Strong feelings of the academic community

The subject of power between consultants and clients is a delicate one. As mentioned in chapter 1, many business journalists and academics have strong feelings about the consulting sector. Business journalists have published books entitled The Inside Story (Rassam and Oates 1992), Dangerous Company (O'Shea and Madigan 1997), and Consulting Demons (Pinault 2000). And some academics seem to agree with titles such as Consultancy as the Management of Impressions (Clark 1995) or Flawed Advice (Argyris 2000). In academic journals, the recent debate between Sturdy et al. (2004) and Clegg et al. (2004), and the article by Sorge and van Witteloostuijn (2004), indicate that there are strong reservations among academics regarding consultancy. O'Shea and Madigan's (1997) journalistic but well-investigated book is, of the critical kind, the most popular one worldwide. It has been reviewed in a number of US business journals and represents a well-known critique of management consultancy. The recent essay by Sorge and van Witteloostuijn (2004) refers to it several times as ostensible evidence for consultants' unsophisticated advice.

However, a detailed reading of the book shows that O'Shea and Madigan do not keep up the critical tone adopted in the book title and introduction. While the authors describe the failure of consulting projects at one particular corporation in detail and add a number of other consulting cases in which clients were not satisfied, the book then – somewhat surprisingly – describes a number of successful consulting cases in which the clients were very satisfied.