Introduction:

Our study contributes to the field of management studies and consulting research in several respects. First, as other studies have also done, it responds to the growing interest of researchers in management consulting by describing and analysing current trends and research paradigms, and providing valuable insights for management consulting researchers. It also contributes to research on how academicfields become established by discussing this question with relation to management consulting research and drawing on the data gathered for this paper. Although research on the emergence of academic fields has gained some attention in recent years (Hambrick & Chen, 2008), relatively few studies have been conducted so far (on the field of service marketing see Berry & Parasuraman, 1993).

The paper is structured as follows: in the first part, we outline the methodology of our content analysis, then go on to present our findings. We start with the field's historical development, then present the key participants in management consulting research, as well as the topics, methods and theories that relate to it. Finally, we discuss our key findings, identify the limitations of our study and present perspectives for future research.