Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Performative seduction: how management consultants influence practices of leadership

Performative seduction: how management consultants influence practices of leadership This paper tracks how a policy recommended by management consultants becomes embedded as an integral part of leadership practice. It explores the launch of the concept of “talent management” by McKinsey & Company and how it becomes adopted as part of expected leadership practices in the English National Health Service. The use of Management Consultants globally has increased exponentially, and the paper considers this phenomenon and the ways in which management consultant advice influences public sector leadership and practice at local level.Design/methodology/approachA case study approach is adopted, focussing on the introduction of the concept of talent management into the English NHS, following the wider emergence of the concept through influential reports published by McKinsey & Company in the late 1990s. An analysis of the emergence of the concept is conducted drawing on this series of reports and the adoption of talent management policies and practices by the English government's Department of Health.FindingsThese influential reports by the management consultancy firm, McKinsey & Company, constituted an urgent need for this newly identified concept of talent management and the secrecy surrounding its reception. It is this mystery surrounding the decisions about a talent management strategy in the NHS and the concealment of decisions behind closed doors, which leads us to offer a theory of management consultants' influence on leaders as one of performative seduction.Originality/valueManagement consultancy is a vast business whose influence reaches deeply into public and private sector organisations around the world. Understanding of the variegated policies and practices that constitute contemporary modes of governance therefore requires comprehension of management consultants' role within those policies and practices. This paper argues that management consultants influence public sector leadership through insertion of their products into definitions of, and performative constitution of, local level leadership. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Public Leadership Emerald Publishing

Performative seduction: how management consultants influence practices of leadership

Download PDF
14 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/performative-seduction-how-management-consultants-influence-practices-Gv0XUK0P66
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
2056-4929
DOI
10.1108/ijpl-07-2020-0062
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This paper tracks how a policy recommended by management consultants becomes embedded as an integral part of leadership practice. It explores the launch of the concept of “talent management” by McKinsey & Company and how it becomes adopted as part of expected leadership practices in the English National Health Service. The use of Management Consultants globally has increased exponentially, and the paper considers this phenomenon and the ways in which management consultant advice influences public sector leadership and practice at local level.Design/methodology/approachA case study approach is adopted, focussing on the introduction of the concept of talent management into the English NHS, following the wider emergence of the concept through influential reports published by McKinsey & Company in the late 1990s. An analysis of the emergence of the concept is conducted drawing on this series of reports and the adoption of talent management policies and practices by the English government's Department of Health.FindingsThese influential reports by the management consultancy firm, McKinsey & Company, constituted an urgent need for this newly identified concept of talent management and the secrecy surrounding its reception. It is this mystery surrounding the decisions about a talent management strategy in the NHS and the concealment of decisions behind closed doors, which leads us to offer a theory of management consultants' influence on leaders as one of performative seduction.Originality/valueManagement consultancy is a vast business whose influence reaches deeply into public and private sector organisations around the world. Understanding of the variegated policies and practices that constitute contemporary modes of governance therefore requires comprehension of management consultants' role within those policies and practices. This paper argues that management consultants influence public sector leadership through insertion of their products into definitions of, and performative constitution of, local level leadership.

Journal

International Journal of Public Leadership – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jul 14, 2021

Keywords: Talent management; Judith Butler; Management consultants; Performative seduction

References

  • Managerial fads and fashions: the diffusion and rejection of innovations
    Abrahamson, E.
  • Management fashion
    Abrahamson, E.
  • Why management scholars must intervene strategically in the management knowledge market
    Abrahamson, E.; Eisenman, M.
  • Organizations as rhetoric: knowledge-intensive firms and the struggle with ambiguity
    Alvesson, M.
  • A chief HR officer's perspective on talent management
    Alziari, L.
  • The war for talent, part two
    Axelrod, E.; Handfield-Jones, H.; Welsh, T.
  • Talent development: the new imperative?
    Barlow, L.
  • Education and talent management: implications for the hospitality industry
    Barron, P.
  • Implications of hospitality and tourism labour markets for talent management strategies
    Baum, T.
  • What's in a fashion? Interpretative viability and management fashions
    Benders, J.; Van Veen, K.
  • Bright, shiny objects and the future of HR
    Boudreau, J.; Rice, S.
  • Occupational outlook handbook
  • Talent management at homeland security: a corporate model suggests a recipe for success
    Cairns, T.
  • Voicing seduction to silence leadership
    Calas, M.; Smircich, L.
  • Talent management for the twenty-first century
    Cappelli, P.
  • The war for talent
    Chambers, G.; Foulon, M.; Handfield-Jones, H.; Hankin, S.; Michaels, E.
  • The concept of decision: a deconstructive analysis
    Chia, R.
  • Talent management: design, implementation and evaluation
  • The management guru as organizational witchdoctor
    Clark, T.; Salaman, G.
  • Telling tales: management gurus' narratives and the construction of managerial identity
    Clark, T.; Salaman, G.
  • The machinations of change: BEEPEEARR, debunking and the in-between
    Collins, D.
  • Talent management: key questions for learning and development
    Cook, S.; Macaulay, S.
  • Marketing and seduction: building exchange relationships by managing social consensus
    Deighton, J.; Grayson, K.
  • Rethinking the dissemination of management fashion: accounting for intellectual capital in UK case firms
    Fincham, R.; Roslender, R.
  • Talent management in NHS Yorkshire and the Humber
    Ford, J.; Harding, N.; Stoyanova, D.
  • Questionnaires and lived experience: strategies of coping with a quantitative frame
    Galasiński, D.; Kosłowska, O.
  • Talent management: context matters
    Gallardo-Gallardo, E.; Thunnissen, M.; Scullion, H.
  • Making talent a strategic priority
    Guthridge, M.; Komm, A.; Lawson, E.
  • Who is the middle manager?
    Harding, N.; Lee, H.; Ford, J.
  • Towards a performative theory of resistance: senior managers and revolting subject(ivitie)s
    Harding, N.; Ford, J.; Lee, H.
  • A talent development framework: tackling the puzzle
    Haskins, M.; Shaffer, G.
  • The co-consumption of management ideas and practices
    Heusinkveld, S.; Sturdy, A.; Werr, A.
  • Talent management: a strategy for improving employee recruitment, retention and engagement within hospitality organizations
    Hughes, J.C.; Rog, E.
  • Paying more and getting less: what clients think about consultancy
    IPSOS/MORI
  • Myth and rhetoric in management fashion
    Kieser, A.
  • The impact of management consultants on public service efficiency
    Kirkpatrick, I.; Sturdy, A.; Alvarado, N.; Blanco-Oliver, A.; Veronesi, G.
  • Talent management: a critical review
    Lewis, R.; Heckman, R.
  • The war on talent? Talent management under threat in uncertain times. Part 1
    McCartney, C.
  • Talent management: a systematic review and future prospects
    McDonnell, A.; Collings, D.G.; Mellahi, K.; Schuler, R.
  • HR managers' talent philosophies: prevalence and relationships with perceived talent management practices
    Meyers; van Woerkom; Paauwe; Dries
  • Theorizing the client–consultant relationship from the perspective of social-systems theory
    Mohe, M.; Seidl, D.
  • The role of funding bodies in the creation and diffusion of management fads and fashions
    Newell, S.; Swan, J.; Kautz, K.
  • David Oliver: awkward questions about NHS management consultancy
    Oliver, D.
  • A historical analysis of critiques in the talent management debate
    Sparrow, P.
  • Pharmacology of desire: drive-based capitalism and libidinal dis-economy
    Stiegler, B.
  • Popular critiques of consultancy and a politics of management learning?
    Sturdy, A.
  • Colonizing knowledge: commodification as a dynamic of jurisdictional expansion in professional service firms
    Suddaby, R.; Greenwood, R.
  • Talent management
    Tansley, C.; Turner, P.; Foster, C.; Harris, L.; Stewart, J.; Sempik, A.; Williams, H.
  • Where are we now? A review of management development issues in the hospitality sector, implications for talent management
    Watson, S.
  • Accelerated leadership development tops the talent management menu at McDonald's
    Williams-Lee, A.