The Role of the Management Consultant

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Introduction

The review set out to discuss the statement "It is the consultant’s responsibility to facilitate client decision-making, not change the decisions the client would have made anyway" (Wickham and Wickham 2008).

To do so, the review firstly outlines the client- consultant relationship and the consultant’s responsibility and role once they are hired, in light of the work of prominent authors like Appelbaum (2004), Calvert (2005) and O’Mahoney (2010).

Then, the review analyses the client’s decision-making processes and consultant’s role in it, with help of authors like Wickham and Wickham (2008), Schein (1997) and Turner (1982). It specifically outlines the differences in Expert and Facilitator role of a consultant to highlight the difference in their impact on client’s decision-making process. It finally examines the Facilitator role of a consultant to facilitate client’s decision making process with the help of supporting theories.

In the further sections, the review critically examines the ethical approach to facilitate client’s decision making process. The authors like O’Mahoney (2010) and Czerniawska (2002) discusses the consultant’s need to be professional and ethical in facilitating client’s decision is empirical. However, they also highlight the dark side of consultancy in influencing the decision making for benefits of consulting firm or individual consultant.

Finally it draws conclusion based on the above discussion that the consultant as a facilitator should facilitate client to take appropriate decision and not actually change the decision which the client would have taken anyway for personal or consultant firm’s benefits. Also, it highlights the fact that the problem and the decision-making for ...

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...agement success, Management Decision, Vol. 37 Iss: 5, pp.394 – 404.

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