Influence and power dynamics in client‐consultant teams
Tóm tắt
The aim of this paper is to provide a clearer picture of the nature of power imbalance in client‐consultant teams, which has negative consequences for the development and implementation of consultants' recommendations, and to outline ways how to avoid such an imbalance in the first instance.
This is an empirical paper based on in‐depth semi‐structured interviews with clients and consultants from the strategic consulting sector in Australia.
Taking a differentiated look at the roles and responsibilities of members of client‐consultant teams, the authors propose that power within client‐consultant teams is multidimensional and the outcome of the interplay of its different forms is not predictable. It is further argued that a power balance is crucial for achieving better results from consulting projects.
The findings are not generalizable, due to the small sample and the focus on strategic consulting. The results encourage further research in different types of consulting projects as well as studies based on observation of client‐consultant interactions.
The paper highlights the main points of concern for managers and consultants and provides some suggestions on how to achieve a balanced relationship.
This paper's major contribution is in providing deeper insight into a hitherto underexplored issue of client‐consultant interactions: the contested nature of power in client‐consultant teams and the reasons and outcomes of power imbalance.
Từ khóa
Tài liệu tham khảo
Alvesson, M. (1993), “Organizations as rhetoric: knowledge‐intensive firms and the struggle with ambiguity”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 30 No. 6, pp. 997‐1015.
Alvesson, M. (2001), “Knowledge work: ambiguity, image and identity”, Human Relations, Vol. 54 No. 7, pp. 863‐86.
Alvesson, M. and Johansson, A. (2002), “Professionalism and politics in management consultancy work”, in Clark, T. and Fincham, R. (Eds), Critical Consulting. New Perspectives on the Management Advice Industry, Blackwell Business, Oxford, pp. 228‐46.
Armbrüster, T. (2006), The Economics and Sociology of Management Consulting, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Armbrüster, T. and Kieser, A. (2001), “Unternehmensberatung – Analysen einer Wachstumsbranche”, Die Betriebswirtschaft, Vol. 61 No. 6, pp. 688‐709.
Ashford, M. (1998), Con Tricks. The Shadowy World of Management Consultancy and How to Make it Work for You, Simon & Schuster, London.
Bennis, W. (1966), Changing Organizations: Essays on the Development and Evolution of Human Organization, McGraw‐Hill, New York, NY.
Bloomfield, B. and Best, A. (1992), “Management consultants: systems development, power and the translation of problems”, The Sociological Review, Vol. 41, pp. 533‐60.
Bunge, M. (1983), Treatise on Basic Philosophy 5. Epistemology & Methodology I: Exploring the World, D, Reidel Publishing, Dordrecht.
Clark, T. (1995), Managing Consultants. Consultancy as the Management of Impressions, Open University Press, Buckingham.
Clark, T. and Salaman, G. (1998a), “Telling tales: management gurus' narratives and the construction of managerial identity”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 137‐61.
Clark, T. and Salaman, G. (1998b), “Creating the ‘right’ impression: towards a dramaturgy of management consultancy”, Service Industries Journal, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 18‐38.
Clegg, S. and Courpasson, D. (2004), “Political hybrids: Tocquevillean views on project organizations”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 41 No. 4, pp. 523‐45.
Coopey, J. and Burgoyne, J. (2000), “Politics and organizational learning”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 37 No. 6, pp. 869‐85.
Durrant, C. and Baxley, D. (2004), “Aligning business and technology strategy”, in Fombrun, C. and Nevins, M. (Eds), The Advice Business. Essential Tools and Models for Management Consulting, Pearson Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, pp. 288‐314.
Ferdinand, J. (2004), “Power, politics and state intervention in organizational learning”, Management Learning, Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 435‐50.
Fincham, R. (1999), “The consultant‐client relationship: critical perspectives on the management of organizational change”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 335‐51.
Fiol, C.M. (1991), “Seeing the empty spaces: towards a more complex understanding of the meaning of power in organizations”, Organization Studies, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 547‐66.
Flick, U. (1998), An Introduction to Qualitative Research, Sage Publications, London.
Garratt, R. (1981), “From expertise to contingency: changes in the nature of consulting”, Management Education and Development (Workshop), Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 95‐101.
Gunz, S. and Gunz, H. (2008), “Ethical decision making and the employed lawyer”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 81, pp. 927‐44.
Hardy, C. (1985), “The nature of unobtrusive power”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 384‐99.
Hardy, C. (1996), “Understanding power: bringing about strategic change”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 7, pp. S3‐S16.
Hardy, C. and Clegg, S. (1996), “Some dare call it power”, in Clegg, S., Hardy, C. and Nord, W. (Eds), Handbook of Organization Studies, Sage, London, pp. 622‐41.
Haug, M.R. and Sussman, M.B. (1969), “Professional autonomy and the revolt of the client”, Social Problems, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 153‐61.
Jackall, R. (1988), Moral Mazes. The World of Corporate Managers, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
Keegan, A. and Turner, J. (2001), “Quantity versus quality in project‐based learning practices”, Management Learning, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 77‐98.
Kieser, A. (1997), “Rhetoric and myth in management fashion”, Organization, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 49‐74.
Kieser, A. (2002), “Managers as marionettes? Using fashion theories to explain the success of consultancies”, in Engwall, L. and Kipping, M. (Eds), Management Consulting. Emergence and Dynamics of a Knowledge Industry, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 167‐83.
Köppen, R. (1999), Erfolgsfaktoren von Unternehmensberatungen, Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Kubr, M. (1996), Management Consulting. A Guide to the Profession, International Labour Office, Geneva.
Macey, J. and Sale, H. (2003), “Observations on the role of commodification, independence, and governance in the accounting industry”, Vilanova Law Review, Vol. 48 No. 4, pp. 1167‐87.
Maister, D. (2004), “The anatomy of a consulting firm”, in Fombrun, C. and Nevins, M. (Eds), The Advice Business. Essential Tools and Models for Management Consulting, Pearson Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, pp. 17‐32.
Maister, D. (1982), “Balancing the professional service firm”, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 15‐29.
Malhotra, N., Hall, J., Shaw, M. and Oppenheim, P. (2002), Marketing Research, 2nd ed., Pearson Education Australia, Melbourne.
Marshall, N. and Rollinson, J. (2004), “Maybe Bacon had a point: the politics of interpretation in collective sensemaking”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 15, pp. S71‐S86.
Meindl, J.R., Stubbart, C. and Porac, J.F. (1994), “Cognition within and between organizations: five key questions”, Organization Science, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 289‐93.
Micklethwait, J. and Wooldridge, A. (1996), The Witch Doctors. Making Sense of the Management Gurus, Random House, New York, NY.
Mills, P. and Moshavi, D. (1999), “Professional concern: managing knowledge‐based service relationships”, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 43‐67.
Mulligan, J. and Barber, P. (1998), “The client‐consultant relationship”, in Sadler, P. (Ed.), Management Consultancy: A Handbook of Best Practice, Kogan Page, London, pp. 66‐85.
Mumby, D. and Clair, R. (1997), “Organizational discourse”, in Van Dijk, T. (Ed.), Discourse as Social Interaction, Sage, London, pp. 181‐205.
Neuman, W.L. (2000), Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 4th ed., Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA.
Nichols, C. (2004), “The advice business”, in Fombrun, C. and Nevins, M. (Eds), Essential Tools and Models for Management Consulting, Pearson Prentice‐Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, pp. 153‐77.
Nikolova, N. and Devinney, T. (2007), “Building community”, in Barry, D. and Hansen, H. (Eds), New Approaches in Management and Organization, Sage Publications, London, pp. 503‐13.
Nikolova, N. and Devinney, T. (2005), “The nature and role of power in client‐consultant relationships”, paper presented at the 2005 EGOS Colloquium, Berlin, July 1‐3.
Pellegrinelli, S. (2002), “Managing the interplay and tensions of consulting interventions. The consultant‐client relationship as mediation and reconciliation”, The Journal of Management Development, Vol. 21 Nos 5/6, pp. 343‐65.
Pfeffer, J. (1981), Power in Organizations, Pitman, Marshfield, MA.
Schön, D.A. (1983), The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, Basic Books, New York, NY.
Scott, J. (2001), Power, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Sharma, A. (1997), “Professional as agent: knowledge asymmetry in agency exchange”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 758‐98.
Sillince, J. (2000), “Rhetorical power, accountability and conflict in committees: an argumentation approach”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 37 No. 8, pp. 1125‐56.
Skapinker, M. (2005), “There is a public interest in dishing the dirt on consultants”, Financial Times, May 11, p. 13.
Somech, A. and Drach‐Zahavy, A. (2002), “Relative power and influence strategy: the effects of agent/target organizational power on superiors' choices of influence strategies”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 23, pp. 167‐79.
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998), Basics of Qualitative Research, 2nd ed., Sage Publications, London.
Sturdy, A. (1997), “The dialectics of consultancy”, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol. 8, pp. 511‐35.
Suddaby, R. and Greenwood, R. (2001), “Colonizing knowledge: commodification as a dynamic of jurisdictional expansion in professional service firms”, Human Relations, Vol. 54 No. 7, pp. 933‐53.
Van Dijk, T. (1993), “Principles of critical discourse analysis”, Discourse & Society, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 249‐83.
Werr, A. and Styhre, A. (2003), “Management consultants – friend or foe?”, International Studies of Management and Organization, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 43‐66.
Wong, J. (2001), “McKinsey and Chinese client spar over advice”, Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), June 18, p. B9E.
Jackson, B. (2001), Management Gurus and Management Fashions. A Dramatistic Inquiry, Routledge, New York, NY.