TY - JOUR

T1 - Knowledge Production in Consulting Teams

AU - Reihlen, Markus

AU - Nikolova, Natalia

N1 - Special Issue on "International Strategy and Cross-Cultural Management"

PY - 2010/9

Y1 - 2010/9

N2 - The central thesis of this paper is that the production of knowledge in consulting teams can neither be understood as the result of an internal interaction between clients and consultants decoupled from the wider socio-political environment nor as externally determined by socially constructed industry recipes or management fashions detached from the cognitive uniqueness of the client-consultant team. Instead, we argue that knowledge production in consulting teams is intrinsically linked to the institutional environment that not only provides resources such as funding, manpower, or legitimacy but also offers cognitive feedback through which knowledge production is influenced. By applying the theory of self-organization to the knowledge production in consulting teams, we explain how consulting teams are structured by the socio-cultural environment and are structuring this environment to continue their work. The consulting team's knowledge is shaped and influenced by cognitive feedback loops that involve external collective actors such as the client organization, practice groups of consulting firms, the academic/professional community, and the general public who essentially become co-producers of consulting knowledge.

AB - The central thesis of this paper is that the production of knowledge in consulting teams can neither be understood as the result of an internal interaction between clients and consultants decoupled from the wider socio-political environment nor as externally determined by socially constructed industry recipes or management fashions detached from the cognitive uniqueness of the client-consultant team. Instead, we argue that knowledge production in consulting teams is intrinsically linked to the institutional environment that not only provides resources such as funding, manpower, or legitimacy but also offers cognitive feedback through which knowledge production is influenced. By applying the theory of self-organization to the knowledge production in consulting teams, we explain how consulting teams are structured by the socio-cultural environment and are structuring this environment to continue their work. The consulting team's knowledge is shaped and influenced by cognitive feedback loops that involve external collective actors such as the client organization, practice groups of consulting firms, the academic/professional community, and the general public who essentially become co-producers of consulting knowledge.

KW - Management studies

KW - Cognitive feedback

KW - Consulting teams

KW - Knowledge production

KW - Management consulting

KW - Self-organization

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77955774834&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.scaman.2010.05.004

DO - 10.1016/j.scaman.2010.05.004

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 26

SP - 279

EP - 289

JO - Scandinavian Journal of Management

JF - Scandinavian Journal of Management

SN - 0956-5221

IS - 3

ER -