What is it about?
Based on a review of the literature over the past thirty years, this paper examines the interplay between the business imperatives that management consultancy firms face and the requirements for successful organisational change, and how this affects the ways in which consultants influence organisational change projects. It shows that this is a significant and under-researched subject.
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Why is it important?
There is no doubt that management consultancy is a business with its own business imperatives, and that it is a business that has a major influence on the ways in which corporate leaders manage change in their organisations. Yet relatively little research has been carried out into the ways in which the interplay between the business requirements of management consultancy firms and the requirements for successful organisational change affects the ways in which consultants influence organisational change projects. This paper brings together insights into this issue from the literature, and suggests directions for future research to confirm and extend these insights.
Perspectives
It is well known that management consultancy firms seek to establish strategic partnerships with their clients, because such partnerships enable them to sell and deliver consultancy projects more economically than would otherwise be possible. It is well known also that management consultancy firms seek the economic advantages of leverage through continual reuse of standardised knowledge and consultancy methods that relatively inexperienced consultants are able to apply. This paper shows that these economic incentives on consultancy firms affect the ways in which they influence organisational change projects. Moreover, it shows that there are tensions between these economic incentives and some of the requirements for successful organisational change as revealed in the literature.
Dr David Shaw
Independent Researcher
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Partners and plagiarisers: dualities in consultants’ influence on organisational change projects, Journal of Organizational Change Management, January 2019, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/jocm-01-2018-0011.
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