Foucault and consultants

Having read Townley's (1) argument for application of Foucauldian ideas to HRM, I am wondering how to apply them to consultancy services. I think I'd want to look at the transaction between client and consultant, that Townley calls an "analytic conceptual space". I think this approach would contrast with Czerniawska’s (2), perhaps, more pragmatic explication of the relationship between client and consultant. Czerniawska sees these as separate systems or functions. She argues that these functions built a relationship. If seems to me that she is basing her structures on an underlying systems model within a positivist paradigm. Her thesis might be built on an underlying systems approach, seeing two interconnecting worlds, that of the client and that of the consulting world, with three subsystems to each world, and relationships to explore and analyse. Those relationships are examined in terms of routes to success (c.f. Hard Systems Methods) before considering a blueprint for the future.

My stance would be to look at the specific aspects of client behaviour and how a client accounts for what the consultant does.

There is passing mention to accountability:

1. Page 132 as being on the client’s agenda
2. Page 183 location of accountability within a portfolio of projects.

I would argue that the relationship is constructed.

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1. Townley, B., Foucault, Power/Knowledge, and its relevance for Human Resource Management, in Academy of Management Review, 1993, Vol. 18, 518-545, No. 3 in B852 Block III Reading 6. See http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=9&sid=58bdc04f-3136-4b08-a555-81ae696857c4%40sessionmgr2

2. zerniawska, F., Toppin, G., 2005, Business Consulting: a guide to how it works and how to make it work, The Economist