Unpacking the client(s): Constructions, positions and client–consultant dynamics

Research on management consultancy usually emphasizes the role and perspective of the consultants. Whilst important, consultants are only one element in a dynamic relationship involving both consultants and their clients. In much of the literature, the client is neglected, or is assumed to represent a distinct, immutable entity. In this paper, we argue that the client organisation is not uniform but is instead (like organisations generally) a more or less heterogeneous assemblage of actors, interests and inclinations involved in multiple and varied ways in consultancy projects. This paper draws upon three empirical cases and emphasizes three key aspects of clients in the context of consultancy projects: (a) client diversity, including, but not limited to diversity arising solely from (pre-)structured contact relations and interests; (b) processes of constructing ‘the client’ (including negotiation, conflict, and reconstruction) and the client identities which are thereby produced; and (c) the dynamics of client–consultant relations and how these influence the construction of multiple and perhaps contested client positions and identities.     

The Stock Market Reaction to the Hiring of Management Consultants: A Signalling Theory Approach

Drawing from signalling theory, this study examines how the stock market reacts to the public announcement of the hiring of management consultants and whether it differentially values clients on the basis of their financial profitability and the brand‐name of the engaged consultant. An event study analysis of 118 client firms that publicly announced the hiring of management consulting firms finds that the stock market, on average, responded positively and significantly to the engagement news. Regression analysis further reveals that the stock market reaction tended to be the highest for client firms that had the highest profitability levels. In addition, the stock market reaction to the hiring announcement was not related to the consultant's brand‐name reputation; clients engaging the most reputable consultants (e.g. McKinsey & Company, Bain, Boston Consulting Group, Booz‐Allen Hamilton) did not realize any different market response than those clients that employed the other consultants. Overall, most client firms that publicly announced the hiring of management consultants experienced a rise in their market value and those that had the highest financial profitability realized the highest increase. Further, the findings imply that there may be boundaries to reputational spillover benefits in partnering relationships.     

The expert system: constructing expertise in an IT/management consultancy

Despite widespread uncertainty, if not scepticism, about the precise nature of the expertise that consultants bring to bear in their client engagements, organisations continue to employ consultants in large numbers, especially in information technology-related projects. Drawing on a participant observation study of IT/management consultancy practice, this paper seeks to explore the different ways in which consultants are seen as experts in the light of the pressures of the consultancy market place. The ongoing construction of consultancy expertise through the interaction of consultants and their clients with an array of elements, including technical knowledge, skilled practice, individual and collective experience, and commercial interests is discussed. It is suggested that, rather than being a relatively-enduring property of individuals, based on their mastery of a body abstract knowledge or their skills at managing the perceptions of their clients, the precarious and multi-faceted character of their expertise means that consultants are continuously engaged in its active construction through their situated practice.     

Customization and real time information access in integrated eBusiness supply chain relationships

eBusiness enabled information systems and technology have proliferated with the diffusion and technological advances of the Internet. This research examines supply chain management relationships between service providers and clients, focusing on the performance impacts of (1) the level of customization implemented by clients using vendor provided eBusiness solutions and (2) the subsequent real time access achieved with respect to operational information maintained by vendors. The study also focuses on the impacts of the provider's information exchange behavior and both parties’ level of trust. Using dyadic data collected from a logistics services provider and 91 clients, findings show that the level of customization and real time information access has a direct positive impact on performance outcomes realized by both. Additionally, results demonstrate that provider's level of trust in the client positively influences their information exchange behavior, and in turn, information exchange behavior positively impacts client customizations.     

Assessment and selection of management consultants: A comparative cognitive study between small- and large-scale companies

This paper explores alternative ways of evaluating and ultimately hiring a generalist consultancy for short- and medium-term projects, and how this is shaped by the size of the clients’ company. What buying factors do managers of small and large firms have in mind when hiring consultants for their projects?Instead of employing surveys incorporating predefined buying factors based on what the researchers think would be important, a cognitive mapping methodology - the repertory grid technique - is applied to investigate the underlying phenomena. Using the repertory grid technique to draw mental models is a novel research technique within the supply management field. Recent behavioral supply chain management research found the behavior of managers to be critically influenced by mental models: the lenses through which managers perceive, simplify and interpret the world.Results show differences between the buying factors used in small- and large-scale companies: managers of large companies are more ‘reputation and outcome-oriented’ and managers of small businesses are more concerned with ‘how the services are rendered’. However, both constituents stressed the importance of expertise, quality and the relationship between the client and the management consultancy, although the character of such a relationship differed between small- and large-scale firms. Results also point out criteria that managers of small and large companies employ to discriminate between good and poor performing consultancies and to judge service delivery. The practical implications for both companies hiring consultancies and the consultancy companies are discussed. For consultancies, our findings can help tailoring their efforts to a differing clientele when marketing and selling their services. For companies hiring consultancies, fixating too much on particular buying factors may lead to biased decisions.     

Knowledge‐intensive firms: the influence of the client on HR systems

HR systems play a critical role in growing knowledge‐intensive firms (KIFs) by facilitating the conversion of human capital into intellectual capital, which has market value. However, the choice of HR system is constrained by the relatively small number of clients they have in business‐to‐business relationships. This article seeks to understand how and why these client relationships affect the choice of HR practices in these firms. We address this issue by drawing on extensive empirical research currently under way in KIFs. Our research shows that HR practices can be influenced strongly by the client, both directly and indirectly. However, some KIFs will use their HR practices as a means of managing the relationships they have with their clients by shaping their boundaries with their clients and building organisational, professional and client identities. The varying client influence can be understood by examining the nature of the power relationship between the client and supplier, which is influenced by the uniqueness of the services provided. This has implications for our understanding of the factors affecting the exercise of a constrained choice of HR systems.     

Differences Between Clients’ and Vendors’ Perceptions of IT Outsourcing Risks: Project Partnering as the Mitigation Approach

Information technology (IT) outsourcing has been a business practice for more than two decades. Researchers have suggested successful risk management as a key factor in successful IT outsourcing projects implementation. The documented investigations, however, have mainly addressed risk management only from a single perspective of either clients or IT vendors. Considering only one perspective allows for an omission of possible risks considered critical by the other party, as suggested by agency theory. This study explored the potential perception inconsistency regarding the risks between the client and the vendor for IT outsourcing projects by using a quasi‐Delphi approach. The analysis results indicated some inconsistencies in the risks perceived by the two parties: (1) the clients regarded (a) lack of vendor commitment to the project and (b) poor vendor selection criteria and process as top critical risks but the vendors didn't; and (2) on the other hand, the vendors perceived (a) unclear requirements and (b) lack of experience and expertise with project activities as significant risks but the clients didn't. Insights into how the client and the vendor perceive risks may help both parties determine how to partner and manage project risks collaboratively to succeed in outsourcing.     

Agency workers and organisation's commitment to its workers

This study explores the understanding that Dutch agency workers (i.e. workers affiliated with a temporary-help service firm) have of organisation's commitment to its workers (OCW). Semi-structured interviews with 33 Dutch agency workers aimed to answer two questions: (1) what do agency workers believe the agency and the client should offer if they are aiming for perceived OCW and (2) who are the potential messengers of agency and client OCW? If agencies and clients want to get rewarded by agency workers with perceived OCW, they have to carry a shared responsibility for many aspects of fair and favourable human resource management. However, agency workers link some aspects exclusively to one of the two organisational parties: agency workers seem to associate promotion with the client organisation, and certain aspects of job characteristics (e.g. autonomy and performance feedback) solely with the client OCW. Other elements related to job characteristics were only associated with agency OCW (current and future person–task fit, job-satisfaction concerns and job-related problems), as well as keeping in touch and problem solving (e.g. job dissatisfaction) solely with agency OCW. Moreover, agency workers personify all the mentioned responsibilities: organisational member's actions concerning these responsibilities represent OCW. Agency consultants seem to be the sole representatives of perceived agency OCW, whereas several agents (e.g. top managers, direct supervisors, co-workers, clients' ‘clients’) serve as potential representatives of client organisations' commitment.     

The Consultancy Process — An Insecure Business?

This paper examines the practices and perceptions of management consultants and their clients. The existing literature, which emphasizes managerial anxiety in accounting for the persistent use of consultants and, relatedly, the transience of management ideas is critically developed. It is argued that such accounts tend to be abstracted from the power relations of organizations and capitalism and to portray management as passive victims of confident consultants. An alternative interactive model is proposed, which is based on reciprocal and self-defeating concerns of clients and consultants to secure a sense of identity and control. This is explored empirically, highlighting the hitherto neglected active role of managers in resisting consultancy and the pressures and anxieties experienced by consultants. The account selectively draws on secondary sources as well as interview, documentary and survey research of IT strategy consultants and clients in the UK financial services sector.     

Purchasing management consulting services—From management autonomy to purchasing involvement

The purchasing of management consulting services is a challenging area for purchasing agents to become involved in. A study of six organizations shows large variations in terms of the extent and way in which they were involved ranging from ad hoc and clerical approaches to their systematic and central participation. Based on a comparison of the cases, enablers of purchasing involvement are discussed, including the status of the purchasing function, managerial use of and attitudes towards consultants, how the management consulting service and the purchasing situation are framed, and the implementation strategy. We conclude that what are generally regarded as sound purchasing practices can also work in the case of management consultants. This, however, requires a good understanding of the consulting service in the client organization. We suggest that the traditionally marginal role of purchasing agents may be better understood as a consequence of the characteristics of the consultant–client relationship than any essential characteristics of the consulting service.     

Management consultants as improvising agents of stability

Relatively few studies have paid theoretical as well as empirical attention to what use organizations have of management consultants and their services. By studying how buyers and sellers of management consulting services describe what management consulting is and represents, this study questions common understandings in the literature, i.e., that management consultants act as agents of change or as standardizers of organizational practice around the world. It is argued that consultants can be understood as playing the role of improvisers because there is considerable uncertainty among both buyers and sellers as to what use organizations really have of them. Playing a recognizable, yet indefinite role based on an institutionalized foundation, in both discourse and practice, of what actors such as consultants are supposed to do in certain situations, helps client organizations to reduce the uncertainty experienced. The conclusion is that management consultants can therefore be understood as agents of stability rather than agents of change.     

Telling and selling the value of diversity and inclusion—External consultants' discursive strategies and practices

On the basis of a qualitative study of a subgroup of diversity professionals, external diversity and inclusion (D&I) consultants, we explore D&I consultants' discursive strategies and practices situated within organisational structures, relations, and interactions of power and knowledge. Theoretically, the research reveals how D&I consultants' own discursive strategies interact with existing organisational and societal discourses of diversity, incrementally shaping their continual evolution. A classification is developed, which sets out four approaches taken by consultants with regard to their discursive strategies in relation to clients. The findings suggest that HR practitioners need to work in tandem with external consultants to develop strategies to improve the status and legitimacy of diversity work if the field is to progress the organisational D&I agenda.     

The Consultant–Client Relationship: Critical Perspectives on the Management of Organizational Change

The management consultancy industry is attracting more and more attention. The critical literature in particular has questioned how a non-codified body of knowledge like 'consultancy' could become so apparently influential. 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 different view, focusing on the limits of the industry discourse, and the constraints of a consultancy role defined 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 no '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.     

Developing cost management in customer–supplier relationships: three case studies

This study describes cost management development projects in three customer–supplier relationships and analyzes these projects from the perspective of relationships. Differences in suppliers’ objectives, actions taken, and results gained in the projects were found in the explorative study, although the customer's objective was the same in all cases. The use of cost information depended on the balance of power between firms, on the trust between personnel, and on the volume of the firms’ mutual business.     

Commodifying the Commodifiers: The Impact of Procurement on Management Knowledge

Current conceptualizations of the commodification of management knowledge prioritize the agency of knowledge producers, such as consultancies, but downplay the role of other actors such as intermediaries. Using a qualitative multi‐method study of the role of procurement in sourcing consultancy knowledge, we demonstrate how intermediaries also commodify management knowledge, thereby limiting the exchange value of that knowledge. Through our analysis we develop a more sophisticated model of the processes and consequences of knowledge commodification. This model clarifies and extends prior research by highlighting the role of commensuration, comparison and valuation, as well as the related tactics that consultants and client managers use to resist procurement's attempts to commodify management knowledge.     

Changing the Institutional Framework of Statutory Audit: Internal Stakeholders' Perceptions of the Associated Benefit and Costs

This paper analyses the expected benefits and costs associated with changes to the institutional framework of statutory audits. We focus on five changes: Mandatory external audit firm rotation, auditor appointment by an independent regulator, a general ban on providing non-audit services, a ban on providing non-audit services to audit clients, and mandatory joint audits. We survey supervisory board members and management representatives from German companies to analyse how these changes affect the following beneficial attributes: Client-specific expertise and knowledge, general professional competence and expertise, independence and professional scepticism, and reputation. Our results show that none of the proposed changes is expected to increase the benefit of audits. A ban on non-audit services to audit clients is perceived to have the least disadvantageous effect, followed by a general ban on non-audit services, mandatory external audit firm rotation, appointment by an independent regulator, and mandatory joint audits. Although all changes are expected to increase auditor independence and professional scepticism, this increase is offset by a decrease in other beneficial attributes, particularly client-specific expertise and knowledge. Compared to supervisory board members, management representatives anticipate significantly larger decreases in the benefit of audits and significantly larger increases in costs.     

A contextual understanding of projects—The importance of space and time

This article analyzes the managing of high-tech projects in complex and dynamic settings. Building on recent developments in organization theory and knowledge management, we focus on the importance of understanding the ways in which project-centered activities are shaped in time and space, both in the organization itself and in a wider context embracing customers, consultants and suppliers. A longitudinal case study including semi-structured interviews, observations and secondary data will substantiate our findings. The study offers both theoretical and practical insights suggesting that projects are exposed to a varying degree of complexity and dynamics, calling for different managerial approaches. The analysis shows that boundary spanning has many dimensions that have to be considered in the management of projects in space and time. The article concludes by suggesting seven analytical categories for analyzing and understanding projects in their spatial and temporal contexts.     

Organization Promises in the Triangular Psychological Contract as Perceived by Temporary Agency Workers,Agencies, and Client Organizations

Temporary agency blue-collar workers (N = 100), the agencies through which they were hired (N = 12), and the client organizations to which they were assigned to work (N = 11) reported their perceptions on the content and the fulfillment or breach of organization promises within the psychological contract. All data were collected in Belgium through a survey from fall 2002 through spring 2003.Nonparametric tests and t-tests indicated similarity rather than discrepancy in the parties’ perceptions. Fulfillment of the psychological contract was the case rather than breach. When focusing on differences, agencies and client organizations perceived more promises made than their temporaries did. Agencies and client organizations had more favorable perceptions of their promises kept than their temporaries did. The temporaries perceived more promises made by their agencies than by their client organizations.     

Technology transfer organizations: Services and business models

Knowledge and technology transfer organizations (KTTOs) are crucial nodes connecting suppliers and users of knowledge that support the endogenous potential of innovation in firms. Prior studies on the services provided to firms by KTTOs tend to have weak theoretical foundations, to rely on case study approaches, and to focus attention on one service or a few services provided by a single organization. This study extends and integrates elements from a conceptual knowledge value chain and business model frameworks. The value chain perspective allows integrating the services offered by KTTOs in the value chain of firms. As for the business model perspective, it allows developing hypotheses about how KTTOs create and deliver value for client firms. To test these hypotheses, we collected and analyzed a data set of 281 publicly supported KTTOs located in Canada. The empirical results show that different types of KTTOs tend to specialize in the provision of services at different stages of the value chain of firms, and to benefit from complementarity effects between service offerings. Our analysis also shows that different types of KTTOs devise different types of business models that are centered on services linked to different stages of the value chain. Overall, these results suggest that managers of KTTOs could improve their business models and increase value to client firms by increasing the degree of customization of solutions offered to clients which, in turn, would also increase revenues from clients, and hence reduce KTTOs′ vulnerability to reductions in government funding.