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.
Alvesson, M. ( 1993) Organizations as rhetoric: Knowledge intensive firms and the struggle with ambiguity. Journal of Management Studies30(6): 997-1019.
2.
Abrahamson, E. ( 1996) Management fashion. Academy of Management Review21(1): 254-285.
3.
Abrahamson, E. and Fairchild, G. ( 1999) Management fashion: Lifecycles, triggers and collective learning processes. Administrative Science Quarterly44(4): 708-740.
4.
Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C. and Robson, K. ( 2000) In the name of the client: The service ethic in two professional service firms. Human Relations53(9): 1151-1173.
5.
Ansari, S., Fiss, P. and Zajac, E. ( 2010) Made to fit: How practices vary as they diffuse. Academy of Management Review35(1): 67-92.
6.
Baudrillard, J. ( 1970) The Consumer Society. London: Sage.
7.
Benders, J. and van Bijsterveld, M. ( 2000) Leaning on Lean; The reception of a management fashion in Germany. New Technology, Work and Employment15(1): 50-64.
8.
Benders, J. and van Veen, K. ( 2001) What’s in a fashion? Interpretative viability and management fashion. Organization8(1): 33-53.
9.
Benders, J. and Verlaar, S. ( 2003) Lifting parts: Putting conceptual insights into practice . International Journal of Operations and Production Management23(7): 757-774.
10.
Benders, J., Nijholt, J. and Heusinkveld, S. ( 2007) Using print media indicators in researching organization concepts. Quality and Quantity41(6): 815-829.
11.
Berglund, J. and Werr, A. ( 2000) The invincible character of management consulting rhetoric: How one blends incommensurates while keeping them apart. Organization7(4): 633-655.
12.
Braam, G., Benders, J. and Heusinkveld S. ( 2007) The balanced scorecard in the Netherlands: An analysis of its evolution using print-media indicators. Journal of Organizational Change Management20(6): 866-879.
13.
Carson, P., Lanier, P., Carson, K. and Guidry, B. ( 1999) Clearing a path through the management fashion jungle: Some preliminary trailblazing. Academy of Management Journal43(6): 1143-1158.
14.
Clark, T. ( 2004) The fashion of management fashion: A surge too far? Organization11(2): 297-306.
15.
Collins, D. ( 2003) The branding of management knowledge: Rethinking management fads. Journal of Organizational Change Management16(2): 186-204.
16.
Collins, D. ( 2004) Who put the con in consultancy? Fads, recipes and vodka margarine. Human Relations57(5): 553-572.
17.
Corrigan, P. ( 1995) The Sociology of Consumption. London : Sage.
18.
Czarniawska, B. ( 1988) To Coin a Phrase: On Organizational Talk, Organizational Control and Management Consulting. Stockholm: The Economic Research Institute.
19.
Czarniawska, B. and Sevón, G. ( 1996) Translating Organizational Change. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
20.
DeCock, C. and Hipkin, I. ( 1997) TQM and BPR: Beyond the beyond myth. Journal of Management Studies34(5): 659-675.
21.
DuGay, P. ( 1996) Consumption and Identity at Work. London: Sage.
22.
Easton, G. and Jarrell, S. ( 2000) Patterns in the deployment of total quality management: An analysis of 44 leading companies. In: Cole, R and Scott, W (eds) The Quality Movement and Organization Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 89-130.
23.
Engwall, L. and Kipping, M. ( 2004) The dissemination of management knowledge. Management Learning35(3): 243-253.
24.
Fincham, R. ( 1995) Business process reengineering and the commodification of management knowledge. Journal of Marketing Management11(7): 707-719.
25.
Fincham, R. and Roslender, R. ( 2004) Rethinking the dissemination of management fashion: Accounting for intellectual capital in UK case firms. Management Learning35(3): 321-336.
26.
Fine, B. ( 2002) The World of Consumption: The Material and Cultural Revisited . London: Routledge.
27.
Fosstenløkken, SM, Løwendahl, BR and Revang, Ø. ( 2003) Knowledge development through client interaction: A comparative study. Organization Studies24(6): 859-880.
28.
Furusten, S. ( 1999) Popular Management Books: How They are Made and What They Mean for Organisations. London: Routledge.
29.
Gabriel, Y. ( 2002) On pragrammatic uses of organization theory: A provocation . Organization Studies23(1): 133-151.
30.
Gabriel, Y. and Lang, T. ( 1995) The Unmanageable Consumer: Contemporary Consumption and its Fragmentations. London: Sage .
31.
Gill, J. and Whittle, S. ( 1993) Management by panacea: Accounting for transience. Journal of Management Studies30(2): 281-295.
32.
Greatbatch, D. and Clark, T. ( 2005) Management Speak. Why We Listen to What Management Gurus Tell Us. London: Routledge.
33.
Grint, K. ( 1994) Reengineering history: Social resonances and business process reengineering. Organization1(1): 179-202.
34.
Grint, K. and Case, P. ( 1998) The violent rhetoric of re-engineering: Management consultancy on the offensive. Journal of Management Studies35(5): 557-577.
35.
Guillén, M. ( 1994) Models of Management: Work, Authority and Organization in a Comparative Perspective. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
36.
Heusinkveld, S., Benders, J. and van den Berg, R. ( 2009) From market sensing to new concept development in consultancies: The role of information processing and organizational capabilities. Technovation29(8): 509-516.
37.
Hilmer, F. and Donaldson, L. ( 1996) Management Redeemed: Rebuking the Fads that Undermine our Corporations. New York: Free Press.
38.
Hislop, D. ( 2002) The client role in consultancy relations during the appropriation of technological innovations. Research Policy31(5): 657-671.
39.
Huczynski, A. ( 1993) Management Gurus: What Makes Them and How to Become One . London: Routledge.
40.
Kieser, A. ( 1997) Rhetoric and myth in management fashion. Organization4(1): 49-74.
41.
Kieser, A. ( 2002) On communication barriers between management science, consultancies and business organizations. In: Clark, T, Fincham, R (eds) Critical Consulting. Oxford: Blackwell , 206-227.
42.
Knights, D. and McCabe, D. ( 1998) What happens when the phone goes wild? Staff, stress and spaces for escape in a BPR telephone banking work regime. Journal of Management Studies35(2): 163-194.
43.
Knights, D. and Morgan, G. ( 1993) Organization theory and consumption in a post-modern era . Organization Studies14(2): 211-234.
44.
Kostova, T. and Roth, K. ( 2002) Adoption of an organizational practice by subsidiaries of MNCs: Institutional and relational effects. Academy of Management Journal45(1): 215-233.
45.
Lammers, C. ( 1988) Transience and persistence of ideal types in organization theory. In: DiTomaso, N, Bacharach, S (eds) Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Greenwich: JAI Press, 203-224.
46.
McGill, M. ( 1988) American Business and the Quick Fix. New York: Henry Holt.
47.
Mackay, H. ( 1997) Consumption and Everyday Life. London : Sage.
48.
Miller, D. ( 1987) Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford: Blackwell.
49.
Micklethwait, J. and Wooldridge, A. ( 1996) The Witch Doctors: What the Management Gurus are Saying, Why it Matters and How to Make Sense of it. London: Heinemann.
50.
Newell, S., Robertson, M. and Swan, J. ( 2001) Management fads and fashions. Organization8(1): 5-15.
51.
Nicolai, A. and Dautwiz, J. ( 2010) Fuzziness in action: What consequences has the linguistic ambiguity of the core competence concept for organizational usage?British Journal of Management21(4): 874-888.
52.
Nicolai, A., Schulz, A-C. and Thomas, T. ( 2010) What Wall Street wants: Exploring the role of security analysts in the evolution and spread of management concepts. Journal of Management Studies47(1): 162-189.
53.
Nijholt, J. and Benders, J. ( 2007) Co-evolution in management fashions: The case of self-managed teams in The Netherlands. Group & Organization Management32(6): 628-652.
54.
O’Mahoney, J. ( 2007) The diffusion of management innovations: The possibilities and limitations of memetics. Journal of Management Studies44(8): 1324-1348.
55.
Rogers, EM ( 1995) Diffusion of Innovations. 4th edition. New York: Free Press .
56.
Røvik, K-A. ( 2002) The secrets of the winners: Management ideas that flow . In: Sahlin-Andersson, K, Engwall, L (eds) The Expansion of Management Knowledge. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 113-144.
57.
Rose, N. ( 1990) Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Routledge.
58.
Sorge, A. and van Witteloostuijn, A. ( 2004) The (non)sense of organizational change: An essai about universal management hypes, sick consultancy metaphors, and healthy organization theories. Organization Studies25(8): 1205-1231.
59.
Sturdy, A. ( 2004) The adoption of management ideas and practices: Theoretical perspectives and possibilities. Management Learning35(2): 155-179.
60.
Sturdy, A. and Fleming, P. ( 2003) Talk as technique: A critique of the words and deeds distinction in the diffusion of customer service cultures in call centres. Journal of Management Studies40(4): 753-773.
61.
Sturdy, A. and Gabriel, Y. ( 2000) Missionaries, mercenaries or car salesmen? MBA teaching in Malaysia. Journal of Management Studies37(7): 979-1002.
62.
Suddaby, R. and Greenwood, R. ( 2001) Colonizing knowledge: Commodification as a dynamic of jurisdictional expansion in professional service firms. Human Relations54(7): 933-953.
63.
Ten Bos, R. ( 2000) Fashion and Utopia in Management Thinking. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
64.
Ten Bos, R. and Heusinkveld, S. ( 2007) The guru’s gusto: Management fashion, performance and taste. Journal of Organizational Change Management20(3): 304-325.
65.
Watson, TJ ( 1994) Management ‘flavours of the month’: Their role in managers’ lives. International Journal of Human Resource Management5(4): 893-909.
66.
Werr, A. ( 1999) The Language of Change: The Roles of Methods in the Work of Management Consultants. PhD thesis. Stockholm: Stockholm School of Economics.
67.
Werr, A., Stjernberg, T. and Docherty, P. ( 1997) The functions of methods of change in management consulting . Journal of Organizational Change Management10(4): 288-307.
68.
Zbaracki, M. ( 1998) The rhetoric and reality of total quality management. Administrative Science Quarterly43(3): 602-636.
