This essay searches for an interpretation to help a better understanding of the differences between academic production and the so-called literature of consultancy market in business administration. It is focused on administrative theory as language. The development of the theme brings to other fundamental question: the use of administrative theory in schools and situations of training. Conceptual interpretation is found in the field of discourse pragmatics, in the non-empirical way the philosophy of language does. The thought of Wittgenstein is in the center of the argumentative structure of the article and is complemented by other authors, nowadays widely referred to, as him. The pragmatic turn (formulating understanding from linguistic action, not directly from conceptualized objects) seems not to have come to academic discussion on administration and management, which paradoxically are instances of action. In the final part of the text, applied and introductive reflexions are made on points where initially mentioned problems stand out more worrying.
administrative theory; theory in administration education; academics-consultants relations; pragmatics of language in administration