTION 4: CONSULTANTS AND MANAGEMENT FASHIONS SECTION 5: CONSULTANTS AND THEIR CLIENTS SECTION 6: NEW AVENUES FOR RESEARCH