This book traces the emergence and development of the relationship between management consultancies and the British state. It seeks to answer three questions: why were management consultants brought into the machinery of the state; how has state power been impacted by bringing profit-seeking actors into the machinery of the state; and how has the nature of management consultancy changed over time? The book demonstrates the role consultants played in major developments in the postwar period. Specific case studies interrogate how consultancies influenced the policy fields of health service reform and social security benefits. This book will redefine debates amongst business historians and historians of the postwar British state about the nature of management consultancy and public sector reform.

Based on the authors Robert Johnson and Douglas Bate's thirty-two years of experience consulting to major organizations, The Power of Strategy Innovation contains tools and tricks to help companies excel in dynamic markets and provide groundbreaking products and services. You'll learn how to apply innovative thinking to your company's business model to bridge the gap between strategy and product development; how to remain flexible, future-oriented, and responsive to market changes and your clients' changing needs; and how to create a perpetual flow of viable new business opportunities. The authors refer to this as "innovation" rather than "strategic planning," but the truth is somewhere in-between: through a proven five-phase discovery process --for staging, aligning, exploring, creating, and mapping--strategic innovation will become a company-wide competency. The book's latest edition, updated in 2013, includes a new preface and epilogue describing the emergence of enterprise innovation and its impact on both companies' day-to-day planning and focuses on the future. Informative interviews with corporate leaders dispersed throughout the book provide further insight into different industries and the ways they have committed to taking a more innovative approach. To that end, through these shared methodologies, The Power of Strategy Innovation will forever transform the way you do business--and help you rise to become a leader in your industry.

This volume continues to build on the relationship between the Research in Management Consulting series and the intervener-researchers at the Socio-Economic Institute for Firms and Organizations (ISEOR) in Ecully, France, extending that partnership to our recent work with the French Foundation for Management Education (FNEGE), a foundation dedicated to closing the gap between the teaching and practice of management in France. As part of the Foundation's multifaceted activities-which range from seminars and an advanced training initiative for French doctoral students to joint programs with international organizations an associations-FNEGE partnered with ISEOR to sponsor a series of workshops on developing high quality intervention-research. This volume is one of the results from that endeavor. Although intervention-research helps to uncover valuable insight into organizational dynamics and performance, the challenge of capturing and disseminating that insight to both academics and practitioners is entrenched in the rigor-relevance debate. While we are witnessing increased calls for "actionable knowledge," this ideal, unfortunately, remains a rather elusive concept as critics contend either that rigorous academic research falls well-short of relevance to the practitioner world or research that proves to be valuable to practitioners falls short of the rigor expected in academic life. This volume is intended to help bridge that divide. Drawing on the FNEGE-ISEOR intervention-research workshop, the volume contains 18 chapters that explore the intervention-research process, from initial conceptualization, to implementation, to publication. The volume is published in French and English

The book clearly shows how small consultancies grow successfully and is presented in an accessible way. The book has a strong digital angle, as this is something relatively new to consulting firms. The book draws on research with 50 CEOs of start-up consultancies. Written by a leading authority on building consultancies, and recognised author in the areas of management consultancy.

The book clearly shows how small consultancies grow successfully and is presented in an accessible way. The book has a strong digital angle, as this is something relatively new to consulting firms. The book draws on research with 50 CEOs of start-up consultancies. Written by a leading authority on building consultancies, and recognised author in the areas of management consultancy.

* Provides a step-by-step guide for completing a successful student consulting project, which should be essential reading for specific experiential Business Consulting modules, as well as recommended reading for students studying Small Business Management and Strategic Management at postgraduate and MBA level. * Fully updated 6th edition, including new tools and resources, new real-life examples, material on technologies and remote working, and a focus on student employability. * Promotes a conceptual understanding of the consulting process.

Organization Development and Society: Theory and Practice of Organization Development Consulting offers a new approach for the practice of organization development (OD). The new approach, a habitus oriented OD (HOOD), sees consultees' thinking and behavior a result of habitus, a cognitive structure developed historically in endless interactions between human behavior and social structures. HOOD has two goals: The first goal is to redefine the objectives of individually oriented OD. The focus on habitus and social structure allows individually oriented OD scholars and practitioners to keep their subjective approach, which searches for consultees' inner world. However, this subjectivity searches not only for consultees' psychological but their social dispositions. It views the individual level, the habitus, as a site of social dispositions that from within the individual consultees generate thoughts and behaviors in a way that closely corresponds with the organization's social structure; with power relations and social positions and with accepted metaphors and common language. The HOOD links the concept of habitus to the field of OD and in so doing provides an alternative way to incorporate the individual and the social in OD. HOOD's second goal is to re/position OD between organizations and society and thus to produce a consulting practice that is both pragmatic and human. It is pragmatic since incorporation of habitus enables the consultant to liberate consultees' perspectives and behavior from the organization's social and structural hoops and to use these perspectives in processes of change and development. Considering the habitus as central to consulting projects is human since it enables consultants (and consultees) to identify the responsibility for organizational problems (and other phenomena) not only at the level of the individual but also at the level of the organization and the environment outside the organization.

This title was first published in 2002: The history of management consulting in Britain is a subject that has received little attention in the past in terms of research or publication. This work redresses the gap in the knowledge base of business and management history, presenting the historical situation in the context of management consulting. Identifying the beginnings of consultancy services in the mid-nineteenth century, Ferguson charts its progression through a series of time frames that span the twentieth century. Utilizing a series of consistent themes, such as service delivery forms and training, which can be compared and contrasted across time, the book provides not only a history of management consultancy services, but also shows how the take-up and form of services was heavily dependent upon the prevailing attitudes within business to the role of management. The thoroughly researched and well-presented arguments in this book will greatly add to our knowledge of British management during the twentieth century.

Each year, thousands of consulting contracts are awarded by organizations to experts who help them with challenges involving people, processes, technologies, goals, resource allocation, decision making, problem solving, and more. These experts - consultants - diagnose problems, recommend solutions, facilitate interventions, and evaluate outcomes that are often related to human communication. Some consultants are academicians skilled in both doing and interpreting research for clients; others are practitioners with little use for research and theory. Driving all of the ideas showcased in Consulting That Matters: A Handbook for Scholars and Practitioners is the premise that sound theory and research are critical to consulting success, and should be the blueprints for successful organizational transformation. Thus, this book is for all types of consultants, including the very best who are at the top of their games and those who believe theory and research belong in ivory towers, not business settings. Featuring a "who's who" of preeminent communication scholars/consultants, each author shares frameworks, strategies, and examples from their own diverse experiences, all grounded in rich, substantive theory and research. The volume offers even the most skilled and experienced consultants a range of alternative approaches, paradigms, and competencies to build their credibility and make them more valuable to their clients in a dynamic, ever-evolving business climate.

This title was first published in 2002: The history of management consulting in Britain is a subject that has received little attention in the past in terms of research or publication. This work redresses the gap in the knowledge base of business and management history, presenting the historical situation in the context of management consulting. Identifying the beginnings of consultancy services in the mid-nineteenth century, Ferguson charts its progression through a series of time frames that span the twentieth century. Utilizing a series of consistent themes, such as service delivery forms and training, which can be compared and contrasted across time, the book provides not only a history of management consultancy services, but also shows how the take-up and form of services was heavily dependent upon the prevailing attitudes within business to the role of management. The thoroughly researched and well-presented arguments in this book will greatly add to our knowledge of British management during the twentieth century.

A collection of papers exploring the development of knowledge and value in management consulting. The papers are divided into three sections on: the management consulting industry; trends and techniques in management consulting; and reflections on management consulting.

Management consultanting and investment banking have been held up as industries at the forefront of contemporary globalization. Using an interdisciplinary approach ranging across economics, economic geography, sociology and management studies, Andrew Jones analyses the nature of globalization within business service transnational corporations in these sectors. Using qualitative research with leading business managers, he focuses on the social and cultural nature of "doing" global service business in an era of increasing integration of the world economy.

This book is a primer for those interested in a career in this dynamic, multidisciplinary field as well as a handy reference for practicing consultants. Combining theory and practice advice into a concise, readable format, the book is an accessible introduction to the types of projects you will encounter as an environmental consultant and lays the groundwork for what you'll need to know in this challenging and rewarding profession. Also available with this book, under the Additional Resources tab, are PowerPoint lectures that correspond with each chapter. New in the Second Edition Covers the latest environmental issues, including emerging contaminants, and the latest technological advances in environmental investigation and remediation New chapters dedicated to vapor intrusion investigation and mitigation and to Brownfields redevelopment and project financing. An expanded chapter describing the staffing, budgeting, and execution of environmental projects. Descriptions of the remediation processes under RCRA and Superfund Descriptions on how each chapter's subject matter applies to the job of the environmental consultant. Dozens of new figures, photographs, and tables designed to enhance the reader's understanding of the subject matter. Problems and questions to be used for homework assignments or classroom discussions.

This important title brings together some of the most influential papers that have contributed to our understanding of management consultancy work. This research review encompasses the breadth of conceptual and empirical perspectives and explores those key ideas that have helped to advance our knowledge of this intriguing area.

Fuel your business' transition into the digital age with this insightful and comprehensive resource Digital Business Transformation: How Established Companies Sustain Competitive Advantage offers readers a framework for digital business transformation. Written by Nigel Vaz, the acclaimed CEO of Publicis Sapient, a global digital business transformation company, Digital Business Transformation delivers practical advice and approachable strategies to help businesses realize their digital potential. Digital Business Transformation provides readers with examples of the challenges faced by global organizations and the strategies they used to overcome them. The book also includes discussions of: How to decide whether to defend, differentiate, or disrupt your organization to meet digital challenges How to deconstruct decision-making throughout all levels of your organization How to combine strategy, product, experience, engineering, and data to produce digital results Perfect for anyone in a leadership position in a modern organization, particularly those who find themselves responsible for transformation-related decisions, Digital Business Transformation delivers a message that begs to be heard by everyone who hopes to help their organization meet the challenges of a changing world.

This volume advocates accurate case outcome prediction that does not rely on symmetric modeling. To that end, it provides theory construction and testing applications in several sub-disciplines of business and the social sciences to illustrate how to move away from symmetric theory construction. Each chapter constructs case outcome theory and includes empirical analysis of outcomes. Chapter 1 provides a foundation of symmetric variable directional-relationship theory construction and null hypothesis significance testing versus asymmetric case outcome theory construction and somewhat precise outcome testing, while Chapters 2-6 investigate these principles through a range of applications. This volume will be very useful to researchers and professionals in manufacturing, service, consulting, management, marketing, organizational studies, and more. It will also be an excellent resource for advanced statistics students in building and testing case outcome models. Data sets are included so that readers can replicate findings presented in each chapter, and grow to present and test additional theories.

Consultancy and Innovation links two important aspects of European economic development in the past thirty years: the pace of technical and management innovation, and the growing significance of technical and business consultancy. This book includes detailed studies of consultancy activities or 'knowledge intensive services' (KIS) in eight EU countries, written by national experts in the field.

Although there has traditionally been considerable field-level attention on how consultants market their ideas and practices, there is still a lack of research that discusses the earlier intra-organizational phases in the development process. While the present literature provides important insights that enhance our understanding of consulting, the consultancy industry, and the way that consultants present their ideas and services on the market for management solutions, we know relatively little about the way knowledge-based innovations develop within consultancy firms and the mechanisms that shape the intra-organizational evolution of these ideas and practices. This book seeks to address this gap by revealing how the development of new ideas and practices takes shape in consultancies. The work addresses questions such as: In which way do consultancies sense the contemporary market needs? How do new ideas and practices become established within a consultancy? How do consultancies seek to maintain their repertoire? And what role do these new ideas and practices play in their assignments? To provide more insight into these different aspects of knowledge-based innovation in consultancies, the book draws on and integrates literature from diverse relevant fields such as product innovation and market orientation, but also uses institutional and practice-based perspectives. The research presented in this book can be seen in the light of emerging research into 'knowledge-based innovation' and 'new concept development' that concentrate on empirically studying how knowledge entrepreneurs seek to develop commercially viable ideas and practices that have the potential to have a significant impact on management and organizational praxis.

This casebook complements the text Management Consulting Today and Tomorrow. The book consists of 20 cases, including those from Harvard and Stanford and the University of Southern California. The cases cover a broad range of topics and practice areas that are pertinent to current management consulting. The six parts parallel the six parts in the text, including an introduction to the cases by the editors, delineating topics and issues that are critical for today's consultants. Several cases offer new insights into the practice areas of Strategy, IT, Operations Management, Change Management and more on Data Gathering and the Future of Consulting. This casebook, together with the text, will help to increase awareness among consultants and students about skill requirements, as well as make clients sensitive to what is demanded of them in a highly competitive consulting environment.