The World's Newest Profession Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century

A history of management consulting in the twentieth century, including the Enron/Andersen crisis.

In The World's Newest Profession Christopher McKenna offers a history of management consulting in the twentieth century. Although management consulting may not yet be a recognized profession, the leading consulting firms have been advising and reshaping the largest organizations in the world since the 1920s. This groundbreaking study details how the elite consulting firms, including McKinsey & Company and Booz Allen & Hamilton, expanded after US regulatory changes during the 1930s, how they changed giant corporations, nonprofits, and the state during the 1950s, and why consultants became so influential in the global economy after 1960. As they grew in number, consultants would introduce organizations to 'corporate culture' and 'decentralization' but they faced vilification for their role in the Enron crisis and for legitimating corporate blunders. Through detailed case studies based on unprecedented access to internal files and personal interviews, The World's Newest Profession explores how management consultants came to be so influential within our culture and explains exactly what consultants really do in the global economy.

Introduction: making a career of consulting; 1. Economies of knowledge: a theory of management consulting; 2. Accounting for a new profession: consultants' struggle for jurisdictional power; 3. How have consultants mattered? The case of Lukens Steel; 4. Creating the contractor state: consultants in the American Federal Government; 5. Finding profit in nonprofits: the influence of consultants on the third sector; 6. The gilded age of consulting: a snapshot of consultants circa 1960; 7. The American challenge: exporting the American model; 8. Selling corporate culture: codifying and commodifying professionalism; 9. Watchdogs, lapdogs, or retrievers? Liability and the rebirth of the management audit; Conclusion: the world's newest profession?

In The World's Newest Profession, Christopher McKenna offers a history of management consulting in the twentieth century. This study details how the elite consulting firms expanded after US regulatory changes during the 1930s, how they changed giant corporations, nonprofits, and the state during the 1950s, and explains exactly what consultants really do and why they became so influential in the global economy after 1960.

Christopher D. McKenna is Reader in Business History and Strategy at the Said Business School, University of Oxford.