Working to Make Consultocracy Work - A Qualitative Study on the Use of Management Consultants in the Swedish Public Sector

Sammanfattning: The public sector has been subject to large reforms in which practices from the private sector have been adopted. With this development, the presence of management consultants has become normalised in the daily operations of government agencies. While critical scholars point to negative consequences related to the use of management consultants within the public sector, few empirical studies focus on the role of senior executives in this development. To address this gap, this qualitative thesis builds on 19 semi-structured interviews with Directors-General of Swedish government agencies. Through the lens of paradox theory and institutional work, we identify that the Directors-General face paradoxes related to the use of management consultants and engage in institutional work when responding to these paradoxes.