Der Aufstieg der Beratung zur transnationalen Regierungsform im Feld des Managements

In the twentieth century management consulting has become a transnational form of governing the firm. Seeking advice from consultancy is part of everyday corporate governance, having worked for a consultancy is a guarantee for sought after skills in once career and management concepts developed in consulting contexts are accepted as genuine management knowledge even in academic terms. This development is the outcome of a process of professionalizing management and management consulting, at the heart of which stands a discursive redefining of the firm and its governance. The discursive change of the field of management coincides with the transnationalization of the political field, a development that opens up a whole new bunch of possibilities for professional service firms such as management consultancies to engage in professionalization projects. As a result management consultancies have become decisive agents and a power of consecration in an increasingly autonomous field of management. The research is conducted by using an analytical framework that draws on Bourdieu’s heuristics on practice fields and his studies on the field of power as well as on Foucault’s concept of governmentality.