CfP: The Changing Role of Consultants in Industry, 1850-2000
Workshop at
the Maison Française d’Oxford, 2-10 Norham Road, Oxford OX2 6SE, United
Kingdom.
10-11 May
2019
Submission
deadline for proposals: 7 December 2018
While historians have
explored the role of R&D in industrial progress, consultants as a
specialist professional group are largely neglected. With few exceptions, only
passing reference is made to their background and training, the circumstances
of their engagement, the nature of the work and its success. Outside business consultancy, there has been
little exploration of the range of consultancy work across different sectors of
industry and within different time periods. Yet it is clear that consultants
were often a key resource in knowledge management for firms, especially in
emerging sectors making the transition from craft-based traditions to use of
scientific knowledge. As the modern corporation arose during the late 19th
century, firms faced a growing problem of managing knowledge. They set up
in-house laboratories and began to develop R&D programmes. But, at the same
time, consultants played a key role in spreading new technologies across firms,
improving operating practices within factories, establishing standards and
helping develop key supply industries.
This workshop will
address these issues in the context of various industrial sectors across Europe
and in the United States, and attempt to establish evidence on who the
consultants were, the market for consultants and their impact. Questions that
arise include:
Who
are the consultants? Studies of individuals or consultancy firms which
illustrate the role of consultants.
Shifting definitions of
consultants over time: how has this changed and how has the profession
evolved? What of the emergence of
professional service firms and process plant contractors who bundle consultancy
with the supply of design, plant or buildings, commissioning, training and
start-up? How did someone
become a consultant? What gave them the expertise (and standing) to undertake
such work? What networks did consultants operate in to sustain their work? What
levels of remuneration were available?
The
market for consultants
Who employed
consultants? What are the
challenges for a business in defining a consultant’s project? How readily is
the consultant’s report utilised by the business? What kind of consultancy work
was undertaken? Did it vary over time? At what point was the consultant’s work
taken inside the business? Did any conflicts arise? If so, how were they
resolved? To what extent were patents involved? What about the use of industrial
consultants by banks, stockholders, financiers and/or government departments or
agencies to evaluate capital schemes and projects?
The
impact of consultants
How did consultants
contribute to innovation and diffusion of technology? What types of knowledge
were transferred? What was their relationship to formal in-house R&D –
complement or substitute? Has their influence shifted over time? How has their
technical advice influenced government industrial policies?
The
workshop will be based on pre-circulated papers, approx. 5,000 words, with
deadline of 30 March 2019. A selection of workshop contributions will be
published in an edited volume.
Please
send proposals (max 300 words) and a short CV by 7 December to: peterreed.42@gmail.com. Notification for full paper by 19 December.
The workshop is supported by grants from the British
Society for the History of Science, the Newcomen Society, Oxford Brookes
University and the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.