Managers as consultants: The hybridity and tensions of neo-bureaucratic management

Abstract

The nature and extent of changes in management remain subject to debate, especially around the notion of post-bureaucracy. Most research concedes that, partly in response to critiques of bureaucracy, some change has occurred, but towards hybrid or neo-bureaucratic practices. However, the mechanisms through which these changes have occurred and their precise form and outcomes have received less attention. This article addresses these issues by focusing on an emerging group of managers that closely resembles images of new management (e.g. project-based, change focused, externally-oriented and advisory in style). Drawing on interview-based research in the UK and Australia, it examines consulting practices and orientations adopted within management roles. It firstly constructs an ideal type of neobureaucracy and then explores different elements of management as consultancy empirically.It shows how they are inspired by anti-bureaucratic rationales, but assume a hybrid neobureaucratic form. We also show that, far from resolving tensions between rational and postbureaucratic forms, management as consultancy both reproduces and changes the tensions of management and organization. Thus, rather than denying or heralding changes in management towards a 'new spirit of capitalism', we focus on a context in which such changes are occurring and demonstrate their wider implications for both management and consultancy.

Liminal roles as a source of creative agency in management: The case of knowledge-sharing communities

“…In helping to unpack the link between liminal roles and creative agency, our analysis also speaks to the wider debate on the extent and implications of neo-bureaucracy. This is seen as creating conflicting demands on employees, subjecting them to greater control but simultaneously seeking to elicit greater creativity from them in the form of novel ideas and solutions (Sturdy et al 2014;Garsten and Haunschild, 2014). The liminal roles in our study arose from an innovative management practice (knowledge-sharing communities) which sought to overcome the limitations of conventional hierarchical forms.…”

Beyond bureaucracy and entrepreneurialism: Examining the multiple discursive codes informing the work, careers and subjectivities of management graduates

“…Work and work processes are in consequence often portrayed as team-and project-oriented, differentiated and 'knowledge-intensive' (Johnson et al 2009, 40;Sennett 1998). While organizational strategies still aim for efficiency, they simultaneously put growing focus on 'flexible specialization' and autonomous 'personnel development' (Sturdy et al 2016). Alongside this, new forms of work organization tend to be mainly regulated along cultural norms, values and images (Kärreman and Alvesson 2004), whereas employment relations are increasingly 'contractualized' and careers are, as Grey suggests (1994), transformed into uncertain projects of self-management (see also Pedersen 2008).…”

“…From a broad governmental perspective, the post-bureaucratic subject is hence no longer just a 'partner of exchange': the market positions her/him as a flexible and strategic 'partner of competition' (Hamann 2009, 37;Sturdy et al 2016), 'being for himself his own capital, being for himself his own producer, being for himself the source of (his) earnings' (Foucault 2008, 226). This implies that the subject of her/his own human capital is encouraged to actively approach her/his (working) life and self as a specific type of self-managed 'enterprise unit' (Weiskopf and Munro 2012, 293).…”

“…These changes are generally related to a societal paradigm shift, which has been evaluated in different ways in career and management studies (Arthur and Rousseau 1996;Johnson et al 2009;Kanter 1997), sociology (Bauman 2000;Boltanski and Chiapello 2006;du Gay 2007), and work and organization studies (Courpasson and Reed 2004;McCabe 2009;Sturdy et al 2016;Weiskopf and Loacker 2006). Within both critical and mainstream management and organization studies (MOS), there are those who consider traditional forms of work and careers as stable and linear and new ones as flexibilized, mobilized and non-linear (e.g., Heckscher and Donnellon 1994;Kanter 1997).…”

“…Moreover, within critical management studies (CMS), a body of literature has emerged in which the shift from 'bureaucratic-fordist' to 'post-bureaucratic', 'entrepreneurial' forms of regulating work is understood as gradually occurring. It is thus argued that contemporary work and career 'regimes' i (Foucault 1994) are composed of variegated rationalities, practices and ideals (e.g., Fournier and Grey 1999;Josserand et al 2006;McCabe 2009;Sturdy et al 2016). …”