Volume 5 (2022): Issue 2 (June 2022)

Efficient working capital management is a requisite and is crucial for small firms’ profitability. The main reason for most SMEs’ failure is the incompetence of their managers to appropriately control and plan their current liabilities and current assets (Smith, 1973). Keeping in view the SMEs’ difficulties in proper working capital management and the significance of working capital management in profitability, survival and growth of SMEs, this research aims to analyse the association between individual working capital components, corporate governance characteristics and alternate proxies of profitability in SMEs. The study has significance for managers in planning and managing working capital in such a way that they can increase their profitability.

The knowledge economy is going through an unprecedented level of disruption. The surprise result of a pandemic increased uncertainty over safety and security, and fears about a downturn have left many business leaders concerned about how best they can improve organizational performance. One possibility is to embrace the transformational leadership style. This article has been written for management consultants to enhance the value of their clients’ learning experience of transformational leadership across the globe. They can make use of this article to build their clients’ mastery of transformational leadership as they engage themselves and others for business success.

There seem to be a dominance of prescriptive models aimed at addressing organizational challenges in a dynamic environment. To what extend do prescriptive, n-step models facilitate transformational growth and development during unsettled time. Due to the realization that most emerging consultants tend to exclusively and excessively rely on certain tools and frameworks, idiomatic phrases, and quotation-based knowledge, the author elaborates the distinction between technical and adaptive challenges (Heifetz, 1998). Unfortunately, most practitioners are guided by idiomatic phrases of the past and as such treat adaptive challenges as technical challenges. The submission is informed by the view that consultants should not adopt approaches or mindsets that try to fit an organization into already prescribed models or patterns of thought. Given organizations as complex adaptive systems, the analysis proffered in this article indicates the need for the customization of idiomatic submissions to context or to the client system. Consulting work should spark curiosity, imagination, and enlightenment in client systems. Blind reliance on idiomatic phrases depletes enduring capabilities in client systems. In dealing with technical and adaptive challenges, consultants need to ensure shifting rather than static mental frameworks when supporting client systems.

The purpose of the article is to gain a better understanding of SME (small to medium enterprise) in China and learn about their understanding of business consulting and whom they currently refer to when it comes to solving business related problems. An online survey was shared via platform and received 206 responses. We can show that most SME owners are not familiar with the concept of “consulting”, while the younger generation resorts to modern channels (WeChat) to gain access to information helping them to steer their business. Unlocking the full potential of this vast market will require new methods, patience and education of the potential clients. There is a chance for foreign consulting firms (except in the public sector) that will require new ways of approaching clients and new forms of delivering “knowledge”.

The National Consulting Index (NCI) is a means of determining the strength of a national management consulting sector, relative to other countries. It was first created in 2017 following research and analysis conducted by the author and a team at the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes. This paper provides an update to the NCI, taking into account market conditions in the Covid era and using multiple regression to strengthen the NCI formula.

The outputs of the research are a) an update of the NCI formula, showing a higher degree of fit with the data than previously experienced, and b) the ability to provide estimates of MC market sizes for any country where other data points are known. In the case of the NCI calculation outlined in this paper, these data points are Gross Domestic Product, Hofstede Individual-Collective culture, eGovernment index, and the Global Innovation Index.

Management consultancy (MC) aims to generate value for organisations through enhanced organisational performance by providing objective advice and implementing business solutions (Management Consultancies Association (MCA), 2022). The success and growth of the industry, generating global revenues of US$634 billion and employing more than 4.3 billion people between 2018 – 2019 (Mosonyi, Empson and Gond, 2020), is a key indicator of the positive outcomes of management consultancy as a significant contributor to economies worldwide. However, the expansion and diversification of the unregulated sector poses issues for Quality Assurance (QA) as it seeks to ratify professionalism.