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Many criticisms questioning the role and the efficiency of business consultants have been addressed. However, although a great deal of research has been carried out on business consultancy, little has been written on business consultancy from the consultant's viewpoint. In order to gain a detailed view of the situation from an internal consultant's perspective, an investigation of how business consultants perceive their role and contribution within their clients' organisations was undertaken. Drawing on different perspectives, this study aims to demystify the role of business consultants, and to ascertain how they perceive their role within their clients' organisations.

A series of interviews were conducted, where business consultants were asked to comment on issues related to the nature of the relationship with their clients, the pros and cons of their role and also the amount of control and discretion they exercise over the different projects in which they are engaged. Interview data from 17 business consultants from a variety of fields, such as change management, information technology, corporate finance and human resource, are analysed using an interpretive frame.

The research findings reveal that differences exist between the rather pejorative conclusions of previous research and the conclusions of this study. Whereas previous research highlighted the omnipotence and the more or less deontological practice of consultants, the data analysis from this study concludes that business consultants appear very humble in their approach to their relationship with clients, and believe that moving clients forward is their ultimate goal. The findings also enable the study to demonstrate that business consultants are conscious of the amount of control and discretion that is passed on to them by clients, and do recognise that criticisms of their role can be at times justified.

The study has value for both consultants and clients. The role determinants model presented in the study highlights the main characteristics of the role of business consultants and helps both clients and consultants to rethink their approach to the consulting process.

This study aims to examine how embeddedness influences consultants' information seeking when making decisions within a social network of relationships, and how these social networks evolve throughout the project delivery stages. The study is grounded in social network theory and examines embeddedness from three perspectives: structural (network cohesion), relational (tie strength in terms of friendship and knowledge awareness) and actor prominence.

A social network analysis (SNA) questionnaire was administered to a team of consultants working on a management consultancy project in Shanghai, China. The SNA measures of density, degree centrality and betweenness centrality were used to analyse relationship patterns among project team members, permitting comparison between the networks. Networks were also compared across the three project delivery stages of collect, consider and create.

Structural embeddedness was observed in the active information seeking behaviour among consultancy team members. The moderate network density of the self-organising information seeking networks across the project delivery stages ensures that the team remains connected but avoids information redundancy and overload. Relational embeddedness was evident through the multiplexity of ties among team members with overlapping friendship and information seeking relationships. The knowledge awareness network's sparseness indicates a team of autonomous knowledge workers with distributed expertise. Project managers were the most prominent actors across the three project delivery stages, underlining these actors' relational leadership role.

The study provides a deeper understanding of collaborative decision-making behaviours in dynamic-project environments. Limited attempts have been made to visualise and analyse the relationships involved in small consulting teams. The novelty of the network approach adopted stems from its ability to offer a structural view of the relationship among consultants, thus offering a distinctive and arguably more complete picture of consultancy team dynamics.

The study validates the social network theory of embeddedness in a real-world collaborative decision-making setting and provides a deeper understanding of information seeking behaviours for decision-making in dynamic-project environments. From a project management process viewpoint, the evolving nature of the information seeking network as it changes across the project stages with associated actors' roles was also visualised graphically, offering a distinctive and arguably more complete picture of consultancy team dynamics.

Professional quantity surveying (QS) services are critical to successful delivery of construction projects within planned budget, quality and duration. The supply of QS professional services is largely dependent on the price level of services and the willingness of clients to pay. The pricing of professional QS consultancy services has been confronted with a myriad of pricing challenges due to rapid changes in the business environment; the pervasive influence of information technology; and the complexity of clients’ expectation. It is therefore necessary for QS consultancy firms to develop strategic competences for the pricing of their services. In addition, numerous studies have not given the pricing the pricing of professional services the requisite attention. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategic competences for pricing professional QS services.

The study was positioned within the positivist tradition. As a result, the quantitative approach was adopted using a survey questionnaire to collect data from QS consultants. The sample size of the study was 79 professional quantity surveyors chosen by using simple random sampling technique from a population of 372 registered professional QS of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors. Using the χ² test and factor analysis, the study established relationship between strategic competences and pricing of QS services.

The study found that strategic competences for pricing QS professional services is significantly related to the managerial and professional competence of QS consultants. The strategic competences of QS consultants identified by this study include business management, services cost management; and production capabilities.

This study provides an empirical basis for QS consultancy firms to focus on strategic direction of their contractual arrangement with clients. Practically, resource configuration and on strategic competences for professional service pricing would create price leadership.

The study advances the pricing knowledge within the QS practice by demonstrating the nexus between strategic competences and the pricing of QS professional services which hitherto this study have not been effectively investigated.

Describes a case study in which a consultancy method based on participative business modelling was used to support strategic decision making in the field of operations. In this case study the Dutch client company faced serious logical and financial problems after an attempt to attain competitive advantage through drastic improvement of its delivery speed. The modelling project produced several valuable insights which have resulted in a better logistical performance at lower cost. The participative approach taken in the project has made implementation of the recommendations resulting from the project easier. It has also resulted in a better quality of systems thinking and a better understanding of the operations system throughout the company — in short, in organizational learning. This case study has been conducted within a research project aimed at the development of modelling oriented consultancy method to support strategic decision making in operations. This consultancy method is called Participative Business Modelling (PBM). Several observations made in this case study with respect to the development of this consultancy method are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the business potential for international consultancies in wastewater treatment in China using a New Zealand consultancy as an example. China's water shortage, and the requirement for innovative solutions, provides the potential for New Zealand, and other international, engineering consultancies to do business in wastewater treatment in China.

A detailed case study was undertaken on a New Zealand company with experience of business in China. The company's key strategic factors were identified – its own strengths and weaknesses, as well as the external opportunities and threats that the company faces in China.

Based on the analysis of the case study company, a series of recommendations have been suggested for both the company's further sustainable development, and for other New Zealand and international consultancies that plan to gain access into the Chinese market. The results and discussion suggest that there are some main requirements for companies to successfully compete in the Chinese market such as developing close relationships with clients, local construction companies and design institutes; providing an effective onsite project team; having effective design capability; introducing project management skills and the use of a “one stop shop” approach to business.

The paper makes recommendations on how other companies might be able to compete in the Chinese market in the wastewater industry. Specifically, comments are made on developing long‐term relationships, making use of Chinese experience and developing a bi‐lingual capability.

There are potential opportunities for New Zealand and international companies to compete in China in the wastewater treatment field. The lessons learned from this research show what possible threats they will face but also highlight the opportunities.

An increase in outsourcing of consultancy services has been observed during procurement and delivery of public-sector infrastructure projects. However, the incidence of project failure has continued unabated despite this shift by public-sector entities. Also, there appears to be limited literature focussed on seeking to provide the rationale governing the decision to outsource or insource consultancy services by public-sector organisations. The purpose of this study was to appraise the performance of public-sector projects in which consultancy services have been outsourced or insourced. These are the gaps which this study was undertaken to fill.

A grounded theory methodology (GTM) research design was adopted based on the nature of evidence sought and gathered from a Provincial Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (PDPWI) in South Africa. Data was obtained from a mixture of semi-structured interviews and project-specific documents spanning a five-year period and was analysed according to the procedures associated with GTM. Accordingly, open coding, axial coding and pattern matching were carried out at several intervals to develop categories and themes.

The findings of the study showed the absence of a structured approach within the PDPWI for facilitating decisions pertaining to outsourcing or insourcing consultancy services within construction projects. Furthermore, the study established that both approaches yielded similar results across all performance facets of cost, time and quality. In addition, a detailed insight into the steps required for the successful application of GTM in built environment research has been provided in the study.

Limited studies have been undertaken to compare the impact of either outsourced or insourced services on the organisational and project performance. This was the gap to which the study reported in this paper was undertaken to contribute.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the value of social learning from group work that emulates a professional community of practice.

A thought piece that first, examines the role of group‐work projects as part of social learning, then outlines key arguments for social learning based upon applying a “communities of practice” approach and finally, discusses the experience of a leading UK university in light of Hoadley and Kilner's “C4P” communities of practice framework. Some reflections are offered to help practitioners and academics who wish to adopt a similar approach.

Developing a communities of practice approach using group work can promote social learning and workplace transferrable skills. The authors discussed five main elements of the C4P communities of practice framework in light of a group project at a leading UK university: “purpose” – to emulate an IT consultancy environment and create energy and results as part of the final year group‐work project; “conversation and connections” – to promote information exchange between group members through meetings, e‐mail, or wikis; “content and context” – drawing upon organisational knowledge and directing groups to improve the quality of project deliverables. Some key reflections include: emulating real world practice helps develop transferrable skills; building membership of a community through simulated teamwork roles encourages motivation; and group leadership helps achieve common purpose.

The paper offers a unique insight and applies a communities of practice framework for analysing and developing group work as part of social learning.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of benefit to learning through developing strong links between universities and industry, and to suggest a methodology for building bridges between university and industry that provides a full learning experience for students.

A case study approach which included the development of interactive projects that join students with industry, and follow‐up questionnaire surveys of the outcomes, carried out among students and businesses.

It was found that both parties feel that they benefit from building bridges between universities and industry, and data from this research are reported on in greater detail in the latter part of this article

Research is limited to students following the Manufacturing Management and Quality Systems courses within the Industrial Engineering Department of the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, over a one year period.

Provides evidence for a positive factor that linking university students and industry in joint projects increases the potential for a fuller learning experience for the students.

The paper is based on actual experience of students, teachers and companies who participated in this experimental learning process.

Design rationale is design information that explains why an entity is designed as it is. This paper investigates how the documentation process and the use of documents in service design projects influence the reuse of design information across projects.

This study analyzes two sets of data collected through interviews and field observation. It first applied Lund's (2004) four elements of documentation process to categorize the collected data. Then it used bottom-up data analysis approach to identify patterns of the documentation process.

The author speculates designers' focus on certain documents' social aspect instead of material aspect influences how they reuse design information across projects. Some documents are important because they represent a consensus, and some are important because of the document producers rather than its content. The author also found a similarity between economists and service designers by comparing the study results with Harper and Sellen's (1995) findings. Based on the comparison, the author concludes that detailed research reports are easily reusable across design projects. Finally, although the author observed that designers are using templates to explicate design rationale, the created content is not used across projects.

This study identifies six types of documents that are commonly created in service design projects, three types of producer involvement and three types of provisional design outcomes. It also provides two suggestions for designers to reuse design information across service design projects better and two implications for future study.

The purpose of this paper is to address the question of the effectiveness of business consultants in operations development projects. It does this by analysing the results of collaboration between a multinational firm and business consultants who applied the theory of constraints to a series of development projects.

Following the presentation of an overview of business consultants and the need to measure the effectiveness of business consulting practices, the paper presents empirical data on the return on investment achieved from 20 development projects in the multinational company under study.

The findings indicate that the involvement of business consultants in development projects has a positive impact on outcomes and can be justified in financial terms.

The generalise ability of the results in service sector companies remains to be tested. The data is limited to a set of internal operations development consulting projects within one multinational company. Management consultants and managers will benefit from the results of study.

The study provides important insights into the assessment of the effectiveness of business consultants in operations development.