Networks of expertise: an example from process consulting

Abstract | Abstract

In this paper, we explore how expertise is configured and enacted in consultancy work in public sector organizations. By drawing on recent writings on a sociology of expertise, we analyse expertise as a distributed performative actor-network effect. Through an empirical example from a process consultancy assignment in a hospital, we discern four modes of practice by which a network of expertise comes to work. Firstly, we explore a mode of extending a network of expertise to include more allies. Secondly, we observe a mode of activation where certain parts of the network are made active and present. Thirdly, we explore a mode of brokering between top management ambitions and the everyday medical practice. Fourthly, we see a mode of altering the content of the consultancy process to make it work with the client. Through this analysis, we move beyond viewing expertise as either an attribute to, or a substantial skill of the consultant and advance a heterogeneous social understanding of expertise in consultancy work.