UNDERSTANDING THE AMBIGUITIES OF ‘PROFESSIONAL’ SERVICE DELIVERY BY MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS AND THEIR MEANINGS FOR ‘SUCCESS’ IN A CONSULTING ENTERPRISE

If one were to study Management Consultancy, they could be spoilt for choices on what to research on. Bombarded by several images of imperviousness, merky business practices , shady deals, compromise, self service, competitive morality and many other forms of euphemisms, the researchers, would see these notions, appear loud and resplendent, especially when, ‘seen through’ client consultant relations.The most pertinent of all these images, is that of mostly smart, yet, confused group of people, bound by self deceipt, engaged in self triumphalism and the desire to be recognised as worthy.The many different features of these ‘special’ people, therefore ,become the target of this thesis. We use reflexivity as a method, to not just dig deep , but to explore the various meanings of consultancy.We try to understand, if there were factors intrinsic to client consultant relations, that should qualify consultancy, to its fetish for professionalism.If professionalism was all that the consultants wished for, what made a consultant professional? What is being a successful consultant? After a literature review of several key themes on client consultant relations, bounded ethicality and exploring the several ideas surrounding the consulting 'self', We conduct an empirical study. We involve 21 highly successful management consultants in London,Paris and Frankfurt and discuss with , question and challenge them, to try and find out what they thought about their profession and about themselves.Our results provide an interesting ground to believe, that consulting was indeed a profession for the ideosyncratic, as Haidt(2001) put it, the rational dog with an emotional tail, knowing when to wag and to what! However,this overt conscientiousness, this self triumphalistic totalitarian ego (Grenwald, 1983) is what we question and try to account for professionalism, or lack thereof, for this industry