‘Control – What Control?’ Culture and Ambiguity Within a Knowledge Intensive Firm*

TLDR

The firm employed highly educated scientists whose fluid, complex, and uncertain project work demanded high autonomy, creating managerial dilemmas about balancing autonomy, control, uncertainty, and efficiency. This paper explores the distinctive culture within a knowledge‑intensive firm and seeks to explain its emergence and effects. The study is based on a two‑year case study of a consultancy firm that creates and applies scientific knowledge to invent solutions for clients. The analysis shows that a culture embracing ambiguity—allowing multiple expert‑consultant identities and an elitist corporate identity—promoted a loyal, committed, effective workforce, sustained flexible project work, and enabled consultants to self‑regulate autonomy while minimizing tensions between control and autonomy.

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper explores the distinctive culture that existed within a knowledge‐intensive firm (KIF) and also attempts to explain the emergence and effects of this culture. The findings are based on a detailed case study that was conducted over two years within a consultancy firm that created and applied scientific knowledge and expertise to the invention of solutions for clients. The firm employed highly educated scientists, considered ‘leading’ in their respective disciplines and project work was inherently fluid, complex, and uncertain. These kinds of ‘knowledge workers’, and this kind of work, are expected to demand high levels of autonomy. This creates complex managerial dilemmas around how to balance autonomy with control and uncertainty and flexibility with efficiency. The analysis shows how a strong culture based on an acceptance of ambiguity (e.g. in roles, power relations, organizational routines and practices) promoted the development of a loyal, committed, effective workforce and sustained a fluid and flexible form of project working over time. Critically, ambiguity allowed individuals to sustain multiple identities as both ‘expert’ and ‘consultant’. This, coupled with a corporate identity premised on ‘élitism’, helped to maximize commitment to the work and minimize tensions between control and autonomy. Thus the culture that embraced ambiguity (a consensus that there would be no consensus) engendered a form of normative control whereby consultants operated freely and at the same time willingly participated in the regulation of their own autonomy.