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.