Brief encounter: the use of consultancy projects to enhance the learning experience of postgraduate marketing students

There has been a growing recognition of the need for management education to embed the ‘practice’ of management in curricula, and more effectively manage the relationships between organisations and business schools. The recent report of a Government-initiated Task Force to address such concerns highlighted designing practice into courses as a key area for change (Thorpe and Rawlinson, 2013). Many business schools have introduced consultancy projects into marketing courses as a way of bringing this practical experience into the curriculum and in some cases are being ‘scaled up’ to replace dissertations or other major projects. At Master’s level across Europe, The Rotterdam School of Management (2013) find that 29% of final projects take the form of a field project, normally via an internship or consultancy project. The aim of this paper is to evaluate one such consultancy project for a MSc Marketing course at a Midlands Business School. Whilst existing studies highlight gaps between graduate skills and knowledge and those sought by employers, or between what students expect and what they receive in respect of practical experience, few studies specifically focus on the operation of consultancy projects nor do they seek to investigate the associated tensions between constituent groups. This project therefore seeks to do this and to make recommendations to other marketing educators considering the use of or currently using consultancy projects