TY - JOUR

T1 - Management Consultancies as Institutional Agents

T2 - Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management - AOM 2009

AU - Reihlen, Markus

AU - Smets, Michael

AU - Veit, Andreas

PY - 2009/8/1

Y1 - 2009/8/1

N2 - In this paper, we elaborate a typology of strategies by which management consultancies can create and sustain such institutional capital (Oliver, 1997) that helps them extract competitive resources from their institutional context. Drawing on examples from the German consulting industry, we show how localized competitive actions can enhance individual firm's positions, but also the collective institutional capital of the consulting industry as a whole. These accounts counter prevailing imagery of institutional entrepreneurship as individualistic, heroic action and demonstrate how distributed, embedded actors can collectively shape the institutional context from within to enhance their institutional capital.

AB - In this paper, we elaborate a typology of strategies by which management consultancies can create and sustain such institutional capital (Oliver, 1997) that helps them extract competitive resources from their institutional context. Drawing on examples from the German consulting industry, we show how localized competitive actions can enhance individual firm's positions, but also the collective institutional capital of the consulting industry as a whole. These accounts counter prevailing imagery of institutional entrepreneurship as individualistic, heroic action and demonstrate how distributed, embedded actors can collectively shape the institutional context from within to enhance their institutional capital.

KW - Management studies

KW - Consulting industry

KW - Institutional capital

KW - Neoinstitutionalism

U2 - 10.5465/ambpp.2009.44247397

DO - 10.5465/ambpp.2009.44247397

M3 - Conference article in journal

VL - 2009

JO - Academy of Management Proceedings

JF - Academy of Management Proceedings

SN - 0065-0668

IS - 1

Y2 - 3 September 2009

ER -