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Reports research by interview into the effectiveness of management training for 40 medical consultants in two business schools which indicates that while learning during the business schools′ programmes was mostly approved of, subsequent application of that learning has been more limited. Training can be made more effective by preparation before a programme, high key management of the stages and progress of training, an effective partnership between purchasers and providers of programmes, and clear support and expectations from managers.

A survey of National Health Service hospital consultants in the North Western Region of the UK showed the management activities that they undertook and what management training they thought would be useful. The results will help in planning the scope and content of management training for consultants.

Managers are increasingly using external consultants for the provision of a wide range of professional management services. The article discusses the structure of the consulting industry, addresses the question of whether consultants “add value” for their clients, and describes how to identify, select and use relevant consultants.

This paper aims to conceptualize perceived management consulting success, derive relevant success factors based on principal-agent theory and the resource-based view as well as investigate the particular factors’ influence. Management consulting has become important for improving the competitiveness of a variety of firms. Surprisingly, there is little empirical evidence clarifying what constitutes a successful management consulting project.

The authors conduct a survey to empirically investigate the hypotheses. They develop the survey instrument through a literature review, expert interviews, a pre-test and an item-sorting test. To analyze the data from 348 management consultants, the authors apply structural equation modeling. Additionally, they choose a triangulation approach by asking secondary informants about the originally surveyed consultants’ responses.

Initially, the authors develop the second-order construct perceived management consulting success, consisting of the factors compliance with budget and schedule, degree of target achievement, profitability as well as expansion and extension. Additionally, they develop an understanding of management consulting’s success factors. In this regard, five of six factors show a significant impact on perceived management consulting success.

According to the results, the factor intensity of collaboration is of highest importance for perceived management consulting success. Further, the factors common vision, consultant expertise and top management support show comparably strong significant influences. Yet, the authors have to reject the hypothesis about trust. This result conveys the complicacy of the consultant–client relationship and shows that building a trustful relationship between both parties is hard to accomplish.

The primary intent of this study is to examine recent projects involving external management consultants at a North American telecommunications firm, from the employees’ point of view, to measure the extent to which the aforementioned “critical success factors” were perceived as being evident. A secondary purpose was to examine which, if any, of these factors differ between more or less successful consulting projects with a view to building a model to predict employees’ perceptions of the level of the projects’ success. A third objective was to gather employee opinions on the use of management consultancy and other factors that might contribute to the success of consulting projects.

A total of 102 employees responded to a questionnaire consisting of 59 questions. A model including six independent variables was able to predict overall rating of project success, with an adjusted R²=0.68, F=27.81 (p<0.0001). The significant variables, in order of importance, were: the solution took into account one's internal state of readiness; the project included prototyping new solutions; the project deliverables were clear; the consultant partnered with the project team throughout; the consultant was professional; and the consultant understood the sense of urgency.

Substantial differences were seen on most measures between projects judged “successful” and projects judged “not successful”. Nevertheless, it is encouraging that many of the success factors suggested in the literature, and proposed under “an ideal client‐consultant engagement”, were judged as being present in management consulting projects at the telecommunications firm, to one degree or another. General opinions of management consultants were mixed and somewhat negative. Employees at the telecommunications organization do not agree with the traditional benefits of management consultants promoted by the industry.

The results of this study support the anecdotal and theoretical models, in particular those emphasizing the importance of process issues, the client‐consulting relationship and their impact on project outcome.

Reviews the available evidence on the use of human resource management consultants, and examines the findings from a study of their use in manufacturing in the North‐East of England. Also considers the following questions: What types of consultants are used and in what areas? How is the HRM consultant sourced, selected, managed and evaluated? What is their relationship with in‐house personnel departments? Concludes by considering the implications of the findings for the future role and status of the personnel function and identifies an agenda for further research. Suggests that the use of HRM consultants does not necessarily undermine the in‐house personnel function and under certain conditions may enhance its reputation.

Although much has been written on skills and strategies of management consultants, little research has been done on what management consultants actually do. In this study, three senior consultants were shadowed, each for a one week period. Management consultancy turns out to be a hectic and highly interactive job. Important interaction partners are clients, colleagues, and secretaries, although only the first are highlighted in literature. Catalytic intervention is the most dominant approach in client contacts. The relatively rare desk work sessions of management consultants are even more interrupted than those of managers. An important function of their desk work (and of their work as a whole) is structuring information gained in client contacts.

The use of management consultants is an accepted fact in management practice — in all management functions and in all sectors of the economy. Indeed, a great deal of money is spent in the UK on management consultancy each year. Wood estimates that, in 1982, around £170 million was spent on management consultancy. Assignments carried out within the area of personnel management alone accounted for some 15–20 per cent of this total. Yet, the presence of management consultants within organisations is often overlooked. There is scant mention of consultants in the huge array of prescriptive and descriptive literature on management. (One exception within the realms of personnel management is Purcell.) This absence is both interesting and curious. It is curious because so many organisations — both public and private, large and small — use consultants in some form or another. The use of consultants ought, therefore, to be an accepted fact of life in the management of organisations and by those writing about management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay between the requirements for successful organisational change and the imperatives faced by management consultancy firms in running successful businesses, and how this interplay affects the ways in which management consultants influence organisational change projects.

The paper reviews literature on management consultancy and organisational change over the past 30 years to identify insights into this issue.

The paper shows that business imperatives faced by management consultancy firms affect the ways in which consultants influence organisational change projects. It shows how management consultants aspire to form strategic partnerships with their clients in order to win profitable business, and to plagiarise established organising practices and change management methods in defining their services in order to manage their costs. It illustrates how these aspirations give rise to a number of dualities that consultants face in undertaking organisational change projects.

Only limited research has been carried out into the ways in which the business imperatives of management consultancy firms interact with the requirements for successful organisational change in shaping the influence that management consultants have on organisational change projects. This paper demonstrates the significance of this issue and suggests directions for future research into it.

The author writes from experience, originally as a member of the Aslib Consultancy Service and subsequently as an independent consultant. She explores the expectations of the client and the consultant, qualities desirable in consultants and job satisfactions, and goes on to analyse in detail the consulting process, the pathology of information systems and the role of library consultants as change agents.