The Feminine in Management Consulting: Power, Emotion and Values in Consulting Interactions

✍ Scribed by Sheila Marsh

• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 333
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Through live material from consulting practice and an historical review of advice-giving to pre-modern leaders, this book uncovers a distinctive feminine discourse of management consulting. This new lens challenges current literature on management consulting that relies on established (masculine) images.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
List of Tables and Figures......Page 13
Acknowledgements......Page 14
Introduction......Page 16
Starting points......Page 17
The unfolding 'feminine'......Page 18
‘Critical consulting' practice?......Page 20
The shape of the book......Page 21
Part I: Consulting: Exploring the Terrain......Page 26
Defining consulting?......Page 28
The context of my consulting work......Page 29
The consulting work I studied......Page 33
How I approached the research......Page 36
Researching women......Page 41
Introduction......Page 44
Developing a 'genealogical' review......Page 46
Advice-giving in the ancient world......Page 48
Early centuries in Europe......Page 55
The Renaissance......Page 57
Towards the modern: 17th and 18th centuries......Page 65
Women's roles: from confidantes and consorts to consultants......Page 66
Conclusions......Page 79
Introduction......Page 83
Consulting as an economic transaction......Page 86
Consulting as a service......Page 87
The 'advice industry'......Page 93
The 'knowledge industry'......Page 101
Consulting as a profession?......Page 110
Consulting as performance and rhetoric......Page 112
Women in consulting......Page 120
Conclusions......Page 122
Learning from the genealogy: 'feminine' discourses of advice-giving......Page 126
Discourses of consulting from contemporary ('masculine') images......Page 128
Contested issues and competing discourses of consulting......Page 129
Where has exploring the terrain of consulting taken us?......Page 135
Part II: Discourse Analysis of Consulting Interactions......Page 138
Introduction......Page 140
A process based approach......Page 141
Studying discourse and discursive practices......Page 144
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)......Page 148
The unfolding research process......Page 155
Introduction......Page 164
The National Policy work......Page 169
The One-to-One work......Page 175
The Strategic Health Authority work......Page 181
The Local Authority work......Page 186
The University work......Page 189
The Voluntary Sector work......Page 196
Reviewing the discourse analysis......Page 202
Introduction......Page 205
Reflective stories from my colleagues......Page 206
Stories from other women consultants......Page 214
My own talk about consulting......Page 219
Men's voices......Page 229
Learning from the CDA process......Page 235
Part III: Making Sense......Page 240
Introduction......Page 242
Power in the interactions and stories......Page 243
Emotion in the interactions and stories......Page 248
Values in the commercial process......Page 252
Interwoven themes with gendered dimensions......Page 257
Introduction......Page 261
Locating the 'feminine'......Page 262
The 'feminine' in my study......Page 268
A 'feminine' discourse of consulting......Page 284
Conclusion......Page 288
Where has my work taken us?......Page 291
What can we learn from a 'feminine' discourse of consulting?......Page 296
Developing a 'critical consulting' practice......Page 298
In critical mood…......Page 301
Final words…......Page 303
Notes......Page 304
References......Page 311
C......Page 328
D......Page 329
F......Page 330
M......Page 331
S......Page 332
Z......Page 333