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- Ollila, Susanne, 1968, et al.
(författare)
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Managing knowledge integration: Balancing professional and managerial logics in an engineering consulting firm
- 2015
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Ingår i: Zeitschrift für Personalforschung. - 0179-6437 .- 1862-0000. ; 29:2, s. 131-148
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Integrating professional expertise in professional service firms (PSFs) is a key strategic challenge in the contemporary economy and individual firms. Previous research has pointed out that the governance of key aspects of PSFs, including knowledge integration, is shifting from a professional to a managerial logic, a shift that is often pictured as conflict laden based on the incompatibility of the two logics. Based on a study of knowledge integration in an engineering consulting firm, the current paper shows how managerial and professional logics interplay in shaping knowledge integration practices. We identify both aspects in which the logics reinforce each other in enabling knowledge integration and tensions that threaten knowledge integration. We conclude that the professional logic is a key driver of knowledge integration, but that the managerial logic, including its formal HR practices, may support knowledge integration through secondary effects if applied in a thoughtful way.
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| 3. |
- Styhre, Alexander, 1971, et al.
(författare)
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Expert or speaking partner?: shifting roles and identities in consulting work
- 2010
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Ingår i: Leadership and Organizational Development Journal. - : Emerald. - 2152-8675 .- 0143-7739. ; 31:2, s. 159-175
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: Identities are central to the regulation and control of knowledge-intensive work. Rather than being managed on the basis of technocratic or bureaucratic control, knowledge intensive firms are employing knowledge workers who enact and internalize identities and roles that guide everyday behaviour in organizations. However, the concept of identity is relational and contingent on local conditions and interactions in everyday practices, different identities may be complementary or even contradictory. The paper aims to show that consultants are altering between being experts and speaking-partners, two identities that in many ways are complementary but also mutually reinforcing. Design/methodology/approach: This is a case study of a Swedish management consulting firm, Johnson Consulting. Findings: The challenge for consultants is to be capable of effortlessly transgressing the line of demarcation between the two identities - expert and speaking-partner - and their accompanying practices for the benefit of the client. Skilled consultants are trained at moving back and forth between these positions while less experienced consultants may find it intimidating to lose their position as expert. Practical implications: The paper concludes that knowledge-intensive firms such as management consulting firms should articulate and elaborate on the various identities mobilized in everyday work when encountering clients. Originality/value: The paper uses the literature on identities in knowledge-intensive firms and an empirical study of management consultants to show that knowledge-intensive work is always operating on the level of identities and self-images. Understanding knowledge intensive firms thus demands an understanding of how co-workers perceive their own role.
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| 5. |
- Styhre, Alexander, 1971, et al.
(författare)
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Sociomaterial practices in engineering work: the backtalk of materials and the tinkering of resources
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology. - : Emerald. - 1726-0531. ; 10:2, s. 151-167
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: Engineering work is a specific form of sociomaterial practice, drawing on and combining social and material resources to accomplish desirable effects, often combining technological and social resources. A study of an electrical engineering development project suggests that the work unfolds as a process whereby technological artefacts are verified on the basis of testing procedures and whereby events concerning technological failure, what has been called the "back-talk" of technology, are handled using joint problem-solving. The purpose of this paper is to report on a study of a new product development project at a multinational telecommunications company. Design/methodology/approach: An ethnographic case study of a new product development project at a major multinational telecommunications company was undertaken. Findings: Engineering work is based on distributed know-how and joint collaborations, emerging as a patchwork of activities where one single person may know a lot, but not everything, about the technology-in-the-making. The paper concludes that joint concern for the technology, manifested as its gradual advancement, is what serves as the glue holding the community of engineers together. Originality/value: The paper presents an original study of the work of a team of electrical engineers and inquires into how engineers combine technical and social resources when attempting to make the technology work.
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| 6. |
- Svensson, Per, 1949, et al.
(författare)
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Pleasing everyone?
- 2004
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Ingår i: Critical Perspectives on Projects.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)
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