Constructing the Consultant as a Legitimate Actor: The Role of Active Clients in Universities

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the circumstances under which active clients in universities construct external management consultants as actors. Much research focuses on how consultants legitimize decisions and trends in business organizations, but we know little about how consultants become legitimized as actors in other organizational fields. In the academic field, clients are embedded in a variety of organizational settings embedded in different institutional logics, which determine their sense making. By analyzing how consultants are legitimized, the authors contribute to a better understanding of the organizational preconditions that support the construction of an external expert as an actor. By focusing on IT and strategy consulting in academia, further, the authors discuss the role of competing institutional logics in legitimization processes and the importance of intra-organizational communities.

Citation

Seidenschnur, T. and Krücken, G. (2019), "Constructing the Consultant as a Legitimate Actor: The Role of Active Clients in Universities", Hwang, H., Colyvas, J.A. and Drori, G.S. (Ed.) Agents, Actors, Actorhood: Institutional Perspectives on the Nature of Agency, Action, and Authority (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 58), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 111-133. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20190000058008