The active audience? Gurus, management ideas and consumer variability

This study draws on an active audience perspective to develop a better understanding of mass audiences' attraction towards popular management ideas. It focuses on audience members' own experiences and, in particular, what audience activities actually play a role in shaping mass attraction, and how the deployment of these activities may vary. Analysing 65 in-depth interviews with management practitioners in their role as audience members of guru seminars, the authors identify different key consumption activities, and explain how individual management practitioners may shift in consumption orientation throughout the communication process. This paper argues that such a broader and more dynamic understanding of consumption activity is essential in understanding the success and impact of management ideas, and opens several fruitful research directions.