ASSESSING THE VALUE OF ADVICE
Evaluation approaches of small management
consulting firms
Niklas Grufman, Cornelia Larker
Department of Business Administration
Civilekonomprogrammet med inriktning mot Service Management
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Acknowledgements
First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to our supervisor Thomas Biedenbach for your valuable guidance and feedback throughout the writing of this thesis. Your committed
and always encouraging support for our research has been fundamental for our study.
We would also like to send our warmest thanks to all respondents and their respective firms for taking their valuable time and enabling our interviews. We are especially thankful for
their participation and flexibility during the turbulent circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as without their contributions and input, this study would not be
possible.
Writing our thesis during a pandemic was quite special. We therefore wish to thank our respective partners for their support and for putting up with us and the transformation of our
homes into remote offices.
Stockholm, 25th of May 2020, Niklas Grufman and Cornelia Larker
Abstract
Whilst utilization of management consulting services has become an integral part of the contemporary economy and functioning of many organizations, intangibility leaves clients unable to predict or objectively assess the values created in consulting engagements. According to scholars, attempts to counteract the principal-agent related risks of opportunism and divergent incentives are expected to increase following higher competition, consumer awareness and anticipated increased demand for performance-based pricing. Improved comprehension of means to evaluate consulting services should become increasingly significant not only for the management consulting firms with increasing needs to tangibilize value and prove “success” to a greater extent, but also for the purchasing organizations in both private and public sectors.
The academic attention to the industry has been described as surprisingly low, and previous scholars urge for increased empirical data on evaluation practices in general, and for additional contexts and sizes of consulting firms, in particular. Accordingly, this study aims to contribute with empirical data and understanding of consultants’ reasoning and approaches through asking; How do small Swedish management consulting firms approach evaluation of their engagements in terms of client satisfaction and value generated within the client organization, and; what is the rationale behind the eventual evaluation approach(es) used?
Based on a literature review on primarily the fields of; the management consulting industry, intangibility of knowledge-intensive services, and scholarly suggested evaluation methods, semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior managers, partners and CEOs representing ten small-sized management consulting firms in Sweden. The purposively sampled respondents were categorized based on relative size and relative service offering, enabling comparison between size and type of business.
Thematic analysis of the interviews showed great similarities between firms, and that valuation approaches are commonly unstructured, situational and goal-oriented, focused on aggregated satisfaction, rarely including objective measurements, initiated by the consultant, conducted through dialogue and sometimes supported by questionnaires. It was concluded that the evaluation approaches are generally highly subjective and focused on capturing client perceptions. Discrepancies between respondents’ practices and scholarly suggested methods were identified, and analysis of variations concluded that smaller firms seem to have less developed evaluation approaches. The respondents’ rationales were described and categorized into; drivers, deterrents and obstacles. Potential catalysts for change, including price sensitivity, client demand and performance-based pricing were identified.
Whilst the study does provide requested empirical data and may facilitate improved comprehension of means to counteract intangibility to benefit clients and consultants - and hopefully increase public interest for these issues - further research is needed to nuance the findings, especially through capturing clients’ perspectives.
Keywords:
Management consulting, Evaluation, Knowledge Intensive Services, Customer satisfaction, Relationship management, Performance-based pricing
Table of contents
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Problem background 1
1.2 Research gap 3
1.3 Research purpose 4
1.4 Research question 6
1.5 Expected contributions & study delimitations 6
1.5.1. Expected theoretical contributions 6
1.5.2. Expected managerial contributions 6
1.5.3. Expected societal contributions 7
1.5.4. Study delimitations 7
2. Theoretical framework 8
2.1. Management consulting 8
2.1.1 Defining management consulting 8
2.1.2 Different roles of management consultants and reasons to hire them 9
2.2 Management consulting as a knowledge service 11
2.2.1 Knowledge-intensive firms and information asymmetries 12
2.2.2 Success fees 12
2.2.3 Criticism against management consulting 13
2.2.4 Defining value in service contexts and the service management perspective 14 2.3 Measuring value in consulting and the need for evaluation 15 2.3.1 Difficulties in the evaluation of consulting services 15
2.3.2 The need to evaluate consulting services 17
2.3.3 Potential evaluation benefits for clients 17
2.3.4 Potential evaluation benefits for consultants 18
2.4 Evaluation approaches mentioned in previous literature 19
2.4.1 Klein’s dimensions of success 19
2.4.2 Rynning’s list of success factors 19
2.4.3 Gable’s dimensions of engagement success 20
2.4.4 Phillips and Phillips’ “The Consultant’s Scorecard” 21
2.4.5 Motamedi’s evidence-based evaluation framework 23
2.4.6 Discussions and conclusions from the literature on consulting evaluation 24 2.5 Previous research on how management consulting engagements are evaluated in
practice 27
3. Scientific methodology 29
3.1 Choice of topic and pre-understandings 29
3.2 Research philosophy 30
3.2.1 Axiological assumptions 30
3.2.2 Ontological assumptions 30
3.2.3 Epistemological assumptions 31
3.3 Research approach 31
3.4 Research design 32
3.4.1 Research purpose 32
3.4.2 Research strategy 33
3.5 Literature search and review 34
4. Practical method 36
4.1 Qualitative data collection method 36
4.1.1 Interview structure 36
4.1.2 Sampling method 38
4.1.3 Sample overview 39
4.1.4 Interview guide 43
4.1.5 Interview technique and other practical aspects 45
4.1.6 Pilot study 46
4.2 Qualitative data analysis 47
4.3 Ethical considerations 47
5. Empirical findings 49
5.1. Structure of content 49
5.2. Findings 49
5.2.1 Extent of- and reasoning behind evaluation 49
5.2.2 Evaluation in practice 57
5.2.3 Performance-based pricing 69
5.2.4 Management consulting industry characteristics 74
6. Analysis and discussion 78
6.1 Evaluation approaches used 78
6.2 Evaluation approach reasoning 86
6.2.1 Drivers, obstacles and deterrents 86
6.2.2 Trends and potential catalysts of changes in evaluation 90 6.2.3 Condensation of reasoning and potential catalysts for changed evaluations 92
7. Conclusions 94
7.1 General conclusions 94
7.1.1 Evaluation approaches of small management consulting firms 94 7.1.2 Reasoning behind the applied evaluation approaches 95
7.2 Study contributions 97
7.2.1 Theoretical contributions 97
7.2.2 Managerial contributions 98
7.2.3 Societal contributions 98
7.2.4 Limitations and future research 99
8. Truth criteria 101
References 103
List of appendices
Appendix 1 - List of common abbreviations 109
Appendix 2 - Service lines of the European Management Consulting Market 110 Appendix 3 - Motamedi’s (2015) list of suggested procedures 111
Appendix 4 - Breakdown of sample distributions 112
Appendix 5 - Codebook for thematic analysis 113
Appendix 6 - Initial invitation-email sent to potential respondents 115
Appendix 7 - Email to participating companies 116
Appendix 8 - Interview guide 117
Appendix 9 - Summary of commonly suggested evaluation themes of scholars 119
List of figures
Figure 1 - Clustering of respondents 40
Figure 2 - Common evaluation approaches and instruments used by respondent firms 84 Figure 3 - Condensation of respondent reasoning and theoretical catalysts of change 93
List of tables
Table 1 - Gable’s (1996) A priori model dimensions and descriptions 20 Table 2 - Phillips & Phillips’ (2011) Levels of Project Measurement and Evaluation 21 Table 3 - Motamedi’s (2015) evidence-based evaluation framework 23
Table 4 - Sample overview 42
Table 5 - Main themes and objectives of the interview guide 44 Table 6 - Usage of surveys and/or questionnaires for evaluations of management
consulting engagements 83
1. Introduction
This chapter starts by providing a descriptive background of the management consulting industry and associated challenges inherent in the service offering itself as well as in its evaluation. Further, we will cover the current streams of academic research within the field in order to confirm a research gap and ensure the originality of the thesis. Moreover, we will present our motivations for the research purpose, reflecting why the study is practically needed and called upon in the given context. Thereafter, the research questions are stated and followed by the discussion on expected theoretical, managerial and societal contributions.
1.1 Problem background
During the last couple of decades, management consulting has been established as an important element of business (Kipping & Clark, 2012, p. 1). To remain competitive, contemporary organizations need to conduct daily operations while simultaneously keeping their knowledge and skills up to date with fast-moving contemporary concepts - why many choose to seek help from consultants to stay abreast (Retna, 2016, p. 185). According to Armbrüster & Glückler (2007, p. 1878), increased globalization of production, finance, and distribution expose firms to increasingly complex situations regarding procurement, logistics, organizational structure, marketing, and strategy, increasing the demand for change and consulting. Furthermore, due to global trends of outsourcing and re-engineering, transferring work to external specialists is an increasingly popular and now established approach to deal with intricate business situations (Furusten, 2013, p. 267).
As the extent of consultant work is ever-growing, many jobs previously held by in-house employees are now performed by external management consultants (Financial Times, 2017).
As emphasized by Kubr (2002, cited in Bronnenmayer et al., 2016, p. 2), the usage of management consulting services is often regarded as a part of daily operations for many medium- and large-sized companies. By regularly supporting top-level decision-makers in a large variety of sectors, the impact of management advisory services is undeniable (Kipping &
Clark, 2012, p. 1). Fincham and Clark (2002, p. 1, cited in Sturdy, 2011, p. 529) note that few people, in their roles as employees nor citizens, avoid the effects of consultancy-led initiatives, as management consulting has contributed to the development of the modern organization and that millions of people have had to adapt into new ways of working.
Even though not achieving the same growth rates as during the 1980s and 1990s massive expansion (Bronnenmayer et al., 2016, p. 2), the management consulting industry has seen exceptional growth during the past decades (Furusten & Werr 2005, p. 1). In 2019, the global management consulting market was estimated to reach USD 295,88 billion as of 2020 and was forecasted to increase by approximately USD 10 billion a year (Statista, 2019). In addition, new organizations have emerged to deliver advisory services, whilst traditional organizations such as auditing firms also have added advisory services offerings to their portfolios (Furusten
& Werr, 2005, p. 1).
Despite an extensive number of former clients claiming satisfaction and value derived from previous consultant projects, reflections of a more negative view did emerge within the mainstream business press during the early 2000s (Wright & Kitay, 2002, p. 272). Documented client impressions of management consultants are mixed. Whilst many vouch for their value
creation, others consider consultants as charlatans or smart alecks to preferably avoid (Kubr, 2002, p. 723).
One possible explanation of the ambiguity towards the value of consulting is the immense complexity of such knowledge-intensive services, being of a highly intangible nature, unique to each client’s need and likely to evolve during projects (Haverila et al., 2011, p. 1357), making their actual outcomes hard to predict before purchase (Bennett & Smith, 2004, p. 436).
Another aspect is the difficulty in evaluating the results provided, due to the troublesome task of correctly determining whether a certain business impact is a result of consultancy intervention itself or just caused by other variables in the business context (Alvesson, 2001, p.
866). Consequently, knowledge services are hard to define and measure, making it difficult to tell what actually has been delivered even after the implementation (Furusten & Werr, 2005, p.
266). One of the most influential approaches attempting to explain the challenges of the intangible nature of services, such as consultancy services, is the discipline of service management, as it partially emerged from the perspectives of business executives and consultants (Grönroos, 1994, p. 6). Despite thoroughly depicting how services generate value through close interaction between customers and providers, the theoretical concept of value remains ill-defined and vague (Grönroos & Voima, 2013, p. 134). Still, a broader term of value as “outcomes that make life easier or better for the client” (Miller et al., 2002, p. 3) is acknowledged by several service management researchers (Grönroos & Voima, 2013, p. 134).
This intangibility and complexity have amplified information asymmetries within the industry of management consulting, leaving clients in a dependent position due to their inferior knowledge of the service quality and character (Bennett & Smith, 2004, p. 436). Further, this knowledge asymmetry between clients and management consultants might lead to cooperation problems (Nikolova et al., 2008, p. 290) aligning with the potential problems related to principal-agent theories (Dawson et al., 2010, p. 145) as the structure of asymmetry entails the risk of opportunism at both ends of the deal timeline (Clark, 1993, p. 242). As knowledge- intensive services are results of co-production between clients and consultants (Løwendahl, 2000, p. 37, cited in Haverila et al., 2011, p. 1355), the client-consultant relationship and interactions are central elements of management consulting (Becker et al., 2015, p. 41). Clark (1995, p. 109) argues that consultants heavily rely on client impression management to create a positive perception of the consulting performance, by persuasive communication convincing clients that their provided services hold high quality. Common techniques are image creation through leveraging the reputation of the firm, top-class presentation skills and trademark consulting methodologies (Wright & Kitay, 2002, p. 272) acting as symbols to promote a successful and trustworthy impression among clients (Starbuck, 1992, p. 731).
Several scholars claim that the management consulting industry is on the cusp of disruption and starting to show signs of change - with new technology-focused competition, democratization of business knowledge and models, and ultimately increased consumer price sensitivity (Christensen et al., 2013; Kaplan 2017). According to Christensen et al. (2013), an enabling factor for disruption of the management consulting industry is the difficulty to measure performance and quality of the advice provided. The major incumbents have previously benefited from clients relying on brand and reputation acting as substitutes for proof of measurable results when choosing consulting firms, however as opacity is now eroding, competition is likely to become more dependent on quality and deliverables (Christensen et al., 2013). According to a study presented in Harvard Business Review (by Christensen et al., 2013), one respondent, a partner of a large consulting firm, anticipated that “the percentage of projects employing value-based pricing instead of per diem billing will go from the high single
digits to a third of the business within 20 years”. Similarly, according to Cardea AG & Pepper GmbH (2007, cited in Fleischer et al., 2014, p. 224), the use of success fees was seen increasing in the early 2000s. With regards to academic support for increasing success fees, previous research points to that success fees are usually explicitly wished for by clients and that, hence, success fees indeed will continue to be used (Fleischer et al., 2014, p. 242). The same authors also conclude that “skillfully constructed incentive schemes can serve as remedies for various problems of asymmetric information” (Fleischer et al., 2014, p. 242).
Conclusively, the size and influence of the management consulting industry is monumental and continually increasing. Whilst the achievements and impact of the industry have been documented, voices of criticism have been raised in the business press and by academics. Much of the skepticism has been directed to problems related to the intangibility and lack of consultant liability in relation to their analysis and recommendations. Following the increased competition and consumer awareness, attempts to counteract the risk of principal-agent related problems of opportunism and divergent incentives is gaining popularity and is expected to increase. In relation to the criticism and the increased demand for and application of performance-based pricing, comprehension of different approaches to measure delivered value and how to evaluate management consulting services should become increasingly significant, not only for the management consulting firms with increasing needs to tangibilize value and prove “success” to a greater extent but also for the purchasing organizations of both private and public sectors.
1.2 Research gap
Despite the size and relevance of the management consulting industry, the research and academic attention on the subject is surprisingly low (Bronnenmayer et al., 2016, p. 2). Many of the books and articles on the practice of management consulting are written by (ex)- consultants or are of disclosing kind with little to no scientific validity (Bronnenmayer et al., 2016, p. 2) and generally, the amount of empirical data on the actual practice of management consulting has been lacking (Appelbaum & Steed, 2005, p. 69).
Some research within the field of management consulting has focused on success factors (e.g.
Bronnenmayer et al., 2016; McLachlin, 1999), and academic focus has also been directed to the effects of the impression and reputation of consultants and their firms (e.g. Wright & Kitay, 2002; Clark, 1995; Starbuck, 1992). With regards to the evaluation of the services provided by the management consulting firms - there has been some research on the field of evaluation of services independent from management consulting (e.g. Gable, 1996; McClintock, 2003;
Moore & Tananis, 2009) and a restricted amount of research on evaluation of management consulting services specifically (Fleischer et. al. 2014; Sturdy, 2011; Motamedi, 2015).
With regard to the previously mentioned intangibility of consulting, the research field of service management approaches the challenges of concretizing value from services in general (Grönroos, 2017). As pointed out by prominent scholars in the field, the concept of value is still elusive and ill-defined with no consensus beyond “making life better or easier for the client” (Grönroos & Voima, 2013, p. 134). As the service management approach is putting its focus on customer perception of the service quality (Albrecht, 1988, cited in Grönroos, 1994, p. 6), Storbacka (1993, cited in Grönroos, 1994, p.10) claims that the discipline is turning myopic on the customer quality perception and satisfaction, overlooking the aspects of profitability and productivity. Although much attention has been directed at the phenomenon of impression management (Haverila et al., 2011; Wright & Kitay, 2002) as well as success
factors (Bronnenmayer et al., 2016), the theories of service management do not seem to have been applied to the industry of management consulting by scholars, nor has it been theoretically connected to the problems of measurement in the same context.
Despite that the post-purchase evaluation process is an essential aspect of the consulting engagements due to its impact on consecutive business, Haverila et al. (2011, p. 1355) claim
“the post-project evaluation of consulting seems to have attracted less research interest than its value might suggest”, pointing to that more contributions are needed within the research field of performance evaluation for management consulting, and that a research gap exists herein. Likewise, Motamedi (2015, p. 1) claims that research on consulting evaluation has not been a focal point within the field, remaining underdeveloped.
One study examining possible approaches to facilitate measurement of value created in consulting engagements is Fleischer et al. (2014, p. 242), concluding the necessity to complement the principal-agent theory, central to this study, by other theoretical perspectives.
However, since the work of Fleischer et al. (2014) has been limited to cases where performance-based fees were present, a broader study on measurement approaches could be argued for to further contribute to the contemporary research on the field. As for further research, the same authors argue for the need of investigating new national contexts as well as possible implications of size differences between consulting firms (Fleischer et al., 2014, pp.
242-243). As covered by Wright and Kitay (2002, pp. 275-276), larger consultancies showed to have distinct rhetoric on proving value added, accompanied by more formalized methods to measure and evaluate their projects. Whilst the scope of the previously mentioned authors’
interview sample was broad in terms of firm focus and there has been no study on whether small, strategy-focused consultancies are more or less inclined to formalized evaluation approaches. As strategy consulting is among the most challenging in terms of measuring and evaluating value, due to intangibility and poor isolation of the consultant efforts (Bennett &
Smith, 2004, p. 438), and provided the above research gaps - we deem this study as a potentially important contribution to the sparsely explored academic field of management consulting evaluation research.
1.3 Research purpose
Tranfield and Starkey (1998, p. 352) argue that a substantial part of the field of management research has lost its connection to the practitioner’s interests and that researchers need to act responsively to achieve relevant results. In order to ensure the practical relevance of this research, the purpose and research question has been founded on practical and contemporary circumstances along with the academic research gap identified for the relevant topic.
Whilst the industry of management consulting has been growing and now is an established and important element of contemporary business (Kipping & Clark, 2012, p. 1) as a measure to deal with intricate business problems (Furusten, 2013, p. 267), the research and academic attention to the industry and practices of management consulting has been disproportionately low (Bronnenmayer et al., 2016, p. 2; Appelbaum & Steed, 2005, p. 69). In relation to the need for further investigations and empirical evidence (suggested by Fleischer et al., 2014, pp. 242- 243) one of the elemental purposes of this thesis is to contribute to the overarching research field of management consulting and contribute to developed empiricism and understanding of evaluation practices in the management consulting industry.
As the industry is changing due to new market conditions including competition and increased price sensitivity (Christensen et al., 2013; Kaplan, 2017), the inability to distinctly tangibilize the values provided by management consulting services seems to be a facilitator of the disruption. The specific impact and value of management consulting services have been described as hard to measure (Alvesson, 2001, p. 866; Furusten & Werr, 2005, p. 266), and this intangibility and complexity of the management consulting services is seen as a contributing factor to client skepticism (Haverila et al, 2011, p. 1357). With the increasing demand for value-based billing (as emphasized by Christensen et al., 2013), the need to understand how value derived from management consulting engagements can be measured and demonstrated should become increasingly imperative.
Seen in relation to the academic contributions discussing the difficulty of measuring value of services and consulting, few studies have investigated how management consultants approach value measurement and evaluation. In the rare cases covering management consulting evaluation practices, and in the contexts where projects and engagements are evaluated, it is commonly done through a simple and subjective ex post-assessment (Haverila et al., 2011, p.
1366; Wright & Kitay, p. 2002, p. 274). This might be especially relevant for strategy-oriented projects with bottom-line criteria being even more challenging to assess, making subjective evaluation of consultants through satisfaction instruments a more feasible option (Bennett &
Smith, 2004, p. 438). Therefore, it would not be possible to investigate consultant evaluation approaches only focusing on the added value, as the satisfaction aspect seems to be more commonly applied. Although, Stahl (2018, p. 66) states that deeming consultant projects as successful only based on client satisfaction, i.e. without identifying actual impact, is questionable and controversial. Further, Ernst and Kieser (2002, p. 19) argue that client satisfaction and project success should not be considered synonymous. However, the concepts of generated impact and client satisfaction are undisputedly related, and therefore we argue for our research to cover both issues in order to gain a holistic view.
Despite Fleischer et al.’s (2014, p. 242) urge for empirical evidence from multiple nationalities and consulting company sizes, no attempts to study how Swedish management consulting firms approach evaluation of their project impact on the client’s organization has been conducted.
Although noteworthy, Nachum (1999) conducted a study that investigated how Swedish management consulting firms measure productivity, with a slightly similar narrative. However, as the study had an internal perspective on the input versus output of the consultants and without a focus on the subsequent value for the clients, we deem the study not to be sufficient to address the identified problem and purpose of our study. We therefore still argue for the relevancy of a study with such a national application, since the Swedish management consulting industry is among the most developed in Europe, constituting 0.95% of the country’s GDP back in 2010 (FEACO, 2011, p. 16). Also, recent and widespread criticism following the scandal upon the construction of the Nya Karolinska Sjukhuset (Svenska Dagbladet, 2018), even further indicates the importance of- and assumed societal desire for improved consulting assessments and evaluations in a Swedish context.
Hence, in relation to the increased relevance of the industry challenges and research gaps within the field, the main objective of this study is to investigate how small management consultant firms in Sweden approach measurement of value added to their clients and satisfaction with their services, but also to uncover the underlying rationale of the used approaches to enable fruitful insights and a deeper, holistic understanding of the topic.
1.4 Research question
Given the practical relevance and identified need for further research, the following research question was developed to address the research gap and the overall purpose of this research:
(1) How do small Swedish management consulting firms approach evaluation of their engagements in terms of client satisfaction and value generated within the client organization?
and;
(2) What is the rationale behind the eventual evaluation approach(es) used?
1.5 Expected contributions & study delimitations
1.5.1. Expected theoretical contributions
This study aims to provide theoretical contributions with several regards. First and foremost, since the research-based empirical data available on the practices of management consulting firms is relatively scarce, the ambition is to contribute to the research field in general. Aligning with the suggestions made by previous scholars, our research aims to provide empirical findings on consulting evaluation in (1) a new geographical context, and (2) for a new category of consulting firms (small-sized). In addition to the mere provision of data on how small management consulting firms approach evaluation, we also hope to contribute with perspectives on eventual implications of differences between firms.
By comparing the collected data on evaluation approaches with both descriptive and normative theories established in research, we hope to enable comparison between scholarly suggested best practices and how the small management consulting firms actually seem to evaluate their engagements.
1.5.2. Expected managerial contributions
One of the primary objectives of this study is to provide consulting firm managers with an academic perspective on the evaluation approaches of their firms. With this thesis, we hope to promote a more nuanced managerial understanding of; (1) best practices and scholarly suggestions on how evaluation of consulting engagements may be conducted, and (2) the potential implications of certain approaches - as well as ethical considerations of these potential implications. We also hope to enable a greater managerial understanding of (3) how their firms’
approach(es) differs from the approaches of peers, as well as from the literature.
Related to the many scholarly contributions on the alleged increased use of performance-based pricing, the study should also (4) contribute to the managerial understanding of if- and how values and effects from consulting engagements may be evaluated - and hence facilitate conscious decision making on the eventual usage of such pricing. A general, related objective for with regards to managerial- and consulting industry contributions of this study, is to provide a theoretical perspective on if- and how evaluation may counteract the alleged risks associated with intangibility.
We hope our contributions to these topics can benefit both representatives of consulting firms, as well as procurement departments and managers of client organizations. Despite being methodically focused on the comparisons of perceptions and practices of consulting firms, we
believe the questions investigated in our research with regards to how consulting services should be evaluated is equally relevant for clients interested in ensuring returns on their consulting expenses.
1.5.3. Expected societal contributions
We deem that our findings, analysis and conclusions not only could benefit the directly involved stakeholders of consulting engagements but also assist the public welfare and economy as a whole. If consulting engagements are successful in creating value for their clients, not only the client and consulting firm will prosper, but all external stakeholders as well. As previously mentioned, it is almost impossible to avoid the results of consulting engagements in modern society as we know it, neither as employees nor citizens. This is especially relevant in countries where consulting services constitute a relatively large part of GDP and employment. We hope that our contributions could raise public interest and understanding for the functions of management consulting and their offered services, but also shed a light on the potential methods to assess and scrutinize the value of such engagements.
1.5.4. Study delimitations
We believe that it is important to delineate the scope of our study in order to avoid possible misunderstandings. Our study has three main delimitations. The first concerns the definition of an evaluation approach in consulting engagements, by which interpretation may vary. In this thesis, we address the evaluation of management consulting engagements in terms of the eventual attempts or methods to measure and evaluate the impact and (monetary or qualitative) value brought to the client organization. Hence, the study does not concern the activities that consulting firms can conduct internally in order to subjectively assess their own efforts, e.g. in terms of organizational learnings or rate of chargeability.
Secondly, our sample exclusively contained representatives from small, strategy-oriented management consulting firms in Sweden. In order to delimit the screening, we reasoned that a firm with less than 5 employees would likely be of a more individualized consultancy structure, i.e. individual consultants working independently on their respective projects. Similarly, we set a maximum limit on 50 employees, as the European Commission (p. 8) defines entities with 50 or fewer employees and with less than EUR 10 million in turnover as small companies. As depicted in the introductory sections, strategy consulting is among the most challenging in terms of measuring and evaluating value, due to intangibility and poor isolation of the consultant efforts, motivating the relevance in striving to capture such a sample. In practice, however, the boundaries for different types of management consulting are blurred, which is why we decided to formulate the screening criteria as strategy-oriented. This implied that the screened companies should have an expressed focus on strategy (including implementation of strategy) and that other types of projects were regarded as approvable, as long as they represented minor elements of the total business offering.
Thirdly, we only investigate consulting engagement evaluations from the consulting firms’
perspectives. Hence, statements revolving clients’ opinions, demand and rationales remain speculative and require further research to become valid.
2. Theoretical framework
In this chapter, we do provide a theoretical foundation by presenting selected facts, theories, concepts and models related to the research topic. Firstly, we will cover the subject of management consulting, defining and describing the roles of management consultants and reasons to hire them. Thereafter, we will depict this advisory service as a knowledge service, with the associated challenges of intangibility, information asymmetries and the elusive concept of value. Subsequently, we will shed light on the needs and difficulties related to management consulting evaluation, examining benefits for both clients and consultants. After that, we present the proposed conceptualizations and models on consulting evaluation brought by previous scholars, also discussing and contrasting their common characteristics and differences. Lastly, we describe what previous academia has uncovered on management consulting evaluation in practice.
2.1. Management consulting
2.1.1 Defining management consulting
As underlined by Sturdy (2011, p. 523), “in order to assess the impact of management consultancy, it is important to clarify its nature and boundaries”. According to the same author, definitions of consultancy will always be problematic (Sturdy, 2011, p. 523). Emphasized by Retna (2016, p. 185), there is no commonly accepted definition of management consultancy, but that it is often defined based on the type of services being provided to the organization. In general, according to (Sturdy, 2011, p. 524), discussions on definitions can be helpful in revealing some of the dynamic and political issues involved regarding inclusion and exclusion.
A standard and useful reference in relation to inclusion or exclusion presents two main types of definitions (Kubr, 2002, pp. 3–4).
The first definition, often preferred by professional associations, recognizes management consulting as a special service in which distinct qualifications, training, and skills are required to describe and analyze client problems and advice solutions objectively and independently (Kubr, 2002, pp. 3–4), which is in line with regarding consultancy as a ‘distinctive occupation’
(Kitay & Wright, 2007, p. 1615). Here, consultancy knowledge is seen as a largely different sort that of managers, as consultants are specialists and advisors in organizational change, which is a more periodic concern to managers whose major focus is implementation (Armbrüster & Kipping, 2002, cited in Sturdy, 2011, p. 524).
The second definition is more inclusive, emphasizing that the practice of providing assistance to organizations can be done by all, regardless of the main occupation (Sturdy, 2011, p. 524).
For instance, as exemplified by Kubr (2002, p. 3); “...a manager can also act as a consultant if he or she decides to give advice and help to a fellow manager, or even to subordinates rather than directing them or issuing orders to them” (Kubr, 2002, p. 3). The two definitions clearly contradict each other, but however coexist and can, according to Sturdy (2011, p. 524) be selectively drawn upon.
One of the most commonly used and recurring definition of management consulting was formulated by Greiner and Metzger (1983, p. 7) and describe management consulting as;
“... an advisory service contracted for and provided to organizations by specially trained and qualified persons who assist, in an objective and independent manner, the client organization to identify management problems, analyze such problems, and help, when requested, in the implementation of solutions.”
According to Appelbaum and Steed (2005, p. 69), this definition provides important emphasis to the fact that management consultants are truly external to the organization, normally not directly replacing staff within organizations nor having direct power, which is line with the first definition provided by Sturdy (2011, p. 524). This conservative, advisory-service specific approach of defining management consulting, and specifically the definition provided by Greiner and Metzger (1983, p. 7) will be used in this thesis. Following Retna’s (2016, p. 185) attention to that the definition of management consulting often depends on the type of services being provided to organizations, distinctions can be made by segments to visualize the type of services management consultants provide.
In their ‘Survey of the European management consultancy 2010/2011’, the organization FEACO (European Federation of Management Consultancies Associations) introduce a segmentation for how the European management consulting market can be categorized based on assignment type (FEACO, 2011, pp. 11-12). The segments; “Consulting, Development and Integration, Outsourcing and Other Services” were presented, under which the Consulting- segment was divided into the two sub-segments; Business Consulting (BC), and Information Technology Consulting (ITC) (FEACO, 2011, pp. 11-12). The same distinction is made by Lassala et al. (2016, p. 1367), underlining that the consulting industry includes two distinct service categories: business consulting and technological consulting, where the former includes all consulting services that relate to areas of operations management, strategy, organization, and change management, and the latter includes all technology-consulting services. As of FEACO’s (2011, pp. 11-12) description, the consulting segment consists of services that “[...]
help private and public organizations to analyze and redefine their strategies, to improve the efficiency of their business operations and to optimize their technical and human resources”
(FEACO, 2011, pp. 11-12). In a recent breakdown of the types of services provided by management consultants, FEACO (2019, p. 18) presents service lines of the European management consulting markets, under seven major segments; Strategy, Operations, Sales &
Marketing, Finance & Risk Management, People & Change, Technology, and Other Services (see Appendix 2 for descriptions of the respective segments).
According to Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory (cited in Christensen et al., 2013),
“[...] at the traditional strategy-consulting firms, the share of work being classic strategy has been steadily decreasing and is now about 20%, down from 60% to 70% some 30 years ago”, suggesting that the distribution and focus of services provided from management consulting firms are changing. Referring back to the emphasis made by Retna (2016), on the absence of a common definition of management consulting, and that it is often defined based on the type of services being provided to the organization (Retna 2016, p. 185), the definition of management consulting used in this thesis will be in accordance to the conservative view provided by Greiner and Metzger (1983, p. 7), i.e. external to the organization, as we will focus on the strategic advisory-services.
2.1.2 Different roles of management consultants and reasons to hire them
Canato and Giangreco (2011, p. 233) summarize previous literature in an attempt to explain the different roles management consultants can take on in engagements. One role emphasized was that management consultants can serve as information sources, providing information
from an outside perspective, for instance regarding the industry, assessment of performance relative to competitors as well as enhancement of decision making (Canato & Giangreco, 2011, p. 233). Further, the authors emphasize that management consultants often are standard setters, in winging fashionable innovations, providing a source of legitimacy for change as well as controlling the diffusion of new ideas in the market (Canato & Giangreco, 2011, p. 233).
Management consultants might also be knowledge brokers (for instance transferring insights from one industry to a new one) or knowledge integrators (facilitating change through supporting the integration of knowledge) (Canato & Giangreco 2011, pp. 233-236).
With regard to knowledge, several scholars have emphasized the central function of providing new knowledge in engagements (e.g. Ernst & Kieser, 2002, p. 8; Sturdy, 2011, p. 520), however, they claim that it remains an issue for empirical studies to find out to what extent knowledge actually is brought into play in consulting projects. A somewhat more tangibilizing example of the use is provided by Werr and Stjernberg (2003, p. 896) in their study on management consulting knowledge systems. The authors highlight that an important aspect of how management consultants (especially junior consultants) communicate and broker knowledge is the methods and tools used. The methods and tools such as different activities, templates, process phases, and so on, provide a shared framework and terminology not only facilitating the exchange of experience (i.e. knowledge) in face-to-face interaction, but also for the structuring and documentation of the interactions and different cases, which in turn facilitate recognizable and comparable documentation (Werr & Stjernberg, 2003, p. 896).
Consultants as providers of expertise through ideas, frameworks, and processes are also mentioned in Sturdy’s (2011, p. 520) summary of consulting activities and impacts.
As for functions of management consultants, not necessarily reliant on the transfer of new knowledge to the client company, Ernst and Kieser (2002, pp. 10-11) explain that management consultants take on roles representing both official and more latent functions. One of the traditional functions is said to be ‘providing temporary management capacity’ and that consultants can help clients increase managerial capacity or conduct assignments for which it would not be worth increasing internal, permanent management capacity (Ernst & Kieser, 2002, p. 10). The management consulting function of providing extra resources is also mentioned in Sturdy’s (2011, p. 520) summary of consulting functions. In these capacity- increasing hires, the client organization could, in theory, perform the respective task themselves, but does however lack the capacity to do it, meaning that knowledge transfer is not the purpose in such assignments (Ernst & Kieser, 2002, p. 10). Another function, not necessarily calling for knowledge transfer to management, provided by the authors, is
‘communication and stimulation of acceptance after top management has decided on a change process’ whereby the client use the consultants’ well-tried presentation techniques and rhetoric to overcome eventual change resistance within organizations, in order to facilitate the implementation process (Ernst & Kieser, 2002, pp. 10-11).
While the latter function provides a narrow but somewhat official function, the authors emphasize that management consultants might also play more latent functions such as
‘providing weapons for politics’, as “consultants are instrumental for increasing the power of groups of managers to have their projects accepted and to undermine the projects of rivaling groups” (Ernst & Kieser, 2002, p. 11). The acceptance of such roles and functions is dependent on that management consultants tend to promote the careers of the managers sponsoring them and let the client (manager at the host organization) take credit in success, whilst the consultant might also take the role of scapegoat when projects are less successful (Ernst & Kieser, 2002, p. 11). The political role of legitimation that management consultants may play in client
organizations is further accentuated in Sturdy’s (2011, p. 520) summary of traditional consultant activities and their managerial impact, where consultants are claimed to provide an outsider or expert perspective and may help rationalize and legitimate decisions.
Ernst and Kieser (2002, p. 25) provide a broader explanation of the receptivity towards new management fashion tends to increase when organizations see their competitors improve efficiency or quality. Clients hence turn to consultancies based on “the impression that consultants are necessary to keep up with competitors that increasingly engage consultants”
creating a dependency on consultancy firms (Ernst & Kieser, 2002, p. 25). Similar statements are provided by Retna (2016, p. 186) in his attempt to explain the nature of why consultants are appointed, speculating in that companies in contexts (such as geographical) puts a premium on seeking ‘best practices’: “engage management consultants because it is fashionable and shows that they are progressive and committed to improvement” (Retna, 2016, p. 186). The author further underlines that such reasons to hire consultants might not be something companies would openly admit and that hence, academics should be aware that the clients’
stated reasons for hiring consultants may be only part of the story. As for further reasons to why clients seek the services of consultants, Soriano (2001, p. 40) summarizes some of the motivations, such as, that companies; seek suitable information to ensure that the best possible decisions are made; aim to resolve a specific or general problem that the firm may be facing and seek independent opinions on a previously undertaken course of action.
Reasonably, the reasons to hire consultants should be related to the actual impact consultants might have. An interesting input to the discussion on the value and actual deliveries of consulting firms is Armbrüster and Glücker’s (2007, p. 1881) emphasis on that the work and politics of management consulting produce transaction costs that experienced clients allow for when hiring consultants. The transaction costs belong to the risks of change which need to be compared with the risks of procrastination, and whilst experienced clients (having previously used consultants) “are aware of the risks of general project failure, but they compare them with the risks of procrastination” (Armbrüster & Glücker, 2007, p. 1881).
The consultancies’ own web pages and brochures often claim that consultants can provide insightful and practical advice and assist clients in complex processes of implementing change (Wright & Kitay, 2002, p. 272), and accordingly, there is no shortage of clients validating that consultants do provide valuable services. Redman and Allen (1993, p. 51), for instance, found notably few complaints from British managers, and most of the managers interviewed reported that their appointed consultants gave value for money and added value to their respective organization. In the light of that the consultancies’ development of relations, networks and repeat business represent some of the most reliable and important ways for consultancies to expand their business (Bennett & Smith, 2004, p. 457), it is not difficult to see that the actual performance and client satisfaction with their service is absolutely necessary.
2.2 Management consulting as a knowledge service
Upon discussing the relevancy and application of business research, Gummesson (2000, cited in Bryman & Bell, 2017, p. 27) regard both business academicians and management consultants as ‘knowledge workers’, which in different ways approach the connection between theory and practice: “supported by theoretical fragments, management consultants contribute to business practice, while academicians, supported by fragments of business practice, contribute to theory”. In other words, management consultants seem to be knowledge workers reliant on, at least to some extent, existing theory and expertise.
As covered in section 2.1.2, one reason to hire management consultants could be new knowledge, but scholars (e.g. Ernst & Kieser, 2002, p. 8; Sturdy, 2011, p. 520) also claim that empirical studies are needed to determine to what extent knowledge is actually employed in the consulting projects. Hence, the factual value of such services could be uncertain. Thus, theories regarding knowledge-intensive firms, associated challenges, potential remedies, criticism and service value are covered in the following sections.
2.2.1 Knowledge-intensive firms and information asymmetries
According to Starbuck (1992, p. 715), firms that deliver services where knowledge and expertise is used as the main input source are to be considered as knowledge-intensive firms (hereafter abbreviated as KIFs). Another central characteristic is brought up by Hedberg (1990, cited in Alvesson, 2001, p. 865), claiming that KIFs are said to have a “capacity to solve complex problems through creative and innovative solutions” in order to create results.
Although, the concept of knowledge is just as ambiguous as the definition of value (Winther, 1987, cited in Starbuck, 1992, p. 716) and therefore, the monetary value of knowledge is elusive and unreliable (Starbuck, 1992, p. 716). Further, Alvesson (2001, p. 883) claims that the work of KIFs also tends to be intensive in ambiguity, making rhetoric- and image regulation abilities and client relationship management essential. Therefore, the intensiveness of KIFs’ services do not only comprise knowledge, but also the various aspects needed in order to claim for the pursuance of knowledge to be successful (Alvesson, 2001, p. 883).
As management consulting offers an intangible service carried out through a consultant-client relational exchange, it becomes difficult for the client to judge its quality on beforehand, but also to evaluate the adequacy of the service after it has been received (Bennett & Smith, 2004, p. 436). Thus, knowledge services are hard to define and measure, making it difficult to tell what actually has been delivered even after the implementation (Furusten & Werr, 2005, p.
266). Hence, the industry of management consulting is inherently exposed to information asymmetries (Clark, 1993, p. 235) meaning that consultants possess more knowledge of the service quality and outputs than clients do (Bennett & Smith, 2004, p. 436). Although contrasting some of the arguments on the knowledge asymmetries, Armbrüster & Glücker (2007, p. 1875) emphasize that since most large corporations have appointed major consulting firms and that ex-consultants are often hired (bringing knowledge on the capabilities and limitations of consultancy for executive positions), some client executives tend to be experienced with consultants and should be considered as knowledgeable clients.
However, due to this information asymmetry, and aligning with agency theory, professional agents such as management consultants are in a position of power over their principal’s ability to evaluate the efforts of the agent (Dawson et al, p. 145). When present, two types of opportunistic behavior can occur: ‘adverse selection’ and ‘moral hazard’ (Clark, 1993, p. 242) Adverse selection is the result of the buyer’s inability to on beforehand assess the seller characteristics or contingencies, and post-contractual moral hazard is the outcome of lacking transparency that lies in the nature of services, making evaluation of services difficult (Clark, 1993, p. 242).
2.2.2 Success fees
Despite the challenges with information asymmetries inherent in management consulting services, there are solutions by which consultancy clients can gain control and govern the consultant in both terms of the consulting process and its outputs (Bennett & Smith, 2004, p.
438). One mechanism for such control is the use of contingent fees (Clark, 1993, p. 242). So- called success fees are contingent and intended to ensure that the consultants themselves have a strong interest in reaching the project objectives set by the company and that they are willing to be measured by these requirements (Rosenbaum 2013, cited in Fleischer et al., 2014, p. 242).
In his study on contractual formats for knowledge-intensive services, Rosenbaum (2013, p.
418) underlines that clients can use contractual safeguards such as success fees to mitigate the underlying threat of service provider opportunism.
Fleischer et al. (2014, p. 242), conclude that incentive schemes between the client and consultant could actually act as countermeasures for various problems of information asymmetries. Furthermore, Kubr (2002, p. 689) explains that the setting of success fees, in a perfect world, “could be the ideal way of remunerating and motivating consultants: the consultant is not paid for spending time at the client’s offices, or for writing reports, but for achieving bottom-line results”. This aligns with the early description by Moe (1984, p. 763):
“General principal-agent models of hierarchical control have shown that, under a range of conditions, the principal’s optimal incentive structure for the agent is one in which the latter receives some share of the residual in payment for his efforts, thus giving him a direct stake in the outcome.”. Subsequently, payment agreements contingent on outcomes might primarily attract consulting firms confident in the impact of their services and abilities to reach given goals (Stahl, 2018, p. 49). Further, the use of success fees can be seen as a marketing device, signaling a readiness to perform and being evaluated (Schweizer et al., 2009, p. 406) and a willingness to take part in the associated project risks (Stahl, 2018, p. 52).
Despite these potential advantages, there are also disadvantages and challenges associated with contingent remuneration models. For example, success fees could risk misdirecting consultant incentives towards attaining short-term goals, being harmful to the client business in the long run (Ernst & Kieser, 2012, cited in Stahl, 2018, p. 54). Also, it generally implies higher costs for the client. The usage of contractual control in management consulting engagements seems to correlate with the relative price of engagements since the chance for (clients/ consultants) using weaker forms of contractual control increases as the cost of the assignment decreases and the duration increases (Bennett & Smith, 2004, p. 456), whilst it has also been confirmed that
“increasing duration and cost is associated with significantly increased use of more specific contracts” (Bennett & Smith, 2004, p. 457). Generally, the use of success fees for consulting engagements that were seen increasing in the early 2000s (Cardea AG & Pepper GmbH, 2007, cited in Fleischer et al., 2014, p. 224), will continue to be used (Fleischer et al., 2014, p. 242) and generally, the use of success fees in the management consulting industry is expected to increase (Christensen et al., 2013). As for the years of 2018-2019, the adoption of success fees in European management consulting engagements was seen increasing with roughly 9 percent (FEACO, 2019, p. 17).
2.2.3 Criticism against management consulting
Whilst knowledge asymmetries and principal agent-related uncertainties extend over several service industries, a great deal of criticism has been directed at the management consulting industry specifically (Wright & Kitay, 2002, p. 272). According to Clark and Fincham (2002, cited in Schweizer et al., 2009, p. 394), the image of consulting is contradictory, or as expressed by Wooldridge (1997, cited in Schweizer et al., 2009, p. 394), “The management consulting business is a tale of mystery and imagination. Nobody seems to know quite what it is, let alone whether it delivers value for money”.
The common accusations made towards the management consulting industry can, according to Stahl (2018, p. 19), be summarized into four categories, namely “(1) lack of value creation and especially lack of responsibility for the implementation of recommendations; (2) an exclusive focus on securing follow-up business instead of solving clients’ problems; (3) selling partner capacities but having projects executed by inexperienced juniors; and (4) impression management – blowing up rather trivial advice by use of jargon”. For the first category, once again, the associated challenges of intangibility are present. As the management consulting service consists of giving advice, it lacks a physical existence upon which objective and commonly shared criteria otherwise could be used to judge its quality and value (Ernst &
Kieser, 2002, p. 19). Subsequently, the intangible nature of the service becomes an enabler of impression management (Alvesson, 2001, p. 870) being “the manipulation and regulation of images relating to client perceptions of the service delivered” (Clark & Salaman, 1998, p. 19).
Conclusively, there are great challenges in determining the quality and value of management consulting projects. In addition, the concept of value might be unclear in itself, and will therefore be covered in the following section.
2.2.4 Defining value in service contexts and the service management perspective
One of the most influential approaches attempting to explain the challenges of the intangible nature of services, such as consultancy services, is the discipline of service management, as it partially emerged from the perspectives of business executives and consultants (Grönroos, 1994, p. 6). Albrecht (1988, cited in Grönroos, 1994, p. 6) presents an early definition: “Service management is a total organizational approach that makes the quality of service, as perceived by the customer, the number one driving force for the operations of the business”. However, Storbacka (1993, cited in Grönroos, 1994, p. 10) claims that the discipline is turning myopic on customer quality perception and satisfaction, overlooking the aspects of profitability and productivity. Despite thoroughly depicting how services generate value through close interaction between customers and providers, the theoretical concept of value remains ill- defined and vague (Grönroos & Voima, 2013, p. 134). Still, a broader term of value as
“outcomes that make life easier or better for the client” (Miller et al., 2002, p. 3) is acknowledged by several researchers (Grönroos and Voima, 2013, p. 134).
Undoubtedly, the value of services is challenging to evaluate. Management consulting services are no exception, as Lassala et al. (2016, p. 1368) claim that consulting services are credence services, which are hard to evaluate both during and after their performance. Further, the same authors underline that the quality of the client-consultant relationship becomes of even greater importance due to the credence quality nature of advisory services. According to Ernst and Kieser (2002, p. 12), the long-term objective of consultancies is to maximize client satisfaction, as satisfied clients are key to extended cooperation and new assignments. However, the authors also claim that good client relationships do not automatically imply high quality and success of the consultancy.
In his book about management consulting, Kubr (2005, p. 4) describes the advisory service and defines the creation of value by stating that management consulting is “transferring to clients knowledge required for managing and operating businesses and other organizations” and, “in order to bring value for the client, the transferred knowledge must enable the target business to become more effective”. Yet, the term value is still elusive (Stahl, 2018, p. 58) and today, it is more grounded in individual perceptions and appreciation than by monetary measures (Owusu-Manu et al., 2012, p. 366). In the context of management consulting, some scholars claim that measuring value is challenging (Clark, 1993; Glückler & Armbrüster, 2003; Mohe
& Seidl, 2011) while others argue for it to be almost impossible (Ernst & Kieser, 2002; Sturdy, 2011).
As consultancy services are inherently intangible, purchasers of such services have a challenging task of assessing the quality of the service offered (Haverila et al., 2011, p. 1356).
Consequently, the buyer’s part tends to seek more tangible, concrete measures to base their assessment on (Aaker, 1991, cited in Haverila et al., 2011, p. 1356). In the more demand-driven and highly developed markets of consulting, clients are only willing to pay for the received value and not for the costs driven by the consultants’ salaries and related expenses (Kubr, 2002, p. 694). Kubr (2002, p. 694) also states that clients might be willing to pay fees exceeding the costs provided that the value received is high, but also that clients naturally will resent paying for low-quality services, regardless of the actual cost. Conclusively, and as stated by Stahl (2018, p. 695), “the time when a consultant could say “I am a professional and this is the price of my time” is gone”. Consulting professionals will have to assess both client satisfaction and the added value of their services and discuss these issues with their clients in order to prevent misunderstandings and client dissatisfaction with the relationship between value and price (Stahl, 2018, p. 695).
2.3 Measuring value in consulting and the need for evaluation
2.3.1 Difficulties in the evaluation of consulting services
Despite the broad use of management consultants, assessment of their impact may be difficult (Wright & Kitay, 2002, p. 271; Ernst & Kieser 2002, p. 16; Bennett & Smith, 2004, p. 438;
Haverila et al., 2011, p. 1357). The difficulties of measuring the value created by consultants might be due to; “(a) it is intangible, (b) there are too many changes happening at once to isolate the effects of any one change, or (c) the change involves a long time frame and the effects are not immediately apparent” (Wright & Kitay, 2002, p. 275). With regard to the latter, (c), and the fact that eventual changes and strategies suggested by consultants are not immediately apparent, Ernst and Kieser (2002, p. 20) highlight that the phenomenon of temporal indeterminability means that some consequences of the consulting engagement might not become evident until long after its finish and that clients hence have difficulties assessing when or whether the impact will show, obstructing evaluation.
Many other potential reasons for why evaluation might be lacking has been presented by scholars. In an elaborate and frequently quoted (e.g. by Fleischer et al., 2014, p. 223; Stahl, 2018, p. 62) review on the field of consulting evaluation, Ernst (2002, p. 83f., cited in Deelmann & Mohe, 2006, p. 161) emphasizes that formal evaluation might not be commonly used in subjective post-project evaluations due to the considerable efforts required to produce them. The emphasis on time as a contributing factor to why evaluations might be of low priority is further underlined by Wright and Kitay (2002, p. 274), claiming that pressures to complete projects and move on seems to be preventing consultants from undertaking more detailed evaluations of their projects.
Furthermore, due to that consultants fulfill unofficial functions such as playing roles (e.g.
justifying previous business decisions), formal evaluation might be difficult in some cases, and generally, the evaluation processes are said to be conducted on the basis of a communication process on which the consultants try to influence as much as possible (Ernst, 2002, p. 83f., cited in Deelmann & Mohe, 2006, p. 162), indicating that evaluations are often affected by the interests of stakeholders, impairing the objectivity. An example of how evaluation is affected
