The growing literature on management consulting views consultants as allies of management, in temporary positions of power. This article attempts to complement this perspective by assuming a metaphor of consulting as a liminal space. Liminality is a condition where the usual practice and order are suspended and replaced by new rites and rituals. We build on the anthropological analyses of Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner to find theoretical support for the idea of liminality as applied to the consulting activity. This article is based on our experience as consultants and observers. It collects on-the-job reflections - ours and those of other consultants we have met. These participating observations support the suggestion that consulting can be represented as a liminal space for both consultants and their client organizations.

SummaryBased on a longitudinal, inductive study of a critical case from a cultural sector, this article explores how institutional entrepreneurs initiate change. Our explanation points to four mechanisms: creativity that generates continuous flow of new ideas; theorization that takes stock of these ideas; reputation within and outside the field that endorses ideas as worthy of attention, and dissemination that brings ideas to the public domain. As novel ideas challenge received practices in the field, paradoxes of logics and identity emerge and provide potential for change. The study contributes to institutional theory by examining a preliminary, understudied stage of institutional change that provides a potential for change. Further, it shows how institutional entrepreneurs engage in the theorization and dissemination of their work. Finally, it reveals how reputation plays a critical role in the dissemination of new ideas and thus in the shaping up of the paradoxes and the potential for change.

This paper advances a micro theory of creative action by examining how distinctive artists shield their idiosyncratic styles from the isomorphic pressures of a field. It draws on the cases of three internationally recognized, distinctive European film directors-Pedro Almodóvar (Spain), Nanni Moretti (Italy) and Lars von Trier (Denmark). We argue that, in a cinema field, managing artistic pressures for distinctiveness versus business pressures for profits drives filmmakers' quest for optimal distinctiveness. This quest seeks both exclusive (unique style) and inclusive (audience-appealing) artwork with legitimacy in the field. Our theory of creative action for optimal distinctiveness suggests that film directors increase their control by personally consolidating artistic and production roles, by forming close partnerships with committed producers, and by establishing their own production companies. Ironically, to escape the iron cage of local cinema fields, film directors increasingly control the coupling of art and business.

The transformation of management practices has recently become the object of many theoretical and empirical works. While most of these works focus mainly on universities, business schools and consulting firms, our paper aims at investigating the still largely unexplored role of the popular press in the production and legitimation of management ideas and practices. Based on the content analysis of the articles on human resource management published in the last decade in leading newspapers and magazines in Italy, we argue that popular press is the arena where the legitimacy of management ideas and practices is produced. We also suggest that the dynamics of management practice legitimation in Italy, described in this paper, is representative of similar processes occurring in other European countries.

Economic systems are undergoing a generalized effort to improve corporate governance structures and processes. Waves of scandals and increasing public scrutiny push institutional regulators and corporate boards of directors to establish and adopt new practices. Codes of good governance have emerged as a primary tool to increase the effectiveness of corporate governance systems. Building on extant views of institutional change, the authors study the process of the institutionalization of codes of governance and the role of the different actors involved in issuing the codes. They define four groups of actors: law-makers, model makers, market makers, and governance enactors. They analyze a sample of 150 codes of governance introduced in 78 countries from 1978 to 2004 to describe the following stages of institutionalization: precipitating jolts, theorization, diffusion, and reinstitutionalization. This description invites thorough investigation of the content of codes of governance and the likelihood adopting such codes in a given country.