The management consulting industry has been growing exponentially during the last two decades influencing the relationships between business schools, corporations and universities, achieving a significant role as a modern "knowledge creator". This thesis studies the process of knowledge creation undertaken by management consultants. The academic mode of creating knowledge as described by Kuhn (1996) was used to direct this exploration of consultants as a knowledge creating community. The purpose of using the scientific method of knowledge creation is not to compare or to judge consulting knowledge, but to use it as a way of entry to explore consultants' practices. In a complementary way to Kuhn's core concepts, a brief Foucauldian overview identified concepts like inclusion and exclusion, discourse and the notion of practices, which are used in the analysis. An empirical research was conducted focusing specifically on a group of practicing consultants in New Zealand. Thirteen consultants who specialize in corporate governance advice were interviewed. Corporate governance was chosen as a field of advice because it is a clearly separable area of management consulting. In this study, the categories of community and paradigm served as a point of entry to explore knowledge creation practices. The data was analyzed qualitatively in search for evidence of community belonging and patterns in consultants' knowledge creation practices. It has been found that consultants, in spite not having a formal regulating professional body, behave as a professional community that has entry requirements, exit procedures and credentials for belonging. Consultants define their identities in the intersection of overlapping communities, which sometimes include their former educational backgrounds, their professions and their current practice. Research findings show that consultants in governance share a paradigm, which trascend particular consulting firms and reach a larger group of consultants. This paradigm has quality control processes such as reputation and re-engagement, and common methods in dealing with governance problems. In addition, in terms of the body of knowledge shared, there are certain factors that determine the value of that knowledge for consultants such as novelty, commercial value, utility and accessibility.

<p>Background: An accountant is supposed to secure that the information from a company is true and fair. Recently consulting, or giving advice, has grown to be a major part of an accountants daily work particularly in smaller companies which may have insufficient financial competence themselves. This means that an accountant occupies two parts, as an independent reviewer and as an initiated advisor, which have caused controversy. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose is to outline and explain how the accountants and audit customers regard an eventual discrepancy between performing the audit and consulting, and to give suggestions how to manage this. The purpose is also to define what customers perceive as quality in consulting an auditor. </p><p>Method: Interviews were preformed with Chief financial officers from four companies, together with each company's auditor and head of quality from the audit firm. </p><p>Conclusion: The conclusion is that there are no conflicting interests from auditing and consulting in small companies. Receiving advice is on the contrary what smaller companies perceive as quality in employing an auditor. For the auditor to give advice therefore grants advantages to all stakeholders.</p>

<p>Background: Learning is important for companies’ existence in today’s society and many studies discuss the importance of life long learning and learning organizations. An increased understanding for how the individual learn at the work place is importance to study to gain an accepting for how learning occurs, both formal and informal. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose with this study is to describe the process of learning at the work place from an individual perspective, with focus on how formal and informal learning occur and interact. The purpose is also to confirm, contradict or develop existing theories. </p><p>Realization: The study is based on eight interviews with consultants at two major banks in Sweden. </p><p>Results: The study show that formal and informal learning exist at the work place. The formal learning take place throws a license, courses and educations. The informal learning happen throws interaction between colleagues. The study also shows that it exist connections between formal and informal learning. They occur at the same time, during different phases, depend on the situation and circumstances outside the organization lead to a need of both formal and informal learning.</p>

<p>Indirect Management Consulting (IMC) is a new concept within organizational change management consulting. The basic principle is to make the client more active in the change effort compared to conventional management consulting where the consultant actively drives the change. With IMC, the client is provided with a tailored set of skills and methods that makes him able to lead a change project and to make sure that the new organization is sustained. The IMC-model is a combination of management consulting and e-learning, where the consultant has an indirect role in supporting the client.</p><p>This study has shown that the IMC-model increases the chance for successful change implementation by increasing knowledge and involvement of the managers in the client organization. A common problem with conventional consulting is that the new organization fails to persist some time after the change project has ended and when the consultants have left the organization. This is overcome by the IMC-model since it transfers necessary knowledge and tools to the client’s managers who then can drive the change as well as ensure sustainability long after the project itself is completed.</p><p>The IMC-model is more cost-efficient than conventional consulting since less involvement is required by the consultant and since the customization of the e-learning systems can be made efficient by modularization. The lower costs make it possible to compete with a lower overall price and the combination of high quality of the organizational change with low prices makes the IMC-model an attractive complement to conventional management consulting.</p> / <p>This study is a part of an evaluation of the potential of a new business concept within the field of management consulting. The study is written to give insight of the functionality of the concept as well as the market barriers that a new company can expect to encounter if it decides to start up a business based on the concept.</p><p>Indirect Management Consulting (IMC) is a new and unproven concept within change management consultancy and can in a simplified manner be described as a mix between e-learning and traditional management consultancy. The basic principle is that the client is given instructions and tools to be able to lead the change project by following a model similar to an e-learning program. The contents of the program are custom-built by a management consultant according to the needs of the change project. The consultant monitors the progress of the organizational change and adapts the model and gives feedback to the client as the project progresses. By following the IMC model, the client does the majority of the work while he does not require initial knowledge of change management since he is continuously provided with the information, tools and templates needed to analyze the organizational performance and implement the change successfully.</p><p>The functionality of the IMC concept was evaluated in two ways: First by comparing the contents of the IMC-model with existing change management theories in order to find out if the model covers the most critical aspects of the theories. Secondly, the market for the IMC model was analyzed mainly by using Porter’s five-force theory.</p><p>This study has shown that IMC can be an efficient method for implementing organizational change. Its efficiency comes from a number of sources, mainly related to the fact that the organization’s own managers have, compared to conventional management consulting, a high degree of involvement in the analysis of the organization and the implementation of the change. This in turn leads to better communication of the change plan and makes it easier to motivate employees to accept to the organizational change and make them feel a ‘sense of urgency’ for participating to successfully implement the project. The model was also found to make it easy for the manager to formulate a change strategy and to implement the change in a structured manner.</p><p>For the consulting company, IMC means that costs (and consequently prices) can be kept much lower than for conventional consultant services. One main reason is that the model does not have to be built from scratch for each client. The contents of the model are relatively easily adjusted to suit most types of organizational changes. A second reason for the lower cost is that time the consultant spends at the client’s offices is minimized or eliminated. This gives an advantage compared to conventional management consulting.</p><p>While the management consulting industry have relatively low entry barriers, that is however not equivalent that it is easy for a company to enter the market based on the IMC-model. A high quality of the services is crucial and, if that cannot be proven, the advantage of having a low price is diminished. It is therefore important for a new starter in this industry to have a portfolio of successfully implemented projects. For the IMC concept, this is problematic since the model is new and unproven. It can therefore be difficult to find the first clients and alternative entry strategies such as partnering or simply advocating a “non-profit” strategy for the first clients might be necessary.</p>

<p><strong>Syfte: </strong>Att undersöka vilka framgångsfaktorer som företagsledningar i konsultföretag använder för att få sin personal motiverade.</p><p><strong> </strong><strong>Metod</strong>: Jag har valt en kvalitativ metod med ett induktivt synsätt. Min intervjuform är semistrukturerad med öppna frågor.<strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Resultat och slutsats</strong>: Ledningen i företagen som ingick i studien har använt sig av en ekonomisk motivationsfaktor i kombination med flera icke ekonomiska motivationsfaktorer för att motivera personalen. Denna kombination av motivationsfaktorer kan ses som framgångsfaktorer i företagen.<strong> </strong></p><p><strong>Förslag till fortsatt forskning</strong>: Samma typ av studie men istället en undersökning av en annan bransch, en annan storlek på företagen, eller ett annat geografiskt område t.ex. i en större stad. Ett annat förslag är att intervjua personalen istället för den personanalansvarige. Att mäta motivationen, före och efter, vissa motivationshöjande åtgärder.</p><p><strong>Uppsatsens bidrag</strong>: Uppsatsen har bidragit till att bättre förstå vad som motiverar personal i konsultföretag.</p> / <p><strong>Aim</strong>: To investigate what kind of success factors management in consulting companys uses to get a motivated personnel.</p><p><strong>Method</strong>: I have chosen a qualitative method with a inductive position. My interviews are done semistructured with open questions.</p><p><strong>Result and conclusion</strong>: The management in the companys who was part of the study has used a economic factor of motivation combined with several non-economic factors of motivation to get their personnel motivated. This combination of factors of motivation are success factors in the companys.</p><p><strong>Suggestions for future research</strong>: The same kind of study, but instead a investigation<strong> </strong>of a another  industry, another size of the companys or a another geography area, for example a bigger town. Another proposal is to interview the personnel instead of the personnel management. To measure motivation, before and after, certain measures that increases motivation.</p><p><strong>Contributions of the thesis</strong>: The essay has contributed to better understand what motivates the personnel in consulting companys.</p>

<p> </p><p>Knowledge is considered nowadays as the main source of competitive advantage and, therefore, its appropriate application has been gaining great attention. The present study focuses on the use of integrative mechanisms in consulting firms as part of the knowledge application process during the action-planning stage of projects. Concepts such as knowledge, types of knowledge and Knowledge Management processes are clarified and then developed in a consulting firm context, in order to identify the advantages and disadvantages that this type of project-based organisations has due to the important role that knowledge plays in the consulting process. Furthermore, two main paradigms of Knowledge Management in consulting firms are developed based on a synthesis of the relevant literature. Next, different views of Knowledge Integration are exposed and the four mechanisms for Knowledge Integration proposed by Grant are assigned to each paradigm. These paradigms are used as theoretical base for the research and as selection criteria of two representative consulting firms, which constitute the unit of analysis of a qualitative study, which aims to rank the importance of the above mentioned Knowledge Integration mechanisms in the action-planning stage of the consulting project life-cycle.</p><p> </p><p>The research approach is deductive and subjective in terms of ontology. Critical realism more closely represents the study in terms of epistemology and the main sample characteristics are non-probabilistic, purposive and heterogeneous. The data are collected through surveys and semi-structured interviews and are analysed following a commonly accepted qualitative data analysis method.</p><p> </p><p>The study results regard the ranking of the four integrative mechanisms in terms of their usefulness during the action-planning stage of consulting projects. The results cannot be generalised due to the sample characteristics but they qualitatively reflect the importance of mechanisms for integration of knowledge in these two firms during this particular stage. By doing so, the study implies that, although the two consulting firms represent different paradigms of Knowledge Management, they have a similar predisposition to give priority to a certain Knowledge Integration mechanism against another.</p>

<p>This thesis examines which processes enable knowledge transfer and which factors affect the transfer of knowledge from a repatriate to the home office within management consulting services. The results from one firm engaging in management consulting activities in Sweden suggest that the prime process for knowledge transfer is through providing post-repatriation assignments, which requires the repatriate to use the acquired knowledge and to cooperate with coworkers and thus share the knowledge. The main factors affecting the knowledge transfer are a corporate culture and a strategy which promote teamwork and sharing. The study indicates that the studied firm has a pragmatic view of sharing knowledge; knowledge is shared when it is used, and all efforts should in the end gain the firm's clients.</p>

<p>För ett serviceföretag är det väsentligt att kunna leverera tjänstekvalitet för att tillfredsställa kunden. Tjänsternas immateriella produktkaraktär gör det emellertid svårt för serviceleverantören i allmänhet och professionella tjänsteleverantörer i synnerhet att säkerställa kvalitet. Syftet med detta arbete är att utveckla en kontrollmodell som kan användas av professionella tjänsteleverantörer som ett hjälpmedel i arbetet att säkra servicekvalitet. Modellen bygger på relevant teori och består av tre kvalitetskategorier – image, teknisk kvalitet och funktionell kvalitet – genom vilka 13 kvalitetsdimensioner behandlas. För att pröva modellens användbarhet utvärderas med modellens intervjuguide de arbetsmetoder som används på företaget Öhrlings PricewaterhouseCoopers. Resultatet på utvärderingen visar att kontrollmodellen behandlar de kvalitetsgenererande delarna av en serviceprocess som exempelföretaget arbetar med i praktiken vilket bekräftar att studiens kontrollmodell kan användas som ett hjälpmedel av professionella tjänsteleverantörer vid kvalitetssäkring.</p>

As freelancers and consultants become more common, this is a question asked with increasing frequency, not least in professional services. Similarly, organizations increasingly face the dilemma of having to find and choose a suitable service provider. Given the often uncertain and complex nature of knowledge-intensive services, this is to a large extent a matter of being able to create trust – for the buyer to dare the leap of faith, for the seller to entice the buyer to trust them with a project. This thesis studies the question of trust creation on two markets: management consulting and theatre direction, discussing the significance of social context on the opportunities for trust creation By dividing the social context into three interrelated arenas, the market level, the organizational level, and the interindividual level, it becomes possible to distinguish how and where trust is created, unveiling how and on what basis decisions are made. The study thereby provides both an in depth account for how management consultants and theatre directions are chosen, and a contribution to research on professional service markets, highlighting the impact of the visibility of the service in question on the mechanisms of the market. Lovisa Näslund is a researcher at the Department of Management and Organization at the Stockholm School of Economics. She combines her research on knowledge intensive work in business and the arts with teaching service marketing and consulting projects in Swedish film and theater. Previously, she has worked as a production assistant at Teater Brunnsgatan Fyra and Teater Tribunalen in Stockholm. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2012.  Titel på spikblad: The leap of faith : trust creation on professional service markets</p>

Background: The management consulting industry has been facing difficulty. Since knowledge is described as such an important asset it is in our opinion interesting to study how it is managed in times of uncertainty. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study how management-consulting companies follow their knowledge management strategies in times of uncertainty. Procedure: Personal interviews were conducted with three consulting firms. Result: The consulting firms we interviewed have not been focusing on knowledge management questions during the uncertain last two years because of a lack of both time and money. Therefore, according to our findings management-consulting firms interrupted the previously followed knowledge management strategy. Knowledge management issues instead had to remain unchanged, which in the case companies seem to be close to the personalisation strategy