Management Consulting: Dynamics, Debates, and Directions

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to: (i) provide a brief overview of the emergence and dynamics of the management consulting industry, (ii) summarize the findings from the extant literature, and (iii) identify relevant issues for related research in strategic communication. The article begins by putting management consulting into context by relating it to three other fields of management: practice, education and publishing, pointing out how their interaction furthers the diffusion of management ideas. Then, the article provides an overview of the development of management consulting, showing how consulting activities and firms changed in line with their client organizations, while managing to derive continued legitimacy by adapting their image to different types of “professionalism.” Finally, the article reviews the extant research on management consulting along three levels of analysis: industry, firm, and project, and discusses the implications of its main debates and insights for strategic communication consulting. The authors acknowledge support for the underlying research and the writing of this article from the European Commission (TSER Contract SOE1-CT97-1072) and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation.