Consultancies: Agents of Organizational Development. Part II
Kate Oakley1994, Leadership & Organization Development Journal
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
checkGet notified about relevant papers
checkSave papers to use in your research
checkJoin the discussion with peers
checkTrack your impact
Abstract
Presents the results of a first research survey of consulting firms within the United Kingdom. Examines the usefulness of knowledge typology as a way of categorizing firms and the differences, if any, between the firms. Explores the firms′ sources of knowledge, knowledge networks, transfer of knowledge or expertise, and consultant knowledge and skills. Discusses the implications of the survey and presents an agenda for action which comprises of future research into the usefulness of the typologies. Concludes by saying that a more precise instrument is needed to classify parts of organizations as well as the whole and there is a need to examine the particular problems of managing a consultancy firm.
Figures (3)
Key takeaways
- This industry is management consultancy and it is characteristic of what we call a "knowledge industry".
- In addition, we can divide knowledge industries into those which transfer knowledge or expertise (e.g. consultancy, training, education), and those which do not (e.g. law, architecture).
- Greiner and Nees are insistent that it is the firms' style that dominates the professional values of the consultants it employs, a point taken up by Pennarola (1992), who stresses that firm culture, rather than professional culture, is the defining experience of management consultancy work.
- Now it is clear, should the authors' arguments be accepted, that the different typologies of knowledge would lead to different modes of organization of management consultancy work (Table III).
- Nor does it imply any necessary difference in their position in our knowledge of typology creation, praxis or application; though we would expect process firms to be more based in clan control than the task firms.
Related papers
Expertise and Organizational Boundaries: A Typology of Consulting Roles
2001
Abstract The diversity of management consulting has long been recognised by mainstream commentators, but the more critical literature often overlooks this feature. This paper explores different consulting roles by developing a typology based on two dimensions of consulting work: the nature of the knowledge base that consultants purport to use in their work, and the extent to which the boundaries between consultant and client are permeable.
Configuring expert knowledge: the consultant as sector specialist
2008
This study defines an aspect of consultant knowledge that provides credibility without claiming unrealistic status for a field like consulting. Our focus is the "sector knowledge" that consultants accumulate which derives from repeated assignments in the industrial sector in which the client organization resides. This has been underresearched partly because of an emphasis oil knowledge as technique and method. But knowledge configured around the sector enables consultants to play the role of the outside expert and draw oil a language and experiences held in common with the client. The paper explores the role of consultants as sector intermediaries through a case study of contemporary management consulting in a UK local authority. We see "the sector" as air alternative type of knowledge formation salient for a client-centered occupation like consulting. We also explore sector knowledge as a negotiated setting and dispel overly simple notions of know-how being "brought to" the client.
Knowledge creation: a study of consulting practice in corporate governance: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of …
2004
The management consulting industry has been growing exponentially during the last two decades influencing the relationships between business schools, corporations and universities, achieving a significant role as a modern "knowledge creator". This thesis studies the process of knowledge creation undertaken by management consultants. The academic mode of creating knowledge as described by was used to direct this exploration of consultants as a knowledge creating community. The purpose of using the scientific method of knowledge creation is not to compare or to judge consulting knowledge, but to use it as a way of entry to explore consultants' practices. In a complementary way to Kuhn's core concepts, a brief Foucauldian overview identified concepts like inclusion and exclusion, discourse and the notion of practices, which are used in the analysis. An empirical research was conducted focusing specifically on a group of practicing consultants in New Zealand. Thirteen consultants who specialize in corporate governance advice were interviewed. Corporate governance was chosen as a field of advice because it is a clearly separable area of management consulting. In this study, the categories of community and paradigm served as a point of entry to explore knowledge creation practices.
Consultants and experts in management consulting firms
Research Policy, 2001
The aim of the article is to explore different aspects concerning the distinction between the expert and the consultant. We analyse theoretically and empirically these distinctions in the framework of the knowledge-based economy in order to introduce the central concepts of epistemic community and community of practice. The question is to know to which community experts and consultant belongs. We also investigate the role that some actors coming from outside the firm play in reinforcing knowledge creation and codification processes in the firm.
Knowledge Production in Consulting Teams: A Self-Organization Approach
The central thesis of this paper is that the production of knowledge in consulting teams can neither be understood as the result of an internal interaction between clients and consultants decoupled from the wider socio-political environment nor as externally determined by socially constructed industry recipes or management fashions detached from the cognitive uniqueness of the client-consultant team. Instead, we argue that knowledge production in consulting teams is intrinsically linked to the institutional environment that not only provides resources such as funding, manpower, or legitimacy but also offers cognitive feedback through which knowledge production is influenced. By applying the theory of self-organization to the knowledge production in consulting teams, we explain how consulting teams are structured by the sociocultural environment and are structuring this environment to continue their work. The consulting team's knowledge is shaped and influenced by cognitive feedback loops that involve external collective actors such as the client organization, practice groups of consulting firms, the academic/professional community, and the general public who essentially become co-producers of consulting knowledge. Paper accepted for publication by the Scandinavian Journal of Management Acknowledgement: The authors would like to thank the editor Janne Tienari and the anonymous reviewers of the Scandinavian Journal of Management for their very helpful and constructive comments. We would also like to thank Celeste Wilderom and Tim Morris for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. The support for this research from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (research grant 01HW0168) is also acknowledged.
Practitioner ’ s Corner Consulting and the Public Sector : The Role of Consultants as Brokers of Local Business Development : A Case Study
2009
Welcome to the first issue of 2009! The global economic downturn is the major item on most agendas. While an imploding housing market, crisis in the banking and financial sectors and corporate downsizing with resultant layoffs are the public face of the indelicately labeled "credit crunch," one wonders what may be occurring beneath the surface. Practically everyone is affected. Governments, large corporations, small businesses, individual investors and consultants are all feeling the effects of the global recession. Whether opportunities for consultants are expanding or shrinking depends on who you talk to. Clearly, some have been negatively impacted, tied as their fortunes are to that of clients in the established corporate sectors. Yet, the expertise of others is in high demand. The image of consultants as "solutions providers" could serve the industry well, particularly if this is combined with innovative methods that blend economics, cost-containment, human factors initiatives, leadership and a revamped global strategy into the consulting mix. The reality is that even with all the depressing news, we continue to live in interesting times. Consultants should take note. If you have an unusual consulting narrative, case study, advisory notice, or useful tips on how consultants can not only weather, but perhaps even leverage the current economic crisis to their advantage, JPC would like to hear from you. By sharing and exchanging ideas-good old fashioned networking-the consulting industry could, in fact, come out ahead. This would be a good starting point from which to assist a range of companies devise much-needed recovery or organizational development plans. In this issue, we bring together three qualitatively different articles that again reflect on different aspects of consulting. Anderson writes on the role of consultants as brokers of local business development. The case study explores a business community development initiative in London, England, demonstrating how consultants working collaboratively can be agents of significant change. Berg's more systematic study explores frameworks for conducting assessments, which are the stock-in-trade of the consulting profession. The argument is that appropriate and effective assessments require comprehensive examination of both the individual and the setting. This leads to an interesting discussion of strengths, specific environmental factors and hope.
Unpacking the client(s): Constructions, positions and client–consultant dynamics
Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2009
Increasing attention is being given to professional services in organisation and management theory. Whether the focus is on organisational forms or service processes such as knowledge transfer, the role of clients is often seen as central. However, typically, clients continue to be presented in a largely static, pre-structured and even monolithic way. While some recognition is given to the diversity of organisational clients and, to a lesser extent, individual clients, little attention has been given to the process by which 'the client' is actively constructed, negotiated and contested by actors. This process generates changing and multiple client positions according to different interpretive logics. Drawing on different research projects on management consultancy, we argue that what is meant by the client cannot be taken for granted. Rather, the notion of 'the client' is (inter)actively-produced, dynamic and potentially heterogeneous. This has implications for our understanding of management consultancy and professional services as well as client-consultant dynamics, including ways in which they share knowledge, develop relationships and engage in project activities.
The boundaries in the area of knowledge transfer in management consulting
Gestão & Produção, 2021
In a historical retrospective, although the existing literature calls the management consulting industry an extraordinary sector and a unique phenomenon in the business context, in fact these statements are not accompanied by a number of academic studies that emphasize the importance of the effective work of the management consultants. To contest the lack of studies in this emerging area, this article aims to understand the implications of the border to the transfer of information and knowledge from management consultants to their client companies. The results of the empirical analysis in the form of semi-structured interviews and questionnaires applied to management consultants and SME managers in Portugal reveal that the competency factor must be based on the four knowledge families of business management-the know-know, the competence, know-how and know-how to be and it is only from this conjugation that any kind of constraints that can be found along the way (political, physical or cultural) are able to be unblocked.
Related papers
Knowledge Management in Action: A Study of Knowledge Management in Management Consultancies
2002
The chapter focuses on knowledge management and on knowledge sharing in particular. It is based on a study of a wide range of management consulting firms in Denmark. The purpose of the study has been to gain a more profound understanding of what constitutes knowledge sharing in practice. What does knowledge sharing imply? What are the organizational and managerial aspects
The consultantclient relationship: Critical perspectives on the management of organizational change
Journal of Management Studies, 1999
The management consultancy industry is attracting more and more attention. The critical literature in particular has questioned how a non-codi®ed body of knowledge like`consultancy' could become so apparently in¯uential. The answering emphasis has been on the symbolic nature of consultant strategies and consultancy as a powerful system of persuasion. However, an emerging structural perspective has developed a rather dierent view, focusing on the limits of the industry discourse, and the constraints of a consultancy role de®ned largely by external forces. While it is useful to contrast the two perspectives ± strategic and structural ± they can also be viewed as complementary, and indeed a number of writers have been well aware both of the importance of consultant strategies and the context of consultancy work. In particular, they have explored the interaction between consultant and client, and called attention to factors like the countervailing power of client organizations and the uncertainty of the management task. The paper aims to contribute to this debate and draws on case studies of consultants' role in the management of organizational change ± one of clients with considerable market power, and another of interdependency between consultant and client. The point stressed is that the consultancy process contains nò necessary' structures (which may be implied by pairings such as the dependent client and indispensable consultant, or alternatively the resistant client and vulnerable consultant). Instead the consultant±client relationship is best regarded as part of an overarching managerial structure and a contingent exchange that assumes a variety of forms.
Article Management Learning What if We Shifted the Basis of Consulting from Knowledge to Knowing
In this article, we argue that a focus on the debunking of consulting knowledge has led to a disconnect between the research and the practice of management consulting. A renewed focus on consulting practice, that is, the doing of consultancy itself, affords an opportunity for bringing clients, practitioners and researchers of consulting closer together. We sketch an outline of an alternative approach to consulting practice, based not on knowledge, but on knowing, the socially situated activity whereby knowledge is applied and created. Borrowing from the practice-based theories of organizational knowledge and knowing, we explore how key aspects of consulting practice—problem solving, participation and knowledge transfer—might be handled differently when we give primacy to practice. We discuss the viability of this alternative approach, and argue that despite established relations of power and politics, the dynamic and indeterminate nature of practice environments does afford some space for this and other alternative forms of consulting practice to take hold.
Knowledge production in consulting teams
Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2010
The central thesis of this paper is that the production of knowledge in consulting teams can neither be understood as the result of an internal interaction between clients and consultants decoupled from the wider socio-political environment nor as externally determined by socially constructed industry recipes or management fashions detached from the cognitive uniqueness of the client-consultant team. Instead, we argue that knowledge production in consulting teams is intrinsically linked to the institutional environment that not only provides resources such as funding, manpower, or legitimacy but also offers cognitive feedback through which knowledge production is influenced. By applying the theory of self-organization to the knowledge production in consulting teams, we explain how consulting teams are structured by the socio-cultural environment and are structuring this environment to continue their work. The consulting team's knowledge is shaped and influenced by cognitive feedback loops that involve external collective actors such as the client organization, practice groups of consulting firms, the academic/professional community, and the general public who essentially become co-producers of consulting knowledge.
A Morphology of Management Consulting Typologies
The identity of the consultant is not theorized as one definable construct but ratherby morphologicaltypologies that share similarities while at the same areconceptualized as being vastly different. In examining the literature of morphological typologies of consultants, this paper seeks to explore how various consulting identities that are constituents of typologies interact with identity claims that seek to influence potential client perceptions. The paper starts by exploring the literature documenting organizational identity before specifically focusing on converging and diverging identities of the consultant. The paper then identifies key variables that that appear in a significant number of consultant identities highlighting both the similarities and differences. Finally, the paper offers a possible future research agenda that seeks not to add to the list of identities but instead explore the gaps of the consulting identity literature through field research.
Some Reflections Upon Management Consulting As Professional Services
Annals of Faculty of Economics, 2008
Management consulting helping organizations improve their performance, primarily through the thorough analysis of existing business problems and development of plans for improvement. There is probably no activity about which the opinions are so divided as management consulting. The purpose of this paper is to make some reflections upon what role play the consulting management services as professional service to the firms and how offering these services affects the offering and delivery of other services of the firms. The study is based on an office documentation research within consulting firms and resources. The approach tries to be critical and reflective, examines different consulting roles by developing a typology. The purpose is to aware of these professional services young business people. The FAQ of this service are: "How to choose the best consultant?" and "Why did fail consultant?".
The “Fashionable Knowledge” of Management Consulting
Journal of Management and Sustainability, 2013
In the evolution of strategic disciplines much of the knowledge produced has been widely diffused by the management consulting industry. But can this sector be regarded as knowledge intensive activity based on true structure of expertise knowledge? One way to understand if we can consider that sector as a source of knowledge dissemination is realizing its relationship with the market in terms of knowledge, rather than identify only as a set of static techniques to be applied as in most of times they have been doing. This article presents itself as a reflection about the real reasons for the increasing use ofmanagement consulting services, indicating simultaneously that can really be a true field of opportunities for the academic class if the study will focused in the establishment and institutionalization of micropractices (strategy-as-practice) that there are used and its implications in terms of organizational results.
Organizational Development of Knowledge Management: An Analysis on the Consultancy Company
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences , 2018
The article is a report of an investigation of the current state of knowledge management implementation in consulting organisation, to identify the key knowledge variables within the premise and knowledge is generated and utilise. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is the result of face-to-face in-depth interviews with senior consultant, project director, CEO and implementer of knowledge management in the organization. Findings – The process of implementing knowledge management can be problematic. This paper highlights the main findings of the literature which the current knowledge management practices in the organization and how to better implement their knowledge management strategy by the identification of suitable action. In order to develop a KM, employees need to share knowledge and contribute their experienced thus help organisation to achieve Centre of Excellent (COE) Keywords: knowledge management, organizational development and consulting organisation.
Becoming a Knowledge Management Consultant
Management Consulting Journal, 2019
The focus of this article is the critical role of management consultancy in providing a rich basis to understanding the mechanisms by which knowledge management and operations risk is influenced. This article raises vital questions as to how management consultants can successfully contribute to knowledge management and subsequently improve performance at all levels of the organization. I extended the literature by showing how management consultants can contribute to knowledge management, facilitating and fostering a firm’s capabilities. Insufficient consideration of the impact of management consultancy on the effectiveness of knowledge management has been exposed and I attempt to address this concern for the first time.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.