Chapter 6: Struggling to Challenge an Informal Field Order: Professional Associations as Standard Setters

The management consulting industry can be characterized as an “unbounded profession” with fuzzy borders (Alexius, 2007; Glückler & Armbrüster, 2003). Despite attempts to define subfields within management consultancy, such as PR consultancy, HR consultancy, IT consultancy, and so forth, it is not easy to determine what management consultancy is and is not. This lack of a clear definition creates opportunities for consultants to adapt to their clients’ changing needs and add on new services, which may be valuable both for them and their clients (Kipping, 2002). But it also causes confusion in client organizations regarding what can be expected from consultants and how to evaluate their services (Alexius & Furusten, 2005; Clark, 1995; Näslund & Pemer, 2012; Pemer, 2008). Moreover, it creates a market with very low entry barriers and fierce competition among the consultancy firms (Løwendahl, 2005).