How Does Elite Consulting Transform Participants? / Gary Grant Gatschet II.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Gatschet, Gary Grant, II, author.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Chief Learning Officer, degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Educational sociology.

Chief Learning Officer--Penn dissertations.

Penn dissertations--Chief Learning Officer.

Local Subjects:

Educational sociology.

Chief Learning Officer--Penn dissertations.

Penn dissertations--Chief Learning Officer.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (159 pages)

Contained In:

Dissertations Abstracts International 84-07A.

Place of Publication:

[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] : University of Pennsylvania, 2022.

Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2022

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A small group of prominent organizations have cultivated a long-standing reputation for producing an inordinate number of CEOs and senior leaders, which raises questions about the skills, practices, and dispositions that have been inculcated into these individuals. What do these elite organizations instill in their participants and how? A variety of literatures provides relevant conceptualizations and partial answers, including research on human development, research on organizational influence and organizational socialization, and research within elite professional service firms. While contemporary frameworks analyze development and change within organizational contexts, they primarily analyze cognitive change, which does not provide a fully comprehensive understanding of the individual. In addition to cognitive change, the literature reveals that a highly consequential element of socialization is noncognitive, or embodied. Embodied dispositions and practices exist at an unconscious level and are therefore largely resistant to reflection and modification. Because most organizational research has studied development from a cognitivist perspective, less is known about how organizations shape an individual's habitus, a set of deeply ingrained, embodied skills, practices, and dispositions acquired during one's life experiences that incline agents to act and react in certain ways. Recent research opines that there is importance and utility in the observation of executive leaders' embodied dispositions as complementary to contemporary understandings of managerial learnings as solely cognitive. This qualitative research study explored detailed accounts of how an elite management consulting firm developed its participants. In addition to identifying consulting skills and competencies that were developed during the firm experience, the study analyzed the ways that consultants embodied firm practices and firm culture into their habitus. The study found an enduring professional habitus, the embodiment of specific organizational practices and durable dispositions, as evidenced through the lived experiences of 20 current and former management consultants. Ultimately, the consultants' professional habitus acted as a mediating disposition that informed, but did not necessarily determine, how the consultants approached their work. In summary, the consultants carried an embodied professional habitus that influenced their career progression and continues to influence their daily practices as CEOs and executive leaders.

Notes:

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 84-07, Section: A.

Advisors: Tilin, Felice J.; Committee members: Nakkula, Michael J.; Joshi, Vikas.

Department: Chief Learning Officer.

Ed.D. University of Pennsylvania 2022.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175

ISBN:

9798368446448

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.

This item is not available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.