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Although a significant range of research has been conducted on management consultants in the context of organizational change and knowledge diffusion (e.g. Sturdy et al., 2009) only little attention has been drawn to the consultants’ role in the context of innovation (Wright, Sturdy & Wylie, 2012). This is the case despite the fact that innovation can be considered a fundamental element of a firm’s growth and competitiveness (cf. Chapter 2.1.1). In accordance to the variety of tasks and roles carried out by consultants, Bessant and Rush (1995) claim that there are numerous ways in which consultants can realize an improvement of the innovation process. Their main role for innovation can be clustered in terms of acting as change agents, innovation intermediaries, and legitimizers of implementing organizational practices.

MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS AS CHANGE AGENTS

In the first place, consultants are often considered change agents to the organization (Clegg et al., 2004; Sturdy, 2011; Sturdy et al., 2009). In this respect, Clegg and colleagues (2004) claim that consultants are brought into an organization from the outside in order to change the organization on purpose. This is related to the need for continual innovation, as the continuously changing environment counteracts the standardizing of new firm practices (Wright et al., 2012). Regarding this catalytic role which consultants play in the unfreezing stage of Kurt Lewin’s unfreezing – moving – refreezing model of organizational change (as cited in Schein, 1996 & Schreyögg, 1999), organizational change can be considered the main reason and central area of management consulting (Visscher, 2001).

The role as change agent is related to the aspect that consulting generally aims at “[shaking] an organization out of its established order” (Clegg et al., 2004, p.36). Thereby they disturb existing patterns and structures what leads to

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organizational change, transformation, and organizational learning (ibid). Similarly, Ginsberg and Abrahamson (1991) claim that consultants initiate strategic shifts for two reasons: first, they introduce new perspectives which are forcing an organizational change. Secondly, consultants take symbolic and political actions in order to counteract organizational inertia and cultural resistance. In consequence, companies react differently to environmental stimuli or show different performance outcomes despite the fact that similar levels of resources are available (Cooper & Schendel, 1976). Therefore, in relation to the proposed definition of innovation by Barnett (as cited in Robertson, 1967) as qualitative different outcome (cf. Chapter 2.1.1), consulting can be considered a supporter of innovative efforts as it aims at creating qualitatively different products, for example in form of radical new business models or incremental process optimization projects.

In addition to that, a positive relationship between the influence of management consultants and radical strategic changes was found by Ginsberg & Abrahamson (1991). They conclude from their study that “management consultants are seen as more useful than new members of the top management team in changing ideas and perceptions of key executives” (p. 185). This is in line with the finding that employing consultants leads to more qualitative outcomes such as enhancing the development of creativity and achieve radical organizational innovation through a “disruption of dominant orders” (Clegg et al., 2004, p. 36). Similarly, Clegg and colleagues (2004) link consultants to freeing “practitioners from the “iron cages” that organizations become” (p.37), whereas the “iron cage” is a metaphorical paraphrase for organizational standards and standardization.

The role of consultants for disrupting the dominant order and counteracting organizational routines becomes especially relevant with regard to the fact that organizations are generally in favor of incremental innovations and thus existing management activities and competencies are improved instead of creating new competences (Venkataraman et al., 2007). As elaborated in Chapter 2.1.3, this represents a tremendous threat to a firm’s survival as the exploitation of current

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products and services results in organizational inertia, which makes incumbent firms incapable of sufficiently adapting to changes in the environment. For this reason, the engagement of consultants as radical change agents can be the explanation for the fact that some firms successfully adapt to increasingly complex environment while others do not (Ginsberg & Abrahamson, 1991). This is also a valuable justification why consultancies often provide external expert knowledge to clients who in most cases are struggling in being profitable and keeping up with current environmental trends (Sturdy, 2011).

All in all, corresponding to the role as change agents, consultants’ are considered to be in the right position to go beyond organizational inertia and challenge existing norms through discontinuous innovation (Wright et al., 2012). For those reasons, consultants are often associated with the role of “change advocates” enabling organizational adaptation by shaping new managerial perspectives of the environment. In consequence, management consultants are characterized as key source of innovation (Ginsberg & Abrahamson, 1991).

KNOWLEDGE DIFFUSION, EXPERT STATUS AND INNOVATION INTERMEDIATION

The fact that management consultants are related with promoting organizational learning (Berry & Oakley, 1994; Gable, 1996) can be set in relation to their role of providing expertise and transferring specialized expert knowledge to the user (Bessant & Rush, 1995). As they are actively engaged in diffusing knowledge, consultants are associated with the term “knowledge broker” in the sense that they act as agents that help innovation by combining existing technologies in new ways (Hargadon, 1998). Another aspect in this matter is that consultants are often associated with the establishment of a strategy of technological competence in the client’s business (Bessant & Rush, 1993).

In addition to the knowledge diffusion and change advocate aspect, employing consultants was found to yield benefits in terms of network expansion and relationship building. In this respect, Bessant and Rush (1995) assign

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consultants the role of “marriage brokers” as they act as a channel and provide contact. As they are involved in complex relationships, they form vertical as well as horizontal collaborations. Due to those complex collaborations with diverse actors on the market, the client benefits with regard to the increasing distribution of the innovation networks (Howells, 2006). Correspondingly, Bessant and Rush (1995) assert a consultant the notion of acting as a “key bridging intermediary” across a huge span of users.

Beyond that, as they are engaged to support businesses in their efforts of thriving for and implementing innovation, consultants can be stated to fulfill a significant role as innovation intermediaries (Howells, 2006). The task of the consultant is thereby not to be simply understood as a linear activity of transferring expert knowledge to the user. Instead, the focus as innovation intermediary is rather on the knowledge generation as well as on the combination and recombination of roles as innovation intermediaries do “not only provide immediate, ‘on-off’ intermediary services to their clients, but are also seeking to offer longer term, ‘relational’ innovation capabilities” to the client (Howells, 2006, p. 724). Furthermore, the role as “knowledge broker” or “transferrer” of knowledge increases in significance as innovations are more and more dependent upon the firm’s positioning within its research and business networks (Armbrüster, 2006, p. 63). Accordingly, management consultancy is considered a key “generator and distributor of knowledge” (Wright et al., 2012). Beyond that, with regard to the fact that consultants legitimize knowledge and decisions, they are preferably considered to be responsible for bringing new ideas to the clients and thus act as innovators (Sturdy, 2011). At the same time consultants represent key producers of fashionable ideas (Abrahamson, 1996). In this respect, understanding consultants as innovation intermediaries is seen also in relation to their information scanning and gathering function as well as their communication function, which are both associated with the ‘front end of innovation intermediation’ (Lynn, Reddy & Aram, 1996; Wolpert, 2002). In consequence, consultants are often considered “front-line agents of innovation

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support” (Bessant & Rush, 1995). The need for innovation support arises especially with regard to the high uncertainty about the profitability of investing in new inventions as intermediaries bring along a certain expertise to sort profitable from unprofitable investments (Hoppe & Ozdenoren, 2004). In this respect, consultants’ diagnostic capabilities might also positively impact the clients thriving for innovation as consultants can help users to define their need in innovation, adopt the organization to technological innovation (Bessant & Rush, 1995; Howells, 2006) and provide them with the strategic framework for change (Bessant & Rush, 1995). Therefore, a number of organizations play intermediary roles in facilitating innovation (Wolpert, 2002).

IMPLEMENTATION OF NEW ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES

Consultants are however not only employed for the generation of new ideas and the promotion of new organizational practices, but also for their implementation. This is of special relevance as it was found that “new members of the top management team and management consultants can act to ease the implementation of strategies” (Ginsberg & Abrahamson, 1991, p.178). In addition to that, beyond introducing new information technologies or broader organizational changes, implementing management innovations is related to a new organizational culture, the process of efficiency improvement or product redesign (Wright et al., 2012). In this respect, despite the fact that strategy consulting is the core of today’s management consultant business, the role of implementation consulting is emphasized as it significantly contributes to the profitability of the project success (Fritz & Effenberger, 1996). Consultants can therefore be argued to enable innovation in the sense that they put new ideas into practice, as they “match the problems and needs of a system with solutions which are new and relevant to those needs”. This corresponds to the definition of innovation provided by Rickards (1985) as argued in Chapter 2.1.1.

Concluding, management consultants can represent a source of innovation for client firms by acting as change agents, providing an extensive network and acting as a key bridging intermediary across a huge span of users, legitimizing

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change-enhancing decisions, and implementing organizational practices. As a result, management consultants are considered a key source of innovation. The next section deals with how consultants can realize an innovation within the scope of their projects for which they are hired by the client, and how their work can be set in relation with the innovation process.