management consulting in action management consulting in action

260 Pages·2008·1.8 MB·English

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P Value creation and ambiguity

in client-consultant relations

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Irene Skovgaard Smith
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A Doctoral School on Knowledge and Management
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ISSN 0906-6934
ISBN 978-87-593-8351-3
ManageMent Consulting in aCtion

Irene Skovgaard Smith

MANAGEMENT CONSULTING IN ACTION

Value creation and ambiguity in client-consultant relations

Confederation of Danish Industries
DI Business Academy

&

Copenhagen Business School
Doctoral School on Knowledge and Management
PhD Series 4.2008
Irene Skovgaard Smith
ManageMent Consulting in aCtion
Value creation and ambiguity in client-consultant relations
1. edition 2008
PhD Series 4.2008
© The Author
ISBN: 978-87-593-8351-3
ISSN: 0906-6934
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Contents

Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................IV
Danish Summery.................................................................................................................VI

Chapter 1. Introduction......................................................................................................1
A matter of collaboration?......................................................................................2
Redefining collaboration.............................................................................................................3
Analytical focus and approach...............................................................................5
Approach to the study of client-consultant relations...................................................................6
Making sociological sense...........................................................................................................7
Relevance for practice.................................................................................................................9
The study and empirical context............................................................................10
The assignments .........................................................................................................................10
The Danish management consulting industry..............................................................................12
Structure of the thesis.............................................................................................13

Chapter 2. Research and Methodology.............................................................................15
Fieldwork and empirical material..........................................................................16
Access to follow consulting assignments....................................................................................17
Confidentiality and anonymity....................................................................................................19
With consultants on assignment..................................................................................................21
Conditions for fieldwork.............................................................................................................22
Interviews....................................................................................................................................24
Client interviewees......................................................................................................................26
Reflections on fieldwork and representation..........................................................28
Interviewing as participation.......................................................................................................31
The collage as means of representation.......................................................................................32
Consultants through the magnifying glass...................................................................................35
'At one remove from life'........................................................................................37

Chapter 3. Client-Consultant Relations............................................................................39
Prescriptions for effective relationships.................................................................39
The consultant as the active agent...............................................................................................42
What is missing in the relationship equation?.............................................................................44
Persuasion and impression management................................................................46
Goffman's concept of impression management...........................................................................50
The structural perspective............................................................................................................53
Consultants as outsiders?.......................................................................................55
Collective identification and construction of boundaries............................................................57
Magical outsiders...................................................................................................60
Useful and special outsiders in other empirical contexts.............................................................62
Existing literature and analytical framework.........................................................65

Chapter 4. The Ability to Challenge and Question..........................................................69
The construction of the challenger ........................................................................70
The organisational relevance of the outsider ..............................................................................72
'You have to constantly challenge'...............................................................................................74
Sources and consequences of differentiation.........................................................77
Everyday knowing as repertoire of differentiation......................................................................77
A challenge saved........................................................................................................................79
A challenge undermined..............................................................................................................81
Professional identity as powerful source of differentiation.........................................................83
A Measure of Nearness..........................................................................................86
Challenging from a position characterised by nearness...............................................................87
The importance of how challenging is performed.......................................................................92
More similar than different....................................................................................93
Achieving differentiation in the face similarity...........................................................................96
Know as an insider - challenge as an outsider.......................................................97

Chapter 5. The Ability to Influence, Convince and Negotiate........................................ 99
Constructing the impartial convincer ....................................................................100
Using consultants to convince lower level management and employees ....................................101
Influencing across horizontal and vertical divides ......................................................................103
Using consultants to influence top management ........................................................................107
Using consultants to convince team members - and yourself .....................................................108
The vulnerability of the outsider position .............................................................110
'It constantly challenges my consulting role' ..............................................................................111
Negotiating compromises ...........................................................................................................113
Allies of top management ...........................................................................................................117
This is how it is going to be… or not? ..................................................................118
'I don’t have any power to induce change' ..................................................................................118
Appealing to top management ....................................................................................................120
Authority-by-extension seen from an internal perspective .........................................................122
The limitations of authority-by-extension ..................................................................................123
Returning to outsider opportunities for influence .................................................128

Chapter 6. The Ability to Document and Prove ………………………………………...131
Constructing agents of documentation and proof .................................................132
Making the provable argument ...................................................................................................134
'Pen-holders' and reification as a source of influence ...........................................137
The process and products of reification ........................................................................138
'Pen-holders' - embodying reification ..................................................................................141
Creating acceptable facts and achieving agreement ..............................................143
The meeting 'where it was definitively proven' ..........................................................................144
Creating facts and documentation ...............................................................................................146
Making the version count ...........................................................................................................148
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'Gut feelings' versus scientific inquiry ........................................................................................150
Contested objectivity and lack of legitimacy ........................................................152
'We had expected something else from a consulting firm' ..........................................................153
Analysis versus implementation? ...............................................................................................154
Objectivity as insider attribute ....................................................................................................156
Lack of understanding and knowing ..........................................................................................158
Unwanted and disadvantageous reifications ...............................................................................159
Outsider reification conditioned by insider attributes ...........................................161

Chapter 7. The Ability to Provide Solutions and New Ideas ..........................................163
Agents of management ideas and solutions ..........................................................164
'The lean people' .........................................................................................................................165
Positioned as experts ..................................................................................................................169
Newness and superiority .......................................................................................173
Content attributed whit superiority .............................................................................................178
Down to earth and in touch with reality ................................................................179
In touch and adaptable ................................................................................................................182
Contesting and appropriating ideas .......................................................................185
Expertise as insider attribute ......................................................................................................189
Agreement and disagreement in the company context ...............................................................191
Outsider knowledge as the vital spice ...................................................................193
Can we do away with the ambiguity? .........................................................................................195

Chapter 8. Management Consulting as Participation ....................................................198
The potentials of peripheral participation .............................................................199
Peripheral participation as an ideal consulting situation .............................................................201
Peripheral participation or collaboration? ...................................................................................202
Risks and challenges in participation ....................................................................203
Marginal vs. peripheral participation ..........................................................................................205
Legitimacy ..................................................................................................................................205
The problem of access ................................................................................................................206
Consulting activities as potential sources of marginalisation .....................................................210
The risk of assimilation...............................................................................................................212
Potentials and limitations of consulting ................................................................213

Chapter 9. Conclusion ........................................................................................................216
The magic and ambiguity of the outsider position ................................................217
The challenger ............................................................................................................................217
The convincer and negotiator .....................................................................................................218
The truth-teller and reifyer ..........................................................................................................219
The provider of new ideas and solutions ....................................................................................220
The peripheral participant ...........................................................................................................221
Implications for consulting practice ......................................................................222
The exceptional consultant .........................................................................................................224
Implications of client buyers, project sponsors and project managers ........................................227

Bibliography........................................................................................................................229
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Acknowledgements

I owe thanks first and foremost to the research participants, both consultants and client
managers and employees involved in the assignments the present study revolves around. I am
grateful for their time and openness in letting me follow and observe them at work and for
sharing their thoughts and experiences with me in conversations and interviews. They are
anonymous in this thesis, and thus will not be named, but they have all played a crucial part in
making this research possible. Thanks also to those responsible in the consulting firms for
granting me access to follow one of their assignments and likewise the commissioning clients
for granting me access to do fieldwork in their organisations.
I gratefully acknowledge the opportunity to do an Industrial PhD in the Confederation
of Danish Industries (DI) and be part of the development project on client-consultant
collaboration that DI initiated together with the Danish Management Association (DMR) and
Copenhagen Business School (CBS). The development project was financed by the The
Industrial Mortgage Fund of Denmark. The Industrial PhD was also supported by the Ministry
of Science, Technology and Innovation.
In DI, I want to thank Vice-director Bolette Christensen as my company supervisor for
taking the time in a busy schedule to read, comment and discuss with great interest and
insightfulness on various articles and draft text. Also thanks to Henrik Valentin Jensen, both
as project manager and colleague, for being so engaged in my research from the start with
comments, suggestions, support and help in any way possible. As well as Vagn Riis as current
project manager who is similarly always behind a 100%. I greatly appreciate everything they
have done, each in their own way, to give me the best possible conditions for doing research
in a practitioner context. Finally, thanks to former and present members of the steering group;
Bolette Christensen, Susanne Andersen, Flemming Tomdrup, Poul Skadhede, Flemming
Poulfelt, Anders Harbo, Lars Meibom and Steen Madsen for comments, discussions and
enthusiastic interest in and commitment to the research.
At CBS, I want to thank my supervisor Professor Flemming Poulfelt for continues
support, enthusiasm, discussions, comments, an always open door and for taking the time to
listen, read and help with all kinds of things big and small, throughout the process. His
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general support, sparring and helpful, constructive comments on text have been particularly
invaluable in the writing process. Flemming's insight and knowledge on the management
consulting industry has furthermore greatly benefited my research. I also want to thank my
secondary supervisor Professor Mette Mønsted, who has similarly read and commented with
great sociological insight on my text and together with Flemming formed the most supportive,
positive and perfectly aligned supervisor team possible.
In addition to fieldwork on consulting assignments, I have throughout the PhD met and
discussed my research with many different consultants, both colleagues in DI and different
consulting firms, and these conversations, discussions, comments and responses have all in
some way or another influenced my thinking on client-consultants relations. In this regard, I
would like to thank especially Camilla Huus, Jens Thejls and Henriette Divert. As well as
Susanne Andersen, director of DMR, with whom I have also had many interesting discussions
about the industry that has benefited my thinking.
Last but not least I want to thank my husband, Roger Smith, for being there with love
and support every step of the way and for giving up his job in London and moving to
Denmark while I did this PhD.

Irene Skovgaard Smith, DI/CBS
November 2007

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