My original contribution to theory and practice formulates management consultancy as a social act evolving within interaction with clients whereby identity, as an emerging process, can form and be formed within consultant-client relationships. Drawing on Stacey's work on complex responsive process thinking, I have described a reflexive, social self, highlighting the implications for management consultants of this open-ended responsiveness of identity formation. Within the prevailing management literature there is a sense that consultants design interventions that change organisations, whether through working on leadership development, executive coaching, providing expertise or facilitating organisational change. As part of my original contribution I pick up on the emotional, relational and occasionally messy nature of consulting, which is frequently overlooked in the literature. My research into the emergence of intentions and the formation of identity within consultant-client relationships analyses my work as a researcher-practitioner working within large financial service organisations through a variety of consulting projects. The inquiry examines my professional practice, researched through a social, iterative and temporal method centring on reflexive, narrative inquiries. I illuminate the fundamental conversational nature of consultant-client relationships; challenging the view of consulting as a transaction whereby the consultant provides a service, withdrawing relatively unchanged. I postulate consulting as a series of conversations with interdependent people wherein emerging themes organise new ways of relating and novelty evolves. Drawing on Elias' process sociology I extrapolate the fundamental interdependence of consultant-client relationships; conceptualising management consulting from a complex responsive processes way of relating. I challenge the notion of intention as located in the individual; an independent, disembodied, thought before action predicated on an 'if-then' notion of causality, underpinned by an assumption of human beings as autonomous and rational. I develop the work of Joas arguing that intentions are emerging, social and embodied; a theme organising conversations. In particular I detail how strong emotions and embodiment occur in those arresting moments, where experiences of inclusion and exclusion, can alert the consultant to new ways of relating. My inquiry has highlighted the significance for management consultants of realising the fundamentally social nature of human interaction and the importance of responsiveness in the living present. With reference to Mead's view of conversation as a pattern of gesture/ response I highlight the consultant-client relationship as co-created and therefore not to be ordered by the consultant who can, nevertheless, pick up on and influence new patterns of relating as they evolve.

Why can junior management consultants bill four-digit dollar amounts a day for working with corporations and industries where they have no experience? Why do blue-collar workers organise in industry-specific unions involved in collective wage bargaining, while white-collars organise according to educational or professional background, offering résumé proof-reading, or don’t unionise at all? The doctoral thesis Contract-Theoretic Analyses of Consultants and Trade Unions consists of three self-containing essays in Economics of Organisation. What Do Consultants Do? asks why firms pay large fees to outsiders in core activities like management. Standard explanations that see the consultant only as an expert fail to rationalize several industry phenomena. This paper instead focuses on the consultant’s role as a truth-teller in governance. The model finds a trade-off between being an expert and being a truth-teller, and that branding is more important for the latter category. Furthermore, there are natural barriers to entry among truth-tellers, which helps explain the high fees of the most well-renowned players. The Nature of Management Consulting evaluates the theoretical results in the previous chapter. Using market data from Sweden, the study finds that the upward price effect associated with a global brand is smaller for consultants with a broad range of services than for those with a narrow focus. This is hard to reconcile with the expertise explanations, but is consistent with the truth-telling theory. Interviews with experienced management consultants support this interpretation and several other predictions from the truth-telling theory. A Guild Theory of the Trade Union is an independent essay, developing a model where unions, like pre-industrialisation guilds, strike a balance between strengthening the bargaining position and fostering human capital. It links the organisational form of unions to investments in human capital and bargaining power. The predictions resemble evidence from the Nordic labour market. Groups with white-collar characteristics will be more prone to form profession-specific unions and advocate individual bargaining than blue-collar groups. Furthermore, there is path dependency in union formation, which fits the international pattern of unionisation rates. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2007 S. 3-15: sammanfattning, s. 19-123: 3 uppsatser</p>

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the interplay between agile and mechanistic management control and the motivation of the employees affected by them, and thereby contribute to the understanding of how management control interplays with motivation. Research question: How does agile and mechanistic management control interplay with employees’ motivation in the management consulting profession? Methodology: Qualitative research with Semi-structured interviews. Seven management consultants from different firms were interviewed. Findings: Agile management control was found to be somewhat more commonly occurring than mechanistic management control among the respondents. Agile management control was seen as more motivating than mechanistic. Personal development was found to be the most prevalent part of intrinsic motivation in this study. Contributions: This paper contributes to the existing literature by offering a perspective of management control’s interplay with motivation specifically for management consultants. This interplay can be seen as being focused on personal development, possibly due to the employees’ motivation to choose this field.

Begreppet managementkonsult har visat sig vara diffust och vad professionen innebär är svårt att definiera. Det faktum att managementkonsulter i princip säljer ett löfte om vad de ska leverera gör att förmågan att inge förtroende är en viktig egenskap hos en konsult. I denna studie undersöker vi hur den svenska managementkonsultbranschen ser ut och vilken betydelse förmågan att skapa förtroende har. Genom en fallstudie på företaget Reforce har vi kunnat analysera vilken position ett litet managementkonsultföretag, utan ett känt och väletablerat varumärke, kan ha på marknaden samt vilka aspekter som påverkar deras förmåga att inge förtroende. I kartläggningen av den svenska managementkonsultmarknaden framkommer att de företag som agerar på marknaden idag kan delas in i tre huvudsakliga kategorier; amerikanska, semiamerikanska och svenska företag. Det har visat sig att de olika kategorierna skiljer sig åt bland annat i avseende på vilka primära tjänster de erbjuder och på vilket sätt de arbetar. Managementkonsultbranschen är kunskapsintensiv och något som därför har uppmärksammats i denna studie är att företagen inte endast konkurrerar om kunder utan också om bra personal. Fallföretaget Reforce kallar sig själva för affärsstrateger och säger sig vara en blandning av managementkonsulter, säljkonsulter och investerare. De arbetar efter en specifik metod och hjälper sina klienter genom att ta fram strategier som de sedan operativt är med och förverkligar. Resultatet av fallstudien visar att det inte går att placera in Reforce i någon av de huvudsakliga aktörskategorierna på den svenska managementkonsultmarknaden. Detta tyder på att företaget har en unik position på marknaden i förhållande till övriga aktörer. Studien tyder även på att de utmaningar som ett mindre managementkonsultföretag står inför, både ur ett positionerings- och ett förtroendeperspektiv, beror av företagets specifika egenskaper och förutsättningar. Resultatet visar att det i dagsläget tycks finnas utrymme på marknaden för en aktör som inte går i fotspåren av de dominerande globala aktörerna. Vilket pris ett managementkonsultföretag tar för sina tjänster har visat sig vara av mindre betydelse i den förtroendegivande processen, medan konsulternas förmåga att utstråla engagemang, trygghet och erfarenhet är av stor vikt. En av de största utmaningarna för en aktör som tänker annorlunda, tycks vara att överbrygga och förändra gamla värderingar. I arbetet har Reforce endast studerats ur ett internt perspektiv och en intressant framtida utveckling av studien skulle därför kunna vara att utreda hur företagets kunder ser på Reforce och deras förmåga att inge förtroende. / There is no general definition of management consulting or what such consultants do. It is hard to measure the results that they deliver and one may say that they sell promises about future results. To be trustworthy is therefore one of the most important qualities for a management consultant to possess. The purpose of this study is to take a deeper look into the Swedish management consulting industry and to investigate the importance of trust. To be able to further discuss how small companies, without a well-established brand, can be positioned at the market and how they work with the creation of trust; a case study is performed at the Swedish company Reforce. The investigation of the Swedish management consulting industry shows that companies that are operating on this market, can be divided into three main categories; American, Semi-American and Swedish companies. These different categories differ in respect to, inter alia, what they offer and their method of work. Management consulting is a knowledge intensive industry, which makes the companies that operate on the market compete with each other, not only to win clients, but also to get the most talented consultants. Reforce uses the term business strategists to describe themselves. They say that they are a mix of management consultants, sales consultants and investors and have developed a specific methodology, which they use in all of their projects. They assist their clients to reposition themselves on their markets and are also operatively involved in the implementation process. Through interviews and observations it can be concluded that it is not possible to place Reforce in any of the main categories on the Swedish management consulting market. This suggests that Reforce might have a unique position relative to the other companies on the market. The challenges for small management consulting companies depend on its characteristics and the environment in which they operate. This study shows that there is room for new companies on the market, even though they do not think and act like the dominating, global companies. It has been shown that the price of the service is of minor importance when building trust. The consultant’s ability to show devotion, be confident and experienced is, on the other hand, of great importance. The main challenge for a company that differs from their competitors seems to be to overcome their clients’ conservative thoughts. This study investigates Reforce from an internal perspective and an interesting development would be to interview the company’s clients to find out how they experience Reforce ability to inspire confidence.

Det allmänna forskningsfältet om personalomsättning är nyanserat då det påvisar både positiva och negativa konsekvenser av personalomsättning. Samma forskningsfält inom konsultbranschen har däremot alltjämt brist på nyanserad forskning. I stället framställer det personalomsättning som negativt och fokuserar enbart på hur konsultföretag ska arbeta för att behålla anställda. Samtidigt är managementkonsultföretag i behov av numerisk och funktionell flexibilitet, där personalomsättning kan utgöra en del i att uppnå dessa. Även HR-aktiviteter har visat sig vara viktiga för konsultföretags flexibilitet och konkurrenskraft. Frågetecken uppstår därmed kring vilka HRaktiviteter som bidrar till managementkonsultföretagens flexibilitet, samt huruvida personalomsättning i managementkonsultföretag egentligen är så negativt som forskningsfältet i branschen menar. Studiens syfte är att skapa en djupare förståelse för hur personalomsättning påverkar numerisk och funktionell flexibilitet i managementkonsultföretag. För att förstå detta ämnar studien även till att undersöka vilka HR-aktiviteter som bidrar till numerisk respektive funktionell flexibilitet. Detta med en förhoppning om att generera en nyansering till konsultbranschens forskningsfält, som idag inte antar en nyanserad syn på personalomsättning. Studien är en kvalitativ flerfallstudie där empiriskt material har insamlats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med partners och chefer från sju managementkonsultföretag i Sverige. Studien tar avstamp i ett hermeneutiskt vetenskapligt synsätt och med en iterativ ansats. Slutligen har den empiriska datan analyserats genom en tematisk analysmetod. Personalomsättning påverkar managementkonsultföretags numeriska och funktionella flexibilitet positivt, då det bland annat möjliggör ett lämpligt antal konsulter med högkvalitativ kompetens i företagens karriärstegar. Numerisk och funktionell flexibilitet påverkas dock även negativt av personalomsättning då det komplicerar för managementkonsultföretagen att möta efterfrågan samt att viktiga nyckelkompetenser går förlorade. Det onyanserade forskningsfältet om personalomsättning i konsultbranschen framställer därmed inte en helt korrekt bild av verkligheten. I stället kan konstateras att det nyanserade allmänna forskningsfältet om personalomsättning är mer applicerbart för denna studie. Slutligen, de HR-aktiviteter som bidrar till numerisk och funktionell flexibilitet i managementkonsultföretag är arbetsgivarvarumärke, rekrytering, utbildning samt exit-hantering. / The general field of research on employee turnover is nuanced as it demonstrates both positive and negative consequences of employee turnover. The same field of research in the consulting industry, on the other hand, still lacks nuanced research. Instead, it presents employee turnover as negative and focuses only on how consulting firms should work to retain employees. At the same time, management consulting firms need numerical and functional flexibility, where employee turnover can be a part of achieving these. HR activities have also proven to be important for consulting firms' flexibility and competitiveness. Question thus arises as to which HR activities contribute to the flexibility of management consulting firms, and whether employee turnover in management consulting firms is as negative as the research field in the industry believes. The purpose of the study is to create a deeper understanding of how employee turnover affects numerical and functional flexibility in management consulting firms. To understand this, the study also aims to investigate which HR activities contribute to numerical and functional flexibility. This with a hope of generating a nuance to the consulting industry's research field, which today does not adopt a nuanced view of employee turnover. The study is a qualitative multiple-case study where empirical material has been collected through semi-structured interviews with partners and managers from seven management consulting firms in Sweden. The study is based on a hermeneutic scientific approach and with an iterative approach. Finally, the empirical data have been analyzed using a thematic analysis method. Employee turnover has a positive effect on management consulting firms' numerical and functional flexibility, as it enables, among other things, a suitable number of consultants with highquality competence in the firms' career ladders. However, numerical and functional flexibility is also negatively affected by employee turnover as it complicates for management consulting firms to meet demand and that important key competencies are lost. The nuanced research field on employee turnover in the consulting industry thus does not present a completely correct picture of reality. Instead, it can be stated that the nuanced general research field on employee turnover is more applicable for this study. Finally, the HR activities that contribute to numerical and functional flexibility in management consulting firms are employer branding, recruitment, training and exit management.

Diversity comes in many shapes and forms as it can also refer to gender, culture, ethnicity, sexuality and religion amongst other forms. All of these forms of diversity do not seem to be part of the discussion when speaking about corporate diversity. A large portion of the management consultants proceed to become highly influential people in the corporate world as they often end up in leadership positions in large corporations. Therefore, it becomes of high interest to examine how different forms of diversity can be improved and what that would imply for the companies and nation as a whole. The basis for the results of this study is a literature review of theories about ethnic diversity in combination with gender theories as they both are relevant in the discussion of minorities. Moreover, 12 management consultants based in Stockholm, Sweden were interviewed by the authors of this study. The results showed that recruitment processes in consulting firms clearly aim to be as standardized and immune to bias as possible. However it seems unavoidable for these processes to escape the implications of targeting certain profiles and traits in a candidate. Relationship-building with clients and engaging in internal activities are assessment areas that favor certain types of people in the promotion processes. Similarly, the implications of targeting certain schools/programs also favor people with a certain background. Having these expectations on the candidates leads to the candidates reconstructing their persona into having these favorable traits that can be seen as typical swedish traits. The overall culture at the various consulting firms seem to be different depending on their size but they all act in a fairly similar way regardless of their size. Employees with migrant backgrounds do not seem to fit into the culture of their respective company even though they stated that their corporate culture is great in many ways . Moreover, even though the culture seems to be open and inclusive it requires the employee to have certain interest and personality traits for them to fully fit in. There seems to be a lack of ethnic representation within the management consulting industry. The reasons for this are many according to our interviewees. However, a theme that was recurring and seems to be one of the more important factors is that the pressure to become more diverse is governed by the society (external) and the employees (internal) at the various firms. Since there is a lack of representation, there is no internal pressure at these firms. Furthermore, there does not seem to be any external pressure for ethnic diversity. The reasons for the lack of ethnic diversity is mainly pointed to external factors (e.g.inherited problem, limited diversity in the talent pool etc.) within these interviews. However, given the answers surrounding the culture at the various firms, the current culture does not seem to be inclusive to people who do not fit into the norm of amanagement consultant. / Mångfald kan uttryckas i många olika former då det kan hänvisa till kön, kultur, etnicitet, sexualitet och religion bland annat. Alla dessa former av mångfald verkar inte vara en del av diskussionen när man talar om mångfald inom näringslivet. En stor del av managementkonsulter blir väldigt inflytelserika i näringslivet eftersom de ofta hamnar i ledarpositioner hos stora företag senare i sin karriär. Därför blir det av stort intresse att undersöka hur olika former av mångfald kan förbättra företag och vad det skulle innebära för företagen och samhället som helhet. Grunden för resultaten i denna studie är en litteraturstudie av teorier om etnisk mångfald i kombination med könsteorier eftersom de båda är relevanta i diskussionen om minoriteter. Dessutom intervjuades 12 managementkonsulter baserade i Stockholm av författarna till denna studie. Resultaten visade att rekryteringsprocesser i konsultföretagen tydligt syftar till att vara standardiserade och immuna mot partiskhet. Men det verkar oundvikligt, eftersom att dessa processer riktar in sig på vissa specifika profiler och egenskaper hos en kandidat. Relationsbyggandet med kunder och deltagande i interna aktiviteter är utvärderings områden som gynnar vissa typer av människor i befordran processerna. På liknande sätt gynnar fokuset på vissa skolor / program även människor med en viss bakgrund. Att ha dessa förväntningar på kandidaterna leder till att kandidaterna rekonstruerar sina personligheter till att hadessa gynnsamma drag som kan ses som typiska drag som associeras med svenskhet. Den övergripande kulturen hos de olika konsultföretagen tycks vara olika beroende på deras storlek men de agerar alla på ett ganska likt sätt oavsett storlek. Anställda med invandrarbakgrund verkar inte passa in i kulturen i respektive företag trots att de sagt att deras företagskultur är bra på många sätt. Även om kulturen verkar vara öppen och inkluderande kräver den att den anställda har vissa intresse- och personlighetsdrag för att de ska kunna passa in. Det verkar vara brist på etnisk representation inom managementkonsultbranschen. Skälen till detta är många enligt våra intervjuade. Men ett tema som var återkommande och verkar vara en av de viktigare faktorerna är att trycket för att bli bättre på mångfald styrs av samhället (externa) och de anställda (internt) vid de olika företagen. Eftersom det saknas representation är det inget internt tryck hos dessa företag. Dessutom verkar det inte finnas något externt tryck för etnisk mångfald. Orsakerna till bristen på etnisk mångfald pekas huvudsakligen på externa faktorer (t.ex. problem som företagen har ärvt, begränsad mångfaldi talangpoolen etc.) i dessa intervjuer. Med tanke på svaren kring kulturen hos de olika företagen verkar emellertid den nuvarande kulturen inte vara inkluderande för människor som inte passar in i en normen av en managementkonsult.

Married women in the banking and management consulting firms in Nigeria encounter challenges that affect their commitment to their families while working long hours in demanding jobs. This study explores the challenges married women encounter and the impacts they have on women’s family lives, social lives, and health. I analyze primary and secondary sources to understand how organizational work culture such as long working hours, work competitiveness, and Nigeria’s unstable economy negatively affect the work-life balance of married women in banking and management consulting firms. Although participants shared the belief that their workplaces practiced “equality,” their descriptions of daily life activities indicate that women did not enjoy egalitarian conditions at work or at home. This study brings to light the challenges faced by married women and suggests how the Nigerian government can promote gender equality in the workplace through the review and amendment of the Nigerian Labor policy.

As the gig economy is growing at a rapid pace and digitalization has spread throughout the management consulting industry, a notable disruption of this traditional industry has occurred. Digitalization in the management consulting industry has affected both how the management consultant does his/her job as well as how the connection between consultant and client and the relationship between colleagues constitutes. Digitalization also facilitates remote working, which has after the Covid-19 pandemic become a high priority. This in turn has enabled the growth of the gig economy and the increasing number of gig worker. Digital gig platforms acting as a meetingplace have increased in both numbers and popularity as well as digital service platforms providing digital tools with the help of SaaS or AI to deliver a more complex solution to the customer. The disruption of the management consulting industry has only begun and therefor it is a need to analyze the way this industry works today and discuss how the industry has adapted to digitalization. Therefor the purpose of this master thesis is to increase the knowledge of how the progress of digital business models affect the management consulting industry by answering the two research questions: “How has the management consulting industry within the area of organizational development been disrupted by the increasing amount of independent workers using gig platforms?” and “How has digitized Service platforms in the area of organizational development changed the traditional management consulting business model?”. This master thesis is conducted through a literature review and semi structured interviews. What can be concluded is that the management consulting industry has been disrupted by the digital platforms in a way that has put pressure on the larger traditional management consulting companies, more digital platforms are created and an increasing number of gig workers have resulted in collaborations between freelancers and traditional management consulting companies. It is also seen that traditional management consulting companies are adopting other business model alternatives that includes solutions based on AI or cloud solutions. / I och med att gigekonomin växer i en snabb takt och digitaliseringen har spridit sig genom hela managementkonsultindustrin har en tydlig påverkan skett på denna traditionella industri. Digitaliseringen i managementkonsultindustrin har påverkat både hur managementkonsulter utför sitt jobb och kopplingen mellan konsulten och klienten samt vad relationen mellan kollegor har för funktion. Digitalisering gynnar även distansarbete, som efter Covid-19 pandemin har fått en allt högre prioritet på arbetsplatser. Detta har i sin tur medfört en växande gigekonomi med ett ökat antal gigarbetare. Digitala gigplattformar som fungerar som mötesplatser har ökat både i antal och popularitet, likaså digitala serviceplattformar som tillhandahåller digitala verktyg som till exempel SaaS- och AI-lösningar för att kunna tillhandahålla en mer komplex lösning till kunden. Den påverkan som gigekonomi har haft på  managementkonsultindustrin är i början av utvecklingen, vilket skapar ett behov av att industrin och hur denna fungerar idag analyseras, samt diskutera hur industrin har anpassat sig till digitaliseringen. Därför är syftet med detta examensarbete att öka kunskapen kring hur utvecklingen av digitala affärsmodeller påverkat managementkonsultindustrin genom att svara på de två forskningsfrågorna: ”Hur har managementkonsultindustrin inom området organisationsutveckling blivit förändrad av det ökade antalet gigarbetare som använder sig av digitala plattformar” och ”Hur har digitala serviceplattformar inom området organisationsutveckling ändrat de traditionella managementkonsulternas affärsmodeller”. Detta examensarbete utfördes med hjälp av en litteraturstudie samt genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Slutsatsen som kan dras från detta examensarbete är att managementkonsultindustrin har blivit påverkad av digitala plattformar och därmed har satt press på de större traditionella managementkonsultföretagen, fler digitala plattformar skapas och ett ökat antal av gigarbetare har resulterat i en ökning av samarbeten mellan frilansare och traditionella konsultföretag. Resultatet visar vidare att fler traditionella managementkonsultföretag anpassar sig till andra affärsmodellsalternativ som innefattar lösningar baserade på AI eller molntjänster.

The thesis proposes and defends a maxim which can serve as a foundation and guideline for professional ethics in nursing, the maxim that nurses should act so far as possible to promote patient's self-determination. The thesis is informed by philosophical ethics and by knowledge of professional nursing practice.