Identities in Flex: How Management Consultants Construct Their Identity Roles

This paper studies how management consultants construct themselves in and as part of processes of translation, and how their professional identity constructions shape the translation output. Informed by a Scandinavian institutionalist approach, we conducted a qualitative case study of Danish management consultants. We find that management consultants mobilize four strategies to mediate between two opposing, yet essential, consultant roles when engaging in processes of translation. Consultants mobilize these strategies at different junctions to mediate between these two roles. By flexibly playing both roles, consultants alternate between 'flexing' deep academic knowledge (the expert role) and offering simplified, actionable advice (the implementer role). Our findings therefore show how the mediation between different roles allows consultants to simplify academic knowledge while retaining their professional integrity as knowledge experts. We add to prior research on the role of management consultants in the translation of management theory by showing that translation serves as a form of role mediation. We propose that translation actors use translation strategies dynamically to communicate and consolidate their own professional identity. Finally, we point to the need for articulating how translation actors, processes, and outcomes interact with one another and collectively affect how management theory is implemented and perceived in practice.