Materializing the organization: The role of change consultants in processes of objectification

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the relevance of materiality for understanding consulting practice, based on an ethnographic study of consultants at work with clients on change projects. The chapter shows how consultants are given the role as objectifiers in client organizations and can potentially take part in materializing the organization and its problems and activities in ways that benefit the change process. However, such processes of objectification might also be truncated when the objects produced by consultants are rejected rather than reappropriated in the client organization.