Gurus or wizards? A review of the role of management consultants

Abstract

Management consultants have a widespread and ever-increasing presence in modern business. Yet few management studies explicitly focus on the consulting industry. What role do management consultant companies play, and do they contribute to clients' activities in similar ways? Can these questions be addressed using scholarly categories? This paper tackles this understudied topic through an analysis and elaboration of existing literature, which suggests new avenues for management research and offers fresh reflections for practice. In particular we develop a number of propositions, centred on the behaviours of consultants and the sources of consultants' competitive advantages, which inspire future investigations in an area relevant to both academics and practitioners. © 2011 European Academy of Management.