TY - BOOK

T1 - Angels of Efficiency

T2 - A Media History of Consulting

AU - Hoof, Florian

PY - 2020/5/28

Y1 - 2020/5/28

N2 - Corporate consulting, a one-time seemingly marvelous mixture of bare-knuckle rationalization, esoterica, and visionary futurism, is invariably deployed when business structures threaten to lose their equilibrium. What it actually means to be consulted, the part played by media in consulting, and how the branch of corporate consulting became a system of knowledge with such a socially important role is the object of this book. For the first time, it explores the ways in which the latest media technology, avant-garde aesthetics, economic pressures, and holistic philosophy together constituted the form of consulting dominant today, and which consequences arise from this. Thus it follows the work of early corporate consultants like Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and H. L. Gantt, while analyzing and describing their visual consulting models. The book develops a new, innovative, interdisciplinary approach, situated between media and business history, media archeology, and social theory, and thereby charts the genesis of modern consulting knowledge. It reveals that corporate consulting must be conceptualized in close relation to the visual culture that prevailed during this time, one which drew from nineteenth-century visualization methods and, more particularly, the new medium of film. Consulting is a cultural technique that is markedly characterized by media processes, in which the boundaries of economic logic and legitimacy emerge, and which, at the same time, considerably shapes and stabilizes this modus operandi up to the present day.

AB - Corporate consulting, a one-time seemingly marvelous mixture of bare-knuckle rationalization, esoterica, and visionary futurism, is invariably deployed when business structures threaten to lose their equilibrium. What it actually means to be consulted, the part played by media in consulting, and how the branch of corporate consulting became a system of knowledge with such a socially important role is the object of this book. For the first time, it explores the ways in which the latest media technology, avant-garde aesthetics, economic pressures, and holistic philosophy together constituted the form of consulting dominant today, and which consequences arise from this. Thus it follows the work of early corporate consultants like Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and H. L. Gantt, while analyzing and describing their visual consulting models. The book develops a new, innovative, interdisciplinary approach, situated between media and business history, media archeology, and social theory, and thereby charts the genesis of modern consulting knowledge. It reveals that corporate consulting must be conceptualized in close relation to the visual culture that prevailed during this time, one which drew from nineteenth-century visualization methods and, more particularly, the new medium of film. Consulting is a cultural technique that is markedly characterized by media processes, in which the boundaries of economic logic and legitimacy emerge, and which, at the same time, considerably shapes and stabilizes this modus operandi up to the present day.

KW - Media and communication studies

KW - gilbreth

KW - consulting

KW - cybernetics

KW - media

KW - film

KW - media history

KW - business history

KW - German media theory

KW - management

KW - visual culture

U2 - 10.1093/oso/9780190886363.001.0001

DO - 10.1093/oso/9780190886363.001.0001

M3 - Monographs

SN - 9780190886370

BT - Angels of Efficiency

PB - Oxford University Press

CY - New York

ER -