Management Consulting in the Era of the Digital Organization

Edited by:
David Brian Szabla, Western Michigan University

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

Published 2023

The 4th Industrial Revolution is well underway. Our lives are changing at an exponential rate, resulting in a multi-faceted, deeply interconnected world. The digital revolution is integrating multiple technologies, which is leading to unprecedented paradigm shifts in the economy, management, and society. Entire systems across countries, industries, and societies are being transformed, triggering a transformation that is unlike anything humankind has ever experienced.

Given the confluence of dramatic changes in organizational life, triggering emerging technology breakthroughs such as robotics, the internet of things, biotechnology, materials science, data science and big data, and quantum computing, this volume of the Research in Management Consulting series explores how the research and practice of management consulting is unfolding in a new era of profound shifts in the way researchers and consultants sense, think, and act.

The authors of this volume bring both to scholars and practitioners the latest discussions of efforts to understand consulting in organizations amplified by the fusion of technologies across physical, digital, and biological worlds. They also bring to light a movement from human supervised artificial intelligence systems to fully autonomous artificial intelligence systems that have the potential to demonstrate intelligence beyond uman capabilities.

CONTENTS
Preface, David B. Szabla. Introduction and Overview, David B. Szabla. Behind the Screen of Virtual Teamwork: A Systems Psychodynamic Approach to Revealing What Really Makes a Virtual Team Work, Ramya Kumar and Sarah J. Brazaitis. Re-Shapers of the Industry? The Emergence of New Tech-Based Management Consultancies, Frida Pemer. Pressing on Into the Era of the Digital Organization: A Mental Journey of Leadership and Management Consulting, David B. Szabla, Dea Mulolli, and Wessam Abdelaziz. Consulting Under Conditions of Uncertainty: Microsoft’s Journey Toward Digitalization, Carl Watson, Christopher Worley, and William Pasmore. Searching for Unicorns: Organizations’ Misperceptions of Data Science and Misconceptions of Technical Solutions Without Accounting for the Human Interface, Amanda Welsh. Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in the Digital Era: Challenges and Opportunities for Organizational Leaders and Agents of Change, Judith H. Katz, Frederick A. Miller, and Roger Gans. Organizational Culture Consulting in a Digital World: Will the Consultants Get Productized Too? Daniel Denison and Gayatri Pandit. Organizations in a VUCA World: Pivot or Perish: Learnings from Management Consultants in the Digital Age, Holly D. Jackson and Robin R. Hurst. Complex Adaptive Systems: A Useful Perspective on Consulting in the Gig Economy, Tasha S. Hart-Mrema. The Practice of Management Consulting in the Era of the Digital Organization: Looking Back to Look Forward, David B. Szabla and Sean Gaffney. Biographies.