<p>Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur ett globalt management konsultföretag arbetar internt med kunskapsöverföring över landsgränser av den svåruttryckliga erfarenhetsbaserade kunskapen som en konsult innehar. Den kvalitativa data som används i empirin samlades in genom intervjuer med anställda på fallföretaget Accenture. Resultatet av undersökningen visade att praktisk kunskap överförs genom formella sammankomster samt en ”learning by doing” modell där konsulter av olika nationaliteter och grad av erfarenhet arbetar tillsammans på olika projekt. Erfarenheter från projekt samlas, lagras och överförs till databasen Knowledge Exchange, i en process där den praktiska kunskapen transformeras till teoretisk kunskap och görs tillgänglig för hela företaget. Studien visar att Accenture har rutiner som gör att dem överkommer de flesta hinder som presenteras i den befintliga teorin. Det hinder som Accenture belyste som ett problem var informationsöverflödet som fanns inom företaget.</p> / <p>The purpose of the study is to study how a global management consulting firm works internally with knowledge transfer across national borders of the hard to express, experience-based knowledge of a consultant. The qualitative data which is presented in the empirical part of the paper was collected through interviews with employees at the case firm Accenture. The result of the study showed that practical knowledge is transferred through formal meetings, and a “learning by doing” process, where consultants of different nationalities and degrees of experience work together on projects. Experiences from projects are collected, stored, and transferred to the Knowledge Exchange database, in a process where the practical knowledge is transformed into theoretical knowledge and made available to the entire company. The study shows that Accenture has routines that help them overcome most of the impediments presented in the existing theory. The impediment that Accenture expressed to be a problem within their organization was information overflow.</p>

Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur ett globalt management konsultföretag arbetar internt med kunskapsöverföring över landsgränser av den svåruttryckliga erfarenhetsbaserade kunskapen som en konsult innehar. Den kvalitativa data som används i empirin samlades in genom intervjuer med anställda på fallföretaget Accenture. Resultatet av undersökningen visade att praktisk kunskap överförs genom formella sammankomster samt en ”learning by doing” modell där konsulter av olika nationaliteter och grad av erfarenhet arbetar tillsammans på olika projekt. Erfarenheter från projekt samlas, lagras och överförs till databasen Knowledge Exchange, i en process där den praktiska kunskapen transformeras till teoretisk kunskap och görs tillgänglig för hela företaget. Studien visar att Accenture har rutiner som gör att dem överkommer de flesta hinder som presenteras i den befintliga teorin. Det hinder som Accenture belyste som ett problem var informationsöverflödet som fanns inom företaget. / The purpose of the study is to study how a global management consulting firm works internally with knowledge transfer across national borders of the hard to express, experience-based knowledge of a consultant. The qualitative data which is presented in the empirical part of the paper was collected through interviews with employees at the case firm Accenture. The result of the study showed that practical knowledge is transferred through formal meetings, and a “learning by doing” process, where consultants of different nationalities and degrees of experience work together on projects. Experiences from projects are collected, stored, and transferred to the Knowledge Exchange database, in a process where the practical knowledge is transformed into theoretical knowledge and made available to the entire company. The study shows that Accenture has routines that help them overcome most of the impediments presented in the existing theory. The impediment that Accenture expressed to be a problem within their organization was information overflow.

The concept of Talent Management (TM) has an American and elitism origin. Since one of the world’s biggest consultant agencies published the concept, the search for talents has spread. Strategic Management trends were developed in Sweden due to the process of globalization, but for a vast majority of the Swedish companies and practitioners the concept is still unknown. The Swedish experts are in this case the ones closer to the theory as non- practitioners. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of how the concept is being spread by researchers and consultants. For this purpose, 2 researchers and 6 consultants were interviewed and the data was analyzed using two qualitative approaches: a phenomenological and a discursive analysis. The result indicated that the concept of TM have evolved into a Swedish version, and thereof been adapted to the collectivistic context. The result also showed that the Swedish consultants both create and spread the concept in the Swedish labor market. It was concluded that TM will keep spreading across companies and industries in Sweden for two reasons: 1) the development of the Swedish labor market, and 2) the younger generation is leaving the collectivistic mindset. The result implies primarily on two establishment dilemmas in Sweden: the requirement of a transparency in the establishment within companies, and also an avoidance of the term “talent”.

<p>The management consultancy, a 14 billion EUR industry in Europe, has become an attractive market in the last couple of years. The Swedish market is blooming with an economic growth of a staggering 20 % according to analysts at Konsultguiden. The attractiveness of the market has brought many foreign players into the field such as Celerant. Celerant is a UK-based company earning a total of $145 million in 2006 with about 650 employees around Europe and the USA. Their focus is mainly within operational management. A few years ago, Celerant decided to expand in to the Nordic region consisting of Denmark, Norway and Sweden and has just recently started to focus a bit extra on the Swedish market. Using Porter’s model of Five Forces we look at the Swedish management consulting industry to see what factors to consider focusing on when entering the market. Through an analysis of the current management consulting market, we compare it to Celerant’s strategy for entering the Swedish market to see if our analysis differs or is similar to the consultancy’s actual strategy. This gives us a picture of how the management consultancies perceive the market and how they act accordingly. The results show similarities with two factors: the consultants and the clients. These seem to be the main factors to focus on as a management consultancy entering the Swedish market. There seems to be a current shortage of competent consultants on the Swedish market and therefore a necessity to focus on recruitment. Clients are what make business for consultancies and business connections need to be established before entering the market. However, we found that more precaution should be taken for factors such as substitutes and new entrants as well. There is a constant change of trends in the management consultancy industry and needs to be considered in order to stay competitive on the market, since a management consultancy needs to be able to offer what the clients demand.</p>

Aim: The overall aim of the thesis is to describe and understand how Vietnam-based management consulting SMEs retain organizational knowledge in cases of employees’ departure and further develop strategies for knowledge retention. Methodology: Qualitative research via semi-structured interviews in 2 Vietnam-based management consulting SMEs (1 medium-sized company and 1 small company) was conducted. Findings: Knowledge retention is still a rather new concept in the Vietnamese context, interestingly, however; some knowledge retention initiatives have been unconsciously implemented by Vietnam-based management consulting SMEs. Small-sized companies, which suffer more from resource scarcity in terms of human, finance, time, tend to be less active in knowledge retention than medium-size companies. More efforts have been put in retaining tacit knowledge by management consulting SMEs in Vietnam. Among the factors influencing knowledge retention, leadership is seen to be the key factor to decide the successful implementation of knowledge retention of Vietnam-based management consulting SMEs. Vietnamese culture is also found to have indirect impacts (either positive or negative) on knowledge retention through other factors (leadership, organizational culture, personal attitudes), however the effect of national culture on knowledge retention varies from firm to firm, largely depends on SMEs’ leadership. Practical implications: Considering the important roles of leaders in the implementation of knowledge retention, training on leadership skills is highly recommended. Furthermore, trainings on interpersonal skills and personal attitudes towards knowledge retention also need attention. On top of that, it is essential to build up an organizational culture that facilitates knowledge retention and provides appropriate organizational supports (affordable IT systems that suit SMEs’ needs, extrinsic together with intrinsic rewards). Last but not least, knowledge retention activities are recommended to be integrated into daily operations to cope with the issues related to time constraints faced by management consulting SMEs.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the recruitment and selection process at A.T. Kearney. Thesis is focused on a description of current practices and methods of recruitment and selection process in the company, recommendations how to improve the process are part of the thesis as well. This thesis is divided into two parts. In theoretical part, reader is informed about particular phases and methods of recruitment and selection process. Practical part consists of A.T. Kearney introduction, selection and recruiting process characteristics and analysis and survey. Survey investigates the students' preferences and factors relevant when selecting future employer as representatives of the youngest generation in the working age, Generation Y. At the end, there are the recommendations for improvement of current practices of A.T. Kearney recruitment and selection process.

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>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>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>