Volume 6 (2023): Issue 2 (June 2023)

There is a strong need for MSc occupational psychology courses to produce employable graduates. However, many universities and students want to know what are the skills and behaviours needed by employers? To answer this question, two job analyses were completed in a multinational management consultancy and in a boutique firm specialising in assessment and development centres (Biggs, 2010). This research highlighted eight competencies that could be developed by students making them more employable. Many students have used this competency framework, not only in our successful evening-based MSc in Occupational Psychology at Gloucestershire, but at other universities and on other degrees. As such there was a call by others to ensure that the research completed over a decade ago still had currency today and that the eight consultancy competency framework was still valid. This paper sets out an update to that original research demonstrating that the framework is still relevant today.

I begin to explore some of the issues involved to help stimulate debate and empirical research on what might be termed (socially) ‘responsible consulting’ (see also Sturdy 2023). How novel, radical, and comprehensive are these developments and what are the enabling or limiting factors? And finally, what does such a ‘normative turn’ imply, if anything, for the dominant critiques of consultancy and the need for improved governance?

The management consulting business model requires new changes in this new era of disruptions. The typical management consulting business mode is based on consultants either training and developing or engaging in actual management consulting. Today, this has been combined due to operational risk management. The reason is that identifying problems and providing solutions to senior managers is not enough today - consultants need to also be able to offer and execute solutions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has placed consultants in what is known as a dual role. In this article, we examine the challenges of the management consulting business model and provide an alternative way for large consulting companies and those medium to small organizations to re-emerge with sustenance. These challenges were found in our interviews with 81 senior management consultants at McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group, Inc. in the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates.

Jokes-based interviews can help to reduce social desirability bias of responses on sensitive topics, such as unethical business behaviour or other norm transgressions. The jokes-based interview method is relevant for academic researchers, as well as for practitioner researchers such as consultants, or journalists. The method uses public jokes as invitation to reflect on work experiences related to the jokes, such as pressuring leadership, dirty work, or work-life conflict that tend to be normalised. Illustrated for a critical leadership cartoon, the interview method triggers junior consultants’ memories of experiences with pressuring managers, and managers’ memories of how their juniors deal with overly high leadership demands. The method creates rapport, as the business jokes not only introduce the topic, but also serve as an icebreaker. When applying the method, joke selection is key, as some jokes introduce the topic better than others. Cartoons are especially good at inviting an open conversation on norm transgressions relating to ethics, aesthetics, or social norms. Interviewees also need sufficient room to freely interpret, associate, and elaborate. Next, follow-up questioning is important, and preparing a topic list may help to do so. Some limitations to this method are that jokes can become leading, and that interviewees do not give authentic answers. Therefore, it is important to use public jokes and to keep distance as a researcher: do not make these jokes yourself. Also consider that business jokes are critical, and that jokes-based interviews initially do not invite reflection on the positive side of business life. However, in the follow up conversations this may very well happen.

Strategy consulting has plateaued since 1995, argues former Harvard Business Review editorial Walter Kiechel III. Kmind, the top Chinese strategy consulting firm, has found the spark to reignite the industry: Oriental wisdom. By repeatedly transforming firms from obscurity to market leaders by directly implementing their solutions, they provide a solid proof-of-concept for the next generation of strategic consulting.

We reflect on a multi-year study of practice areas within professional service firms that has resulted in impact in various ways, including research publications, class teaching, and industry dissemination. We describe the challenges in conducting academic research at the practice area level, rather than the firm level. These challenges are grouped into two camps: fieldwork challenges and conceptual challenges. While we navigated these during our project in order to achieve our goals, we believe more work needs to be done at the practice area level within the consultancy industry, especially as this unit of analysis is affected by trends in AI and ESG that were not so prominent 20 years ago. We suggest one way forward will be to utilize collaborative systems approaches through a holistic stance, rather than focus on narrow sets of variables in a reductionist stance.

This paper sets out for fellow consultants: (i) internal controls to avoid a client’s hiring of a chief executive officer (CEO) who may have had a past or current instance(s) or pattern of misconduct; (ii) the forms of possible misconduct of a CEO; (iii) the component steps and process to follow in investigating such misconduct; and (iv) respecting a CEO’s procedural rights during the investigation.

This paper provides consultants with content upon which to advise during their practices, including their advice to organizational clients, senior management, and boards of directors.

Management consultants have found the business model concept to be a useful consulting tool. This article explores its application to management consultancy itself, identifies some business models used by consulting firms, and explores what information leaders of management consulting firms need in order to check whether their business models are right for their markets, and working appropriately.