This article draws on a product innovation perspective to explore the process of knowledge commodification. It is argued that key suppliers of management knowledge do not particularly regard this process as unproblematic. Using interviews with management consultants, this study provides an understanding of the internal elements that may inhibit or encourage the development of new knowledge products. Exploratory results reveal several major impediments to linking commodification efforts with the consultancy and suggest the importance of internal legitimation efforts before market launch. The findings indicate the importance of considering the process in which management ideas gain ‘good currency’ within the system of knowledge supply. This has some notable implications for research on knowledge commodification and management fashion.

Building on recent research that stresses the important role of managers in the adoption process of telehomeworking, or telecommuting, this study examines the influence of the institutional context on managers' attitude formation. Drawing on large-scale survey data from 96 CEOs and 380 HR managers in Dutch organizations, we show that normative and mimetic pressures affect managers' beliefs, which are reflected in their perceptions of the relative (dis)advantage of telehomeworking. We also find that the perceived improvements of work outcomes and perceived social costs/benefits vary among managers from different 'occupational communities'. CEOs' beliefs are more susceptible to mimetic pressures, while HR managers' attitudes towards telehomeworking are positively fed by pressures from their occupational community. These findings support the view that current debates on work-life initiatives' diffusion and organizational changes in relation to these initiatives should pay much more attention to the importance of the institutional environment and managers' subcultures.

Current conceptualizations of the commodification of management knowledge prioritize the agency of knowledge producers, such as consultancies, but downplay the role of other actors such as intermediaries. Using a qualitative multi‐method study of the role of procurement in sourcing consultancy knowledge, we demonstrate how intermediaries also commodify management knowledge, thereby limiting the exchange value of that knowledge. Through our analysis we develop a more sophisticated model of the processes and consequences of knowledge commodification. This model clarifies and extends prior research by highlighting the role of commensuration, comparison and valuation, as well as the related tactics that consultants and client managers use to resist procurement's attempts to commodify management knowledge.

To contribute to the understanding of the evolution of organization concepts, this article focuses on how consultants respond to competing pressures during the maturity and decline phases of an initially popular concept. Management consultants are important fashion setters, but the actual strategies they use to deal with the pressures to remain legitimate, increase efficiency and differentiate themselves from competitors remain unclear. Such supply-side dynamics likely influence how organization concepts evolve and are relevant for understanding how management knowledge may survive a fashion boom and bust. Using interview and print media data from 32 consultants from 14 consultancies, we identify seven response strategies, and show how these are associated with multiple pressures, and comprise different implications for the evolution of a concept. We argue that this variety of responses is essential to better understand the evolution of organization concepts and opens several fruitful research directions.

Translation has been established as an important theoretical perspective for studying the flow of management concepts. Yet, despite its potential, we find limited reflection on the various ways in which the perspective is understood and used. As the undertheorized and fragmented discourse may hamper the progress of translation research as an academic field, it is in need of closer examination. The purpose of this paper is to explore the different conceptualizations of translation, in terms of their key foci and base assumptions, and to review the work that has accumulated into different sub-streams. Based on a systematic literature review of 150 publications, we identify two theoretically relevant dimensions that mark important differences between these different streams of research: (1) the source of variation; and (2) the object of variation. With these dimensions, we develop a typology of four alternative approaches to translation and show how these are associated with institutional, rational, dramaturgical and political perspectives. We draw on these broader theoretical lenses to contextualize and deepen our understanding of the specific possibilities and limitations of alternative translation approaches, and we highlight the potential for further connections and integration between them.

How does the impact of the growing management knowledge industry on management and organizational practice take shape? In answering this question, the article aims to address some key shortcomings in the productionist view that dominates the present literature on management ideas and practices by developing the concept of co-consumption. The three articles that comprise this special issue not only give voice to consumers of management knowledge as a neglected actor in the field, but also provide important insights into the complexities and dynamics of co-consumption by (1) moving the discussion beyond conceptualizations of consumption as merely a matter of implementing a management idea, (2) pointing to the limited influence of knowledge entrepreneurs in defining management and organizational practice, and (3) presenting a more dynamic and differentiated conceptualization of the management knowledge consumer. On the basis of these articles we develop some fruitful areas for further research.

Lévi‐Strauss’ concept of bricolage has been used widely in a variety of management and organizational studies to highlight creative ‘situational tinkering’. Yet, we know little about ‘the bricoleur’ beyond the assumption of a functional agent responding to conditions of resource scarcity or environmental complexity. As such, studies offer limited possibilities in explaining the occurrence of bricolage in the absence of external demands, or much about who the bricoleur is. Drawing on 136 in‐depth interviews with management consultants, this study argues for a richer understanding of bricolage by exploring the identity of the bricoleur. In doing so, the paper achieves three outcomes. First, it uses the original symbolic and cultural insights of bricolage made by Lévi‐Strauss to detail how bricoleur identities are constructed; Second, it highlights how different organizational strategies enable and constrain the pursuit of bricoleur identities; Finally, it emphasizes the bricoleur's status as primarily an aspirational elite identity in the context of consultancy work, in contrast to its usual treatment as a ‘low status’ activity.

bibliographic method, organization concepts, management fashions,