Staff profile

Onno Bouwmeester is Professor of Consulting and Business Ethics at Durham University Business School. He graduated in social philosophy (1993) and economics (1994) at Universiteit van Amsterdam, and received his PhD in management studies from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2008). His publications engage with fields such as rhetoric, rationality, business ethics and dirty work, and often relate to the context of management consulting, entrepreneurship, or academia.

He started his career as a management consultant at KPMG. After six years he started at the School of Business and Economics of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. From 2010-2021 he was head of the management consulting group at the department Management and Organization, and member of the department's management team. As deputy head, he covered for the head of department in 2015.

His teaching has been focused on developing and coordinating a MSc specialisation in Management Consulting, to prepare MSc students for a consultant role. He is also involved in executive education for consultants with a focus on rhetoric and ethics. Some of his PhD students have been former consultants. They study in more depth the questions relevant to the field, such as employee participation during change, digitalization, dirty work experiences and business ethics.

He published monographs with Elgar (2010), Routledge (2017) and Springer (2023) as well as articles in journals such as Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Business Venturing, Human Relations, Journal of Business Ethics, British Journal of Management, and International Journal of Management Reviews. Next to being professor of Consulting and Business Ethics at DUBS, he is director of the VU Knowledge Hub for Consulting and Professional Service Firms at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and he serves as member of the editorial board of Journal of Management Inquiry.

Mini Biography

Onno Bouwmeester is Professor of Consulting and Business Ethics at Durham University Business School. He graduated in social philosophy (1993) and economics (1994) at Universiteit van Amsterdam, and received his PhD in management studies from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2008). His publications engage with fields such as rhetoric, rationality, business ethics and dirty work, and often relate to the context of management consulting, entrepreneurship, or academia.

• Management Consulting
• Business ethics
• Multiple rationalities and strategic change
• Rhetoric in business contexts
• Argumentation analysis
• Dirty work
• Qualitative research methods

Authored book

• Bouwmeester, Onno (2023). Business Ethics and Critical Consultant Jokes: New Research Methods to Study Ethical Transgressions. Springer Cham.
• Bouwmeester, Onno (2017). The Social Construction of Rationality: Policy Debates and the Power of Good Reasons. London: Routledge.
• Bouwmeester, Onno (2010). Economic Advice and Rhetoric: Why do Consultants Perform Better than Academic Advisers. Cheltenham: Elgar.

Journal Article

• Bouwmeester, Onno (2023). What Jokes Can Tell: A Top 5 of Ethical Transgressions in Consulting. Management Consulting Journal 6(1): 37-48.
• Werven, Ruben van, Cornelissen, Joep & Bouwmeester, Onno (2022). The Relational Dimension of Feedback Interactions: A Study of Early Feedback Meetings Between Entrepreneurs and Potential Mentors. British Journal of Management
• Bouwmeester, O., Versteeg, B., Sturdy, A. J. & van Bommel, K. (2022). Accentuating dirty work: Coping with psychological taint in elite management consulting. German Journal of Human Resource Management 36(4): 411-439.
• Bouwmeester, Onno, Heusinkveld, Stefan & Tjemkes, Brian (2022). Intermediaries in the relevance‐gap debate: A systematic review of consulting roles. International Journal of Management Reviews 24(1): 51-77.
• Schaefer, U. & Bouwmeester, O. (2021). Reconceptualizing Moral Disengagement as a Process: Transcending Overly Liberal and Overly Conservative Practice in the Field. Journal of Business Ethics 172(3): 525-543
• Mühlhaus, J., Bouwmeester, O. & Khapova, S. (2021). An exploration of obstacles to identity play during unemployment. Career Development International 26(3): 333-347
• Bouwmeester, Onno, Atkinson, Rose, Noury, Lucie & Ruotsalainen, Riku (2021). Work-life balance policies in high performance organisations: A comparative interview study with millennials in Dutch consultancies. German Journal of Human Resource Management: Zeitschrift für Personalforschung 35(1): 6-32.
• Werven, Ruben van, Bouwmeester, Onno & Cornelissen, Joep P (2019). Pitching a business idea to investors: How new venture founders use micro-level rhetoric to achieve narrative plausibility and resonance. International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship 37(3): 193-214.
• Bouwmeester, Onno & Kok, Tessa Elisabeth (2018). Moral or Dirty Leadership: A Qualitative Study on How Juniors Are Managed in Dutch Consultancies. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 15(11): 2506.
• Mühlhaus, Julia & Bouwmeester, Onno (2016). The paradoxical effect of self-categorization on work stress in a high-status occupation: Insights from management consulting. Human Relations 69(9): 1823-1852.
• Bouwmeester, O. & Stiekema, J. (2015). The paradoxical image of consultant expertise: a rhetorical deconstruction. Management Decision 53(10): 2433-2456.
• Werven, R. van, Bouwmeester, O. & Cornelissen, J. (2015). The Power of Arguments: How Entrepreneurs Convince Stakeholders of the Legitimate Distinctiveness of Their Ventures. Journal of Business Venturing 30(4): 616–631.
• Bouwmeester, O. (2013). Field Dependency of Argumentation Rationality in Decision-Making Debates. Journal of Management Inquiry 22(4): 415-433.
• Bouwmeester, Onno (2013). Consultant Jokes About Managing Uncertainty: Coping by humor. International Studies of Management & Organization 43(3): 41.
• Bouwmeester, Onno & Werven, Ruben van (2011). Consultants as legitimizers: exploring their rhetoric. Journal of Organizational Change Management 24(4): 427-441.