CONSULTANCY’S CONSEQUENCES? A critical assessment of consultancy’s impact on management

1. CONSULTANCY’S CONSEQUENCES? A critical assessment of consultancy’s impact on management Andrew Sturdy andrew.sturdy@bristol.ac.uk

2. OVERVIEW • Much claimed - critics and celebrants • Good reasons for caution & scepticism • consultancy may be less impactful and perhaps more impactful than claimed • Distinctive role is in structural position more than practices or identity claims • Based on own research and review (version forthcoming in British Journal of Management) • Outline: impacts claimed; reasons to be cautious; research/policy agenda

3. GRAND CLAIMS? • Apparently spectacular growth and elite profile - ‘capitalism’s commissars’ and ‘consultocracy’ • ‘Few people…will have avoided the effects’ • Economic value = 10 x fees (x£10 billion in UK)? • Radical innovation - ‘disruption of dominant orders’ • Job losses? – ‘the managerial equivalent of the great white shark?’ • Non-legitimate/opaque influence • ‘….The impact they have had on clients, their employees, and society at large cannot be denied’

4. IMPACTS (PROJECTS)?

5. NON-PROJECT IMPACTS?

6. REASONS TO BE CAUTIOUS - Methodology and ambiguity Partial geographical coverage and impact • Know little of consultancy practices in general and research is geographically concentrated • Influence not just project-based, but approximately 80% of fees generated in only 5 nations (USA, Canada,Germany, UK & France) • Non-use by state (and sector too) is poorly researched

7. REASONS TO BE CAUTIOUS - Methodology and ambiguity Cause and Effect • Even showing influence is problematic (c.f. causality) - ‘little systematic evaluative evidence’ • Joint activity / liability? – Vs professionalization & performance related fees • Separating consultancy from other factors • examine consultancy free contexts (sectors/nations)? • direction of influence (management shapes consultancy/ideas)? (see ‘boundaries’ below)

8. REASONS TO BE CAUTIOUS - Methodology and ambiguity Conflicting evaluations and interests • Satisfaction from commissioners (48%), users (17%) • Many consultancy ideas undermine managerialism (e.g. de-layering and shareholder value) Scapegoating • ‘Outsider’ status, privilege and expert identity (Vs less powerful) • Diverts resistance from client management and management more broadly in media and academic research • Much research equates consultancy with its ideas (understates legitimating/implementing – grey labour)

9. REASONS TO BE CAUTIOUS - Moving boundaries Management as consultancy • Research might understate (firms/sole practitioners) Vs inclusive (process) definitions • Complicated by convergence (not process view) • Change, methods and projects as normal (Q – Grey). • ‘Non-hierarchical’, service/advisory forms of relating? • Consultancy appropriated by HRM, PM etc • Khurana’s ‘flight from management’ – (Q) • IoC is part of CMI, of management. • Change in management is an additional impact - more consultancy might occur outside of firms (cf research focus)?

10. REASONS TO BE CAUTIOUS - Moving boundaries Consultancy as management • Implementation and ‘body shop’ roles • Recruitment of managers into consultancy • Distinctive identity played down • Coaching defined as ‘other’ • Alternative labels by internals (eg ‘business improvement’) and even externals – ‘… re-badge their consultants “knowledge purveyors” • Success at expense of exclusivity - but not simply colonising management as a whole.

11. CONCLUSION • Shapes & legitimises change & complements, integrates (& deflects critiques from) management. • But reasons to be cautious • Some imply more restricted impact (e.g. geography) • Others suggest greater impact - exclusive profession is less ‘sayable’ (not just firms and not just ‘consultants’) • Non-use contexts/rejection (alternatives); de-naturalise consultancy and its growth.... • Key features of consultancy • ‘outsider’ relationship - the ‘divorce between command and accountability’– how does it affect organisational reforms? • rationalistic, expert-based approach (seen off process and alternatives ) • development & promotion of ideas in consultancy Vs elsewhere? • Impact of management (Vs alternative logics eg professions…+)

12. SUMMARY • Grand claims? • Impacts (projects and beyond) • Reasons to be cautious - methodology, ambiguity and moving boundaries • Partial geographical coverage & impact • Cause and effect • Conflicting evaluations and interests • Scapegoating • Moving boundaries • Management as consultancy • Consultancy as management • Conclusions • …………….....Questions and comments please

13. CONSULTANCY’S CONSEQUENCES? Andrew Sturdy andrew.sturdy@bristol.ac.uk