The Invincible Character of Management Consulting Rhetoric: How One Blends Incommensurates While Keeping them Apart
分析管理咨询师如何利用两种矛盾的神话（规范/实用主义与理性主义）构建修辞空间，从而在组织变革中灵活混合不可通约的论点，增强其合法性和影响力。
As experts and fashion setters of the business community, management consultants have a strong position in modern society. We argue that the basis of this position is the size of the rhetorical space of legitimate arguments open to consultants. In legitimating their activities, consultants produce a great array of arguments based on two contradictory myths or master-ideas recurrent in the business discourse—the normative/pragmatic myth and the rationalistic myth. These two myths are in turn viewed as a variation of the deeply institutionalized western dichotomy of nature vs. culture. Although these myths officially are incommensurable, management consultants freely mix arguments based on both myths when translating organizational change. Herein lies the potential invincibility of the consultants' rhetoric—the possibility of transforming that which earlier was treated as `objective' and given into something negotiable and changeable, and vice versa, thereby increasing the possibility of satisfying ever-changing and contradicting needs.