Client-Consultant Collaboration

Coping with Complexity and Change

Edited by:
Anthony F. Buono, Bentley University
Flemming Poulfelt, Copenhagen Business School

A volume in the series: Research in Management Consulting. Editor(s): David Brian Szabla, Western Michigan University.

Published 2009

The tenth volume in the Research on Management Consulting series—Client–Consultant Collaboration: Coping with Complexity and Change—draws on papers presented at the Academy of Management’s Management Consulting Division International Conference on this theme in Copenhagen, Denmark in June 2007. The volume presents twelve chapters that explore a broad range of questions and concerns that illustrate the scope and complexity of the consultant–client relationship. The chapters illustrate the richness and excitement that takes place not only in research on consulting but also in its application as the various empirical analyses of consulting in practice portray.

CONTENTS
Introduction. Anthony F. Buono and Flemming Poulfelt. PART I: THE CLIENT-CONSULTANT RELATIONSHIP. Clients’ Different Moves in Managing the Client-Consultant Relationship, Mirela Schwarz and Timothy Clark. Inside the Client-Consultant Relationship: Consulting as Complex Processes of Relating, Stephen Billing. Systemic Concepts of Intervention, Michael Mohe and David Seidl. PART II: CHANGE CAPACITY IN CONSULTING. Enhancing Change Capacity: Client-Consultant Collaboration in Creating a Foundation for Emergent Change, Kenneth W. Kerber and Anthony F. Buono. The Experience of being Changed through Consulting, Catherine Palmer-Woodward and Don MacLean. Creating World Class OD through Collaboration: Blending the Roles of Internal Corporate Consulting and the University, Therese Yaeger, Philip Anderson, Peter Sorensen and Ghazala Ovaice. PART III: INCREASING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CLIENTCONSULTANT COOPERATION. Sharing Across Boundaries: The Dual Role of Being Both a Consultant and a Client, Susan L. Sweem. Challenge as an Outsider - Know as an Insider: Client Experiences of Collaboration with Consultants, Irene Skovgaard Smith. The Need for Management Advisory Services: A Consequence of Institutionalization, Organization, and Trust, Staffan Furusten and Andreas Werr. PART IV: TRUST AND POWER IN CONSULTING. Mapping the Client’s Political Terrain: A Model of Analysis for Consultants, Alberto Zanzi and Susan M. Adams. Power Bases and Power Use in Consultancy, Ben Emans, Astrid Boogers and Janka Stoker. You Can’t Improvise on Nothin': Attaining Trust in the Client-Consultant Relationship, Lovisa Näslund. About the Authors.