Att förstå rådgivning till småföretagare

Sammanfattning: "Att förstå rådgivning till småföretagare" is a study concerning aspects on advising small-firm managers. The strategy is to penetrate different aspects of the advisory fundtion in order to understand it better. Three distinct aspects have been chosen. On a basis of the consulting literature and the author´s own experience as an advisor to small firms a normative/pragmatic perspective on advising is presented in a critical way. A picture of the advice-needing client and the professional consultant is painted and questioned. The second aspect is through narrative, based on interviews with small-firm managers. Their stories are interpreted in order to uncover hidden meanings in their concept of advising. With the help of the concept of client identities the small-firm managers´paradoxically low demand on consulting services can be resolved. In the third and last aspect a few advisory events are viewed through the lens of the micropractices of power. Here power and knowledge are seen as inseparable based on some of Foucault´s works. Interpretation of the advisory events shows how small-firm managers are clientified in power relations. In the study finally is shown how the three aspects can be used together to gain a fuller understanding of advising small-firm managers than any single aspect can do. A new view of advising is suggested in which the degree of asymmetry in the relations and of ambiguity in the advising situation are taken into consideration.