Colonizing knowledge: Commodification as a dynamic of jurisdictional expansion in professional service firms

This paper provides a field level analysis of the process by which management knowledge is produced. Two linked dynamics are identified as important components of-this process. The first is the commodifcation of management knowledge, or the tendency to reduce knowledge to a routinized and codified product. We argue that the commodification of management knowledge is a cyclical process that has been institutionalized by the interests of distinct categories of social actors. The second dynamic, termed colonization, refers to the migration of Big Five professional service firms into adjacent professional jurisdictions. Colonization is the result of intensification of commodification and has produced intense conflict and change in the organizational field of management knowledge production.