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>

The formal governance structure is more complex in trade unions than in many other organizations. Trade union researchers have drawn attention to the tensions between union administrative and representative systems and the fact that control in unions is bi-directional from leaders to members (through formal control systems), and from members to leaders (through democratic structures). This study has shown that the utilization of market orientation methods has the capacity to strengthen the administrative system without interfering with or being hindered by the representative system. The findings related to market orientation methods presented in this thesis are not of such a character that they can be deemed to be specific for trade unions. Therefore, as a general rule, market orientation methods need no trade union-specific adaptation to be utilized. The setting for this study is Sif, a major industrial white-collar trade union in Sweden. The change process of Sif described in the thesis suggests an increased degree of market orientation. The study has focused on two specific tools/techniques; The Sif Barometer - an annual membership satisfaction survey, and The Design Dialogue Methodology – an internally developed group interview method. These methods have contributed to an enhanced level of market orientation. Propositions for better contributions to strategic positioning and service innovation are presented in terms of design principles. An identified problem is that the potential for double-loop learning has been limited in the organization. Some propositions for enhancing double-loop learning are set out: Knowledge enhances learning: the utilization of market information requires knowledge among managers and employees about the instruments used to ensure accurate interpretations and utilization of the results acquired. Knowledge thus has a role in breaking down the barriers preventing accurate utilization of market information. Task alignment is a viable strategy for the creation of learning micro-climates:  Learning through the change of work behaviors is the core element of a task alignment strategy. Task alignment is a strategy targeting learning capabilities in the organization that is not only an approach for solving problems in the long term, but also an immediate response to tangible business problems. Action research may contribute to double-loop learning: The action research method has inherent change properties connected to its "learning by change" approach. Actors should consider the discrepancies between espoused theories and theories-in-use: Various political behaviors hampering double-loop learning have been traced. A broad level of participation and involvement of managers and employees during the development or adaptation of the market orientation instrument can enable open and trustful discussions for enhancing double-loop learning. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2005