International co-ordination and management development: An application at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Abstract

In the highly competitive international consulting marketplace clients will always demand a world-class service. A major challenge for PricewaterhouseCoopers is how to achieve the required level of international co-ordination of the efforts of 160,000 people world-wide without compromising responsiveness on a local scale in over 150 countries. Human resource management in general and management development in particular play an important role. A major investment is made in the development of the consultants, despite the acknowledged fact that most will leave the organization after only a few years. PwC uses a global framework of core competences as the key instrument in its development plan and every consultant is profiled according to it. Management development for partners has a more informal, self-directed character. But the bottom line is still the optimization of international co-ordination. © 2001, MCB UP Limited