Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MANAGECOR (The political economy of management consulting firms in emerging economies: Evidence from illicit financial networks in Brazil and South Africa)
Berichtszeitraum: 2021-11-01 bis 2023-10-31
The project aimed at developing a new understanding of the role of management consultancies and big audit firms in two countries, Brazil and South Africa, and more generally, in emerging economies and low income countries of Africa and Latin America. It focused on three objectives. First, it aimed to develop a new theorisation of corruption, that is to propose a move away from focus on “politically exposed persons” (PEPs) to analyse the role of different practices and actors in the international political economy and get to a new understanding of its relation with the global financial system. Second, the project aimed to analyse the various practices, ideas and techniques consulting firms circulate in their networks of firms and clients. This is of prime importance for research and society as we don't understand precisely today how these firms engage with sovereing and corporate actors. We lack empirical studies on the role of these firms as advisers, intermediaries and fixers to develop private or public projects. We also need to improve our understanding of these firm's organisations and of their business models. Third, the work aims to contribute to debates on the political economies of Brazil and South Africa.
The work of the beneficiary first focused on generating the data needed to get to this understanding. This included to exploit all existing reports and litterature on the matter, to attempt to access new data, and to run rounds of interviews. Generating new data was a constant and exigent task undertaken all along the project. This was the done thanks to more than 100 interviews with executives of professional service firms and their clients encountered in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Cape Town, but also in London, Oxford and Paris. The research has allowed to collect new documents, reports, and to constitute a corpus of productions, along with thousands of press articles. As planned, the beneficiary also made the most of thousands of pages of investigation and documentary evidence in Brazil and South Africa that had been left out research and were systematically analyzed. New data will pave the way for more research and generate original questions, contributing to a significant leap.
Second, to achieve the objective of the action the beneficiary reviewed and engaged with different literatures of political economy, economic sociology, but also anthropology, history and business and management sciences. The ambition of the work was to understand how the consulting and audit firms work, how they organize, how they generate contracts. The beneficiary tried to identify if and what makes these firms special. This theoretical enquiry and re reading of the literature lay the foundation of the book and particularly of its first part that focuses on the history of the services provided and their role in the XXth century. This aimed to reshuffle the literature on the topic of consultancies, their political economy and their role and function in financialised economies.
Third, the action set an ambitious program of writing and outputs with the publication of articles and of one book. Each output served as a proof of concept and was presented in seminars, conferences, workshops and panels, including those organized by the beneficiary. Events, seminar presentation, conference panels, and workshops, as well as journal articles created a constant engagement with various academic communities and served to organise a nascent community of interest on the project and around the international political economy of professional services firms.
Second, to achieve the objective of the action the beneficiary reviewed and engaged with different literatures of political economy, economic sociology, but also anthropology, history and business and management sciences. The ambition of the work was to understand how the consulting and audit firms work, how they organize, how they generate contracts. The beneficiary tried to identify if and what makes these firms special. This theoretical enquiry and re reading of the literature lay the foundation of the book and particularly of its first part that focuses on the history of the services provided and their role in the XXth century. This aimed to reshuffle the literature on the topic of consultancies, their political economy and their role and function in financialised economies.
Third, the action set an ambitious program of writing and outputs with the publication of articles and of one book. Each output served as a proof of concept and was presented in seminars, conferences, workshops and panels, including those organized by the beneficiary. Events, seminar presentation, conference panels, and workshops, as well as journal articles created a constant engagement with various academic communities and served to organise a nascent community of interest on the project and around the international political economy of professional services firms.
The project has already generated engagement with hundreds scholars and many new discussions as it resulted in seven seminar presentations, two workshops, the organisation of two panels in international conferences, and four paper presentation in key conferences. It has generated constant engagement with executives of professional service firms, their clients, policy makers and NGOs. It will also lead to several publications that are results accepted, under review or in the making. This includes three articles, a special issue of a journal and a book manuscript.