As management consulting(MC) is recognized as an effective mean of implementing planned change in organizations for the achievement of their goals, corporate demand for MC has increased exponentially. But, in practice, many clients wonder if the time and expense involved in working with consultants ever pay off. In order to improve efficiency and effectiveness of MC efforts, management consultants and their clients should basically understand the factors that facilitate MC success.
The purpose of this study is not only to propose four management consulting types but also to develop a contingency framework that links management consulting types to consulting success factors. Management consulting types that uses two dimensions, i.e., scope of change and degree of change are classified as follows: (ⅰ) narrow improvement consulting, (ⅱ) narrow innovation consulting, (ⅲ) broad improvement consulting and (ⅳ) broad innovation consulting. The model posits that client organizational characteristics, competence of consultants, and consultation mode will be correlated with MC success, measured by efficiency and effectiveness of the projects. The integrative model of contingent relationships between those consulting success factors and MC success is reasoned theoretically and hypothesized.
Nine hypotheses are proposed and empirically tested using data collected from 292 client staffs of 119 MC projects in 60 Korean firms. Analyses of the data using the multiple regression technique and ANOVA moderately supports the study's model. This study has reported the effects of nine factors on MC success and has found partially significant results for six of the nine factors: top management support, client staff's commitment, client staff's experince, clearness of goals, methodological compatibility, and managerial competence). The results suggest that successful MC implementation requires a combination of consultants' competence, client organization's efforts, and proper consultation mode. The relationships between consulting success factors(e.g., managerial competence, clearness of goal, methodological compatibility, client participation, Top management support, and client staffs' commitment) and MC success have prevailed differently according to each of four types of management consulting. It was also found that the effect of innovation scope on MC success is contingent upon the consulting success factors(e.g., managerial competence, political competence and methodological compatibility)
The lack of client's expertise forces client-organizations to seek external help. However, those external consultants generally have little or no understanding the client-organizations. Client staffs' experiences and their commitment are necessary to compensate for this problem. With respect to competence of consultants, management consultants should apply their methodologies or implementation procedures contingently according to the context of the client organization. Also, establishing specific goals helps keep clients and consultants oriented toward a common outcome, introducing compatible methodology helps reduce the resistance from client-organizations, and adopting pliable procedures helps encourage new ideas and behaviors.
It is important that the client-organizations and management consultants work together in a partnership, while the management consultant encourages the client-organizations to take equal responsibility for MC success. This cooperative process will provide client organizations an opportunity to achieve their purposed goals and performance.
The findings, however, should be interpreted with caution, since this study has several limitations in measurement and sampling. As more experience is gained, the model can be refined.