COS Seminar with Prof Andrew Sturdy (Bristol)

Responsible Management Consultancy? Implications for Critique

Abstract

Management consultancy continues to be the object of sustained academic (and popular) critique, especially its role in government. Aside from concerns with its main product - management/neo-liberalism - it is accused of weak ethics in its practices and being undemocratic in its effects. At the same time, its role has grown across public policy contexts, in addressing climate change and Covid for example, to be an active player, lobbyist and governmental ‘partner’. Furthermore, and the focus of this essay, in line with an apparent normative turn in business more generally, it has increasingly sought to present itself as ‘socially responsible’ or purpose-led. This implies a more explicitly values-driven and prescriptive, even ‘activist’ approach than traditional or implied claims to professional neutrality or objectivity, and yet this development has been largely neglected as a focus in research or policy. This review-based essay will explore the nature, significance and possibility of ‘responsible consulting’ by considering some of its manifestations and novelty and what this all might mean for our wider critique of consultancy. In particular, it draws attention to tensions within professional discourses between objectivity and activism and to the role of client conservatism in impeding any potential progressive change in consulting.

About the speaker

Andrew Sturdy is a Professor of Organisation and Management. His research interests focus on the production and use of management ideas, especially in relation to management consultancy and issues of power and identity. Current work looks at the use of management consultants in the UK health service; the governance of consulting use; and 'socially responsible consulting'. Previous projects have explored knowledge flow and boundaries; national differences in consulting use and; the organisation of internal consulting. He has led two ESRC-funded research projects on consultancy and published widely in articles, books and blogs. He advises various organisations (on an unpaid basis), including the media, on the use and governance of management consultancy and has a public policy interest in this area. His most recent book is The Oxford Handbook of Management Ideas.