The primary research focus of the Hub is consulting and Professional Service Firms (PSF). This special context (knowledge intensive, high performing, gold collar professions) helps to explore particular questions in more detail.
Members of the Hub collaborate internationally with renowned scholars, but we also publish with our Master students, based on their theses. Focus areas include among others the creation and use of management ideas; the roles of consultants in making academic knowledge relevant to practice; challenges and perks of consultants work life, and questions related to professional ethics. Some exemplary publications by members of the center, five in which MSc MC students participated:
- Bronsgeest, O. J., Bouwmeester, O., & de Man, A. P. (2026). Timing of employee participation and synchronicity in planned organizational change: An event system perspective. German Journal of Human Resource Management. https://doi.org/10.1177/23970022261436268
- Arnold, N., & Bouwmeester, O. (2025). Engaging with food waste while avoiding stigma: How a consultancy shields hospitality organizations from dirty work associations. Agriculture and Human Values, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-025-10754-9
- Bouwmeester, O and Slaats, M. (2024) First up then out: Self-employment as a response to normative control practices in elite consultancies, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 40(1), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2023.101313
- Bouwmeester, O (2023) Business Ethics and Critical Consultant Jokes: New Research Methods to Study Ethical Transgressions. Cham: Springer https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-10201-1
- Hoyer, P. (2022). To be, or not to be elite, that is the question: the unresolved identity struggles of ex-consultants. Culture and Organization, 28(1): 1-24. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14759551.2021.1957889
- Taminiau, Y., Teelken, C., Berkhof, N., & Kuyt, T. (2022). In or out of the game? Exploring the perseverance of female managers leaving consultancy and its implications. Journal of Professions and Organization. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/joac009
- Bouwmeester, O., Atkinson, R., Noury, L., & Ruotsalainen, R. (2021). Work-life balance policies in high performance organisations: A comparative interview study with millennials in Dutch consultancies. German Journal of Human Resource Management, 35(1), 6-32. . https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12267
- Bouwmeester, O., Heusinkveld, S., & Tjemkes, B. (2021). Intermediaries in the relevance‐gap debate: A systematic review of consulting roles. International Journal of Management Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12267
- Bouwmeester, O., Versteeg, B., van Bommel, K., & Sturdy, A. (2021). Accentuating dirty work: Coping with psychological taint in elite management consulting. German Journal of Human Resource Management, https://doi.org/10.1177%2F23970022211055480
- Oskam, I., Bossink, B., & de Man, A. P. (2021). Valuing value in innovation ecosystems: How cross-sector actors overcome tensions in collaborative sustainable business model development. Business & society, 60(5), 1059-1091. https://doi.org/10.1177/0007650320907145
- Van Grinsven, M., Sturdy, A., & Heusinkveld, S. (2020). Identities in translation: Management concepts as means and outcomes of identity work. Organization Studies, 41(6), 873-897.
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0170840619866490 - De Man, A. P., Luvison, D., & de Leeuw, T. (2020). A Temporal View on the Academic–Practitioner Gap. Journal of Management Inquiry, https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1056492620982375
- Bouwmeester, O., & Kok, T. E. (2018). Moral or dirty leadership: A qualitative study on how juniors are managed in dutch consultancies. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(11), 2506. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph1511250
- Mühlhaus, J. and O. Bouwmeester (2016). The paradoxical effect of self-categorization on work stress in a high-status occupation: Insights from management consulting, Human Relations 69(9) pp. 1823–1852
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0018726715626255 - Gross, C., Heusinkveld, H.S. & Clark, T. (2015). The active audience? Gurus, management ideas and consumer variability. British Journal of Management, 26(2), 273-291. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42125045.pdf
