The nature of academic consultancy and its effectiveness in organisational problem solving

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Chris Owen, Senior Teaching Fellow, Aston Business School

Growing need for consultancy services

At a time when the government spending on Consultancies is rapidly increasing, and concerns being raised over procurement of “vision, purpose and narrative” services from big consultancies at a hefty price (a series of articles published in Financial Times in 2020 have focused on government’s spending on external consultants, for example see FT articles dated 29 January, 17 April, 19 August in year 2020), which ultimately did not produce the intended results including the failure of programmes such as “test-and-trace”, we ask whether this can be an opportunity to rethink the role of academic researchers as trusted advisors and problem solvers, as an alternative to commercial consultants? After all academic research is about scientific advancement and there is ample evidence of governments commissioning University-based researchers to solve urgent problems such as the recent development of Covid-19 vaccine. But such engagement tends to be focused in the hard sciences (natural sciences) domain as opposed to soft sciences (social sciences), which includes management research and consultancy.

In the UK, there is growing scrutiny and apprehension over government’s expenditure on consultancy firms, particularly over the recent years. For example, it is estimated that Brexit related spending on big consultancies increased by 20% in 2019 and the Pandemic has created new opportunities for consultants. In general, it has been common practice for governments and private organisations alike to procure knowledge and expertise through consultancies large and small. We ask whether consultancies are the only source of advisory or can academic researchers fill this gap?

Why do clients like working with Commercial Consultants?

Organisations engage with consultants for a wide variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is to achieve results at speed. This may mean access to more capacity and ‘horse-power’ to add to a problem situation, or its access to knowledge and expertise that may accelerate the path to the solution. One of the key differences between commercial and academic consulting can be this issue of speed. Historically, academics work at a slower timescale than commercial firms. Research is inherently slower moving and can take years rather than months. This is not to say that academics cannot work at speed, but rather that the normal ‘clock-speed’ of academic research is slower than that of commercial consultants. Some Business Schools in the UK are already explicitly running academic consultancy operations but how far can Universities assemble teams of academic-consultants at the pace a commercial consultancy can deliver to address an immediate need for a client organisation is a moot point.

What makes Academic Consulting different from Commercial Consultancy?

The successful delivery of an academic consulting project is dependent on harnessing the subject matter expertise of academic researchers (sometimes cross disciplinary) which is perhaps not commercially available. As well as solving a problem for a particular organisation, researchers are motivated by the need to create new knowledge through a rigorous methodology. Whereas commercial consultancies perhaps are less focused on the method of delivery and are more focused on the results. Creating new knowledge is the quintessence of academic pursuit and therefore an inseparable part of academic consulting engagements. Whilst the clients are more inclined for finding solutions to problems at hand, often times it can be burdensome or undue commitment of their resources to focus more on the process of finding solutions (how) rather than the solution itself (what).

Literature indicates that, there are three broadly accepted models of consultation as follows (Schein, 1990):

  • Purchase-of-expertise which advocates that clients seek consultant’s independent perspective on specific challenges with less focus on client relationship and provision of expertise in a detached manner.
  • The doctor-patient model which suggests that the consultant employs a diagnostic approach to study the issues within a client’s organisation.
  • The process consultation model views the consultant as a facilitator with the client actually providing much of the relevant expertise.

There is some evidence of prior research in the domain specific to academic consultancy, for example Ormerod (1996) presents a reflective account of the dichotomy between consultants and academics in their motivations, outlook and behaviour and argues that there is need for synergy to be obtained between consultancy and academic activities.

Primarily, academic consulting assignments are often undertaken for a short period of time and are structured differently compared to commercial consultancies. There might be no in-house or off-the-shelf tools and solutions such as the ones available to consulting firms. Furthermore, an academic-consultant might appear uncompetitive compared to intellectual teams that create fundamentally new ideas on the basis of heterogeneous and profound knowledge that might be unattainable by a single researcher (Nenko & Basov, 2012).

Action research: A possible candidate for delivering successful academic consulting projects

How then can academic researchers be engaged in solving an organisational problem whilst maintaining the rigorous requirements of research. Action Research can be a potential candidate for delivering successful academic consulting projects which meets the double objective of creating new knowledge by answering a research question, as well as fulfilling a practical need for an organisation simultaneously. Action research can be understood as a cyclical method where the researcher primarily enters a real-world problem situation, conducts a structured inquiry so as to improve it, by involving participants from the organisation. Simultaneously, both the researcher and participants start to make sense of the situation with the help of the declared framework and methodology, consequently delivering improvements. The procedure can be repeated in a sequence of new research cycles generating new learning to further improve the situation. Ultimately, the researcher leaves the improved situation and reports the findings. It is a mode of clinical research distinct from non-obtrusive observation where the researcher is detached from the problem situation. Another form of action research also called collaborative management research is constructed typically out of practitioner perceptions of key issues, and out of key issues that emerge out of the themes when issues are analysed. A practical way to deliver such academic consultancy projects is through University-Industry partnerships. For example, a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) scheme sponsored by Innovate UK, is a well-known route for engaging academic researchers in addressing strategic challenges faced by companies through a fixed term funded project.

Why might clients benefit from working with academic consultants?

Some clients are distrustful of commercial consultancies. There are various reasons for this including the concern that they may be looking for opportunities to ‘sell on’ and prolong their time with the client in order to maximise their revenue, even when this is not really necessary. There may be a perception that academic consultants are inherently more objective and dispassionate. Their agenda is primarily research driven and hence they are more likely to give unbiased and honest feedback to the client. With experience working in academic consulting projects, we have noticed that researchers are seen as honest brokers of knowledge compared to commercial consultants who are perceived to have a profit motive.

A great management theorist and consultant, Russell Ackoff, distinguished commercial from an academic-led consultancy calling academic researchers Educators as opposed to Consultants – “A consultant goes in with a solution. He tries to impose it on a situation. An educator tries to train the people responsible for the work to work it out themselves. We don’t pretend to know the way to get the answer” (Stern, 2007)

Can academic consultants play a wider role?

In academic literature there are calls for producing knowledge in the context of application, also termed as Mode 2 Research, as opposed to Mode 1 which is academic, investigator-initiated and discipline-based knowledge production. Also, there is a need for further empirical studies on how the work of individuals within consultancies unfolds and how knowledge reuse attempts and challenges may unfold across organizations as a whole.

Despite the limitations, there is a potential wider role for academic consultants in meeting the needs of clients who would ordinarily turn to commercial consultants for solutions. The question is, can academic consultants organise themselves to operate in a manner that can work for these clients, particularly during these times of uncertainty when the need for organisational change and renewal is more than ever?

References

Nenko, O. and Basov, N. (2012) Understanding Knowledge Creation : Intellectuals in Academia, the Public Sphere and the Arts. Amsterdam: Brill

Ormerod, R. J. (1996) ‘Combining management consultancy and research’, Omega, (1), p. 1.

Schein, E.H. (1990), "A general philosophy of helping: process consultation'', Sloan Management Review, Vol.31 No. 3, pp. 57-64.

Stern, S. (2007). Anti-guru of joined-up management. The Telegraph, 8 Feb 2007. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2803955/Anti-guru-of-joined-up-management.html