Abstract
This study explores the role of boundaries in the relationship between management consultants and their clients. While management consultants are often regarded as boundary spanners, it is shown that they might equally be seen as boundary workers, constructing and dissolving the boundaries between the consultant and the client organization so as to be able to uphold the dual roles of insider and outsider. The study is based on an interview study of management consultants and their clients in Sweden, and it is shown how the dissolution the boundary between client and consultant may lead to the inadvertent creation of new boundaries within the organization, and thus alienate the client and consultant from the rest of the client organization. It is argued that in regarding boundaries in the context of client-consultant interaction, it is rather a series of boundaries between and within the organizations that are created and dissolved.