Customer service is at the centre of many recent changes in work and organisations and is often celebrated as being of benefit to all. This book explores the real nature of customer service from different critical perspectives drawing on a wide range of sectors internationally.

A provocative and insightful work aimed at students of organisations and management as well as thoughtful practitioners.

In this distinctive and valuable contribution to understanding organisational change, different levels and types of analysis are drawn on and connected. This is achieved through an exploration of the conditions, processes and outcomes of change in the field of UK financial services.

Management consultants are typically seen as key mediators in the flow of management ideas. And yet little is known about exactly what happens when they work together with clients, behind closed doors in consulting projects. Do they really innovate or simply legitimate existing knowledge? This book presents research from a three year long 'fly-on-the-wall study' of consulting projects and challenges our taken for granted view of consultancy.
It draws on and integrates theories of knowledge and social boundaries to reveal a picture of complex and shifting insider-outsider relationships....

The nature of management is changing: managers are becoming more like consultants, focusing on projects, functional integration, change and 'clients'. This timely book is based on a large-scale, international study of new management practices and examines the emergence of consultant managers. It breaks new ground in our understanding of this hybrid role, uncovering working practices, identities and occupational dynamics, to shed light on both management and consultancy. It unpacks the changing relationship between external consultants and management to reveal important implications for the...

Written for researchers, professionals and students, this book examines the dynamics and dilemmas of internal management consultancy.