The Complexity of Consultancy

The Complexity of Consultancy PDF Author: Nicholas Sarra
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100064412X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Consultancy is a lucrative industry dependent on the production and use of tools and techniques which hold out the promise of success for the organisations it supports: transformation, or greater efficiency and effectiveness, perhaps even culture change. However, a critical and important question is whether these promises are fulfilled in everyday practice in organisations. Is it possible at all for consultants to predict and control the changes that their clients ask for? This volume reframes the role of consultants from detached observers wielding a stable body of knowledge useful in all contexts, to that of skilled participants in the conscious and unconscious processes of organisational life. In this book, one of three in a series looking at complexity and management, the expert authors bring together their experiences to provide vibrant accounts of how to lead in everyday organisational situations using practical judgement. The book includes a brief historical introduction to complexity and leadership, real-world narratives illustrating concrete dilemmas in the workplace, and a concluding chapter that draws together the practical and theoretical implications. With both theoretical grounding and practical insights from managers and consultants in leading firms, this is an ideal resource for executives and students on leadership development and talent management programmes, as well as those undertaking higher education courses in leadership and consulting.

The Complexity of Consultancy

The Complexity of Consultancy PDF Author: Nicholas Sarra
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100064412X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 163

Get Book Here

Book Description
Consultancy is a lucrative industry dependent on the production and use of tools and techniques which hold out the promise of success for the organisations it supports: transformation, or greater efficiency and effectiveness, perhaps even culture change. However, a critical and important question is whether these promises are fulfilled in everyday practice in organisations. Is it possible at all for consultants to predict and control the changes that their clients ask for? This volume reframes the role of consultants from detached observers wielding a stable body of knowledge useful in all contexts, to that of skilled participants in the conscious and unconscious processes of organisational life. In this book, one of three in a series looking at complexity and management, the expert authors bring together their experiences to provide vibrant accounts of how to lead in everyday organisational situations using practical judgement. The book includes a brief historical introduction to complexity and leadership, real-world narratives illustrating concrete dilemmas in the workplace, and a concluding chapter that draws together the practical and theoretical implications. With both theoretical grounding and practical insights from managers and consultants in leading firms, this is an ideal resource for executives and students on leadership development and talent management programmes, as well as those undertaking higher education courses in leadership and consulting.

The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers

The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783319498201
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Management Consultancy Insights and Real Consultancy Projects

Management Consultancy Insights and Real Consultancy Projects PDF Author: Graham Manville
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317102061
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
The field of management consultancy research has grown rapidly in recent years. Fuelled by the drivers of complexity and uncertainty, a growing number of organizations – both profit and third sector alike – are looking at management consultancy to assist in their aims for development and change. Consultants have become a common feature in organizational change initiatives, involved in both providing advice and in implementing ideas and solutions. However, despite this growing recognition and influence, management consultancy is still often misunderstood or criticized for its lack of theoretical underpinning. The book seeks to address these issues by offering applied theoretical insights from academics that both teach and practice management consultancy. Written by recognized experts in their field, the contributors combine original insights with authoritative analysis. Uniquely, this book identifies emerging themes with critical discourse and provides rich empirical case study evidence to show the reader how management consultancy projects are implemented. Real-world international consultancy projects are featured as written up cases featuring organizations from multi-national corporations to the public sector. Written for graduate level managers or those who have practical leadership experience, this book will enable readers to apply management consultancy models beyond a classroom context

An Introduction to Management Consultancy

An Introduction to Management Consultancy PDF Author: Marc Baaij
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446296830
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
Whether you are looking to build on your management studies or experience of working in business, you are likely to have come across management consultancy and will need a clear and concise introduction to this area to help you understand its practices and techniques in order to hire and implement management consultancy in the future. This text provides you with these essentials for success in your studies and later industries when working with and not just for consultancy firms. The text is built around learning objectives to empower your understanding of the 'what', 'how', 'when' and 'why' at macro and micro levels of management consultancy and its stakeholders, and provides you with engaging real life examples and extra web materials for study. As well as full courses on management consultancy, this text will be invaluable to your management knowledge and skill-set across strategy, change, analytics, problem-solving, solution implementation and decision-making as applied by the world's top management consulting firms, such as McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company. Visit the companion website www.sagepub.co.uk/baaij Lecturer’s resources Lecturer’s guide Teaching notes per chapter Answer guidance to end-of-chapter questions in book Suggested discussion questions Suggested small group assignments Suggested small group field project Lecture slides Option 1: provide all figures of the book on PowerPoint slides Option 2: create complete PowerPoint presentations for each chapter Exercises Exam questions Discussion forum Student resources Templates for developing logical structures Web resources Consultancy publications Consultancy web site, career page Job application preparation services Consultancy institutions

Systems Thinking in Europe

Systems Thinking in Europe PDF Author: R.B. Blackham
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461537487
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
The theme ofthe conference at which the papers in this book were presented was'Systems Thinking in Europe'. Members of the United Kingdom Systems Society (UKSS) were conscious that the systems movementflourishes notonly in the UK, America and the Antipodes, but also in continental Europe, both East and West, and in the USSR, a nation increasingly being welcomed by the European comity. Membership of the UKSS had not perhaps had the opportunity, however, of hearing important new ideas from continental Europe, and this conference provided an opportunity to do so. Some interesting papers are to be found here from both the West and the East, if the editors may be forgiven for perpetuating what may be an increasingly irrelevant dichotomy. One lesson to be learned from this conference, though, is that systems thinking is truly international. This is not to say that there is one systems paradigm unifonnly applied, however. Perhaps the core of systems thinking is that one is interested in complex 'wholes' with emergent properties, to which cybernetic ideas can be applied. Examples of such systems thinking can be found in these proceedings, for example in the section entitled "Applications of Systems Thinking". Attempts to bring about change with these ideas, however, have given rise to a diversity of approaches, as is evidenced by the papers dealing with the application of methodologies in the 'hard' and 'soft' systems traditions.

Consultancy Skills for Mission and Ministry

Consultancy Skills for Mission and Ministry PDF Author: David Dadswell
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334048621
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Consultancy is increasingly being used to support mission and to help church leaders and workers in the challenges they face in their work. Helping churches and workers understand their situation and develop effective strategies demands skilful consultants who can handle issues of context and theology, the characteristics of voluntary sector organisations, and mission in a post-modern world. This guide to being a church consultant offers rigorous, practical consultancy theory and tools as well as pointing to a rich range of methods and models for further investigation. By integrating the insights of practical theory, organizational studies, the social sciences and a range of helping skills, consultants will be able to support those who are leading change in churches in processes which are more explicit and carefully thought through than is often the case. This book encourages consultants to develop their own model and practice built on a healthy cycle of sound theory, evaluated practice and thoughtful feedback.

Consultancy in Public Services

Consultancy in Public Services PDF Author: Adams, Robert
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1847424686
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book challenges the traditional view that the consultants are brought in as experts and instead examines ways of using consultancy to empower staff, patients, service users and members of the public.

Developing Organisational Consultancy

Developing Organisational Consultancy PDF Author: Andraea Dawson-Shepherd
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317798627
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Developing Organisational Consultancy provides consultants with theoretical and practical advice on how to handle typical consultancy challenges. Well-established organisational consultants from the UK and the USA offer descriptions of problems they have encountered in their work, theoretical and practical approaches that they have found helpful, cases from their actual practice, and advice about how to apply their suggested approach generally. Chapters are grouped together to address three key areas of interest to consultants: * evolving a professional stance * considering psychodynamic approaches * applying organisational theory. For both experienced and newly-practising organiszational and management consultants, this book is a valuable source of reference and the key to developing a more aware and successful practice.

Ethics and Consultancy: European Perspectives

Ethics and Consultancy: European Perspectives PDF Author: Heidi von Weltzien Hoivik
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401102511
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This volume explores consultancy at many levels, in different fields and in different countries, including Eastern Europe. The focus is on the ethics of consultants in government, private enterprises, or those who are lobbying large organizations, with an emphasis on Eastern Europe. This book gives readers an insight into just how difficult it can be to behave `properly' in today's consulting world.

Exploring the Professional Identity of Management Consultants

Exploring the Professional Identity of Management Consultants PDF Author: Anthony F. Buono
Publisher: IAP
ISBN: 1623961734
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
The volume is based on the presentations and discussions from the Fifth European Conference on Management Consulting sponsored by the Management Consulting Division of the Academy of Management, which took place June, 2011 at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The conference theme – Exploring the Professional Identity of Management Consultants – attempted to capture the highly ambiguous social status of this young and emerging profession. Management consulting does not have professional standards or accreditation criteria like those found in medicine or law, there are low barriers to entry, and a broad range of tasks are undertaken in the name of consulting. As a result, a crucial aspect of what constitutes such a loosely defined profession is the identity of its members. The professional identity of management consultants is continuously developing through the interplay of how consultants are seen and valued by clients as well as in the larger society, and how consultancy firms and consultants identify and position themselves. This theme includes a variety of topics, ranging from the interaction between consultants and their clients, consultant rhetoric and self-presentation, and the plethora of books, media and public discourse on consulting, to human resource policies and practices, knowledge development activities of consultancy firms, career and life stories of consultants and consultancies, and consulting associations, accreditation bodies, and education programs. All of these factors contribute, either directly or indirectly, to identity construction in the field of management consulting.