Exploring public sector managers’ preferences for attracting consultants or academics as external experts
Jan van Helden*, Anders Grönlund,† Ricardo Mussari and Pasquale Ruggiero‡
Accepted for publication in Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management, 2012
Abstract
Purpose – This paper examines the reasons why public sector managers approach either
consultants or academics to help them solve problems related to public sector accounting
and management reforms.
Design/methodology/approach – A field study based on reactions on real-life constructs
and answers to questions about the experiences of public sector managers in Italian,
Dutch and Swedish central government agencies.
Findings – Public sector managers approach consultants, due to their experience-based
knowledge, for solving well-defined practical and technical problems. In case of tacit
knowledge, a strong interaction between the public sector manager and the consultant,
denoted as socialization, is the typical way of knowledge transfer. In accordance with our
expectations, public sector managers approach academics when they need advice regarding value-laden problems in their organization. However, academics also give advice
about practical and technical issues, being the primary domain of consultants, but often
when impartial advice is required. Although we expected academics to transfer
knowledge rather detached from their clients (interiorization), this was not corroborated,
because often academics work closely together with their counterparts in the client organization.
Research limitations/implications – Our theoretical framework was helpful in explaining the role of consultants, but it required refinement in explaining the role of academics
as external experts.
Practical implications – The paper contributes to a better articulated set of preferences
of public sector managers in asking advice from either a consultant or an academic.
Originality/value – A simultaneous and systematic empirical examination of the roles
that consultants and academics play in public sector management and accounting reforms.
Keywords: consultants, academic advisors, public sector accounting and management
Article type: field study
*
University of Groningen, Netherlands
University of Stockholm, Sweden
‡
The latter two authors are from the University of Siena, Italy
†
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Exploring public sector managers’ preferences for attracting consultants or academics as external experts
1. Introduction
Dependent upon the issue and circumstances at hand, practitioners can approach either a
consultant or an academic (in the sense of an academic researcher) to help them in solving their problems. Within the market for external advice on public sector accounting and
management issues, public sector managers are active on the demand side. On the supply
side of this market consultants play a prominent role, as well as academics, be it in a
more indirect way by conducting practice-relevant research or by giving advice to practitioners. Our study focuses on the demand side of external expertise (for a supply side
study see Van Helden, et al., 2010). More in particular, it is our aim to examine which
reasons public sector managers have to approach either consultants or researchers to help
them solve problems related to public sector accounting and management reforms.
Our study focuses on an underresearched area. First, there are only a limited
number of empirical studies about the role of consultants in public sector accounting.
Most notably is the work of Christensen (2005, 2006), who documents the prominent influence of auditing firms on the adoption of accrual accounting in the State of New South
Wales, Australia. Moreover, research by Lapsley and Oldfield (2001) shows that large
multinational consultancy firms are promoters of universally applicable tool kits, whereas
small locally operating consultancy firms are dedicated to delivering custom-made solutions for public sector practice. Second, only incidental studies investigate the relationship between academic research and practice in accounting, and these studies concern
management accounting in general rather than public sector management accounting
(Selto and Widener, 2004; Foster and Young, 1997). In the area of management research
the so-called research-practice gap received much more attention (Rynes, et al. 2001;
Rynes and Shapiro, 2005; Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006). As far we know, only Van
Helden and Northcott (2010) investigated the practical orientation of public sector management accounting research published in accounting journals, both in terms of their relevance and the way outcomes are communicated to a practice-interested audience. They
show that most of the papers are directed towards understanding or critiquing the use of
management accounting techniques, while other more practically oriented research objectives, such developing new techniques and assessing the effectiveness of existing techniques, are largely absent. Moreover, they found that about half of the papers identify
practical research implications. All in all, a simultaneous examination of the roles that
consultants and academics play in public sector management and accounting is lacking.
Publications on the differences between consultants and academics as external advisors
of public sector managers are often reflective studies (Pollitt, 2006; Docherty and Smith,
2007), whereas systematic empirical research on this issue is largely absent. Our study is
an attempt to fill in this gap.
At an academic level our research goal and the way in which it will be elaborated
is relevant, because it contributes to a better understanding of the multitude of reasons of
public sector organizations for hiring either consultants or academics as external experts.
These reasons are related to issues such as the types of problems to be solved through
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knowledge creation, the processes of knowledge creation, and the ways in which the
knowledge is transferred (Corcoran and McLean, 1998, p. 38, for instance, point to the
general lack of knowledge with respect to selecting a consultant in a public sector context). A further contribution of this research relates to the application of Real Life Constructs, which is explained in the Methods section, as an innovative tool for structuring a
multitude of data. At a practical level this research may help public sector managers as
practitioners to better articulate their preferences with respect to their choice between
consultants or academics as their external advisors.
The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 discusses some theoretical notions about
knowledge creation by consultants and academics in their role of advisors of a public sector organization. Subsequently, section 3 elucidates the methods for data collection and
analysis. Section 4 presents the findings of our study, and these findings are discussed in
section 5.
2. Theory
As a consequence of public sector reforms, public management is now faced with a
broader scope of responsibilities: from finding the resources for solving certain problems
to the control of operations, achieving efficiency and being accountable for the results
accomplished (Barzelay, 1992; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 1999). This increase in responsibilities could induce a gap between the public sector managers’ actual proficiencies and
skills and those that are in fact required, as a result of which they may call upon the help
of external experts, particularly that of consultants or academics. There are two other motives that underlie the use of external expertise (Bowen and Collett, 1978). First, external
experts can deliver particular services at lower costs than employees of the organization
itself, which refers to reasons of economy. And second, when such an organization is in
need of an impartial advice about certain issues, such as the effectiveness of a specific
technique or approach, an independent view from an outsider can be important.
From this point of view, external advice is initially regarded as a mechanistic process in which a public sector organization simply seeks to obtain the desired knowledge.
However, most of the literature on consultancy has recently focussed on external advice
as social interaction process between the external advisor and the client organization
(Armbruster, 2006). Given this point of view, the nature and result of any external consultancy activity do not only depend on the knowledge of the external adviser, but also on
the behaviour and requests of the client organization, including the way in which the client organization and the external adviser interact. This interaction regards both the process of preparing the advice and the way in which the ultimate outcome of the advice is
communicated to the client organization. As opposed to most of the studies dealing with
the aspects of choosing an external consultant, we established that public sector managers
first have to make a choice between the two types of external adviser, i.e., a consultant or
an academic, before specifically deciding who to approach. Public sector managers are
expected to choose an external adviser on the basis of his/her competences, i.e. the external adviser’s knowledge expertise and the skills used in putting this knowledge into practice.
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By viewing external advice as a process which continues after the consultancy trajectory, and also considering the result of the advice, three types of differences between
consultants and academics can be relevant in public managers’ choices in this respect:
 Differences in the objectives and thereby in the kinds of knowledge produced.
 Differences in the process of knowledge creation.
 Differences in the ways in which the created knowledge is transferred.
We will elaborate each of these aspects below. Prior to that we clarify our understanding of what is meant with researchers and consultants. Researchers in our study are
university researchers, because they are generally regarded as more distinctive to consultants than researchers working in institutes for applied research. Consultants can be affiliated to either big firms (such as the big four in auditing and consultancy) or more locally
working firms.
2.1 Differences in the objectives and related kinds of knowledge produced
Academics create theoretical knowledge, whereas consultants create practical knowledge
(Docherty and Smith, 2007). This difference may have an influence on the types of
questions that public sector managers present to a consultant or to an academic. If they
want to solve a practical and technical problem in a relatively short period of time, it
seems more appropriate to approach a consultant. If the organization faces a problem
caused by incoherent values internally (at an individual level) or externally (at an
environmental level), academic expertise might be preferred (Schein, 1992).§
Often a consultant is approached by a public sector manager to solve a welldefined problem. The choice of a consultant is based on his/her experience with tackling
similar problems in the past. Because the public sector manager is likely to have already
reflected on this type of problem him/herself, he/she will generally play an active role in
the process of knowledge creation. In the case of an academic’s intervention, the public
sector manager’s role is expected to be more passive, because mostly the academic is not
called upon to solve a problem, but to identify the problem to be solved or to validate the
solution to a certain problem as proposed by the manager (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995;
Pollitt, 2006, pp. 259-260). In this case, the public sector manager could opportunistically
make use of the academic’s authority to legitimize his/her own practice (Pollitt, 2003).
§
With regard to the role of academics in producing knowledge, another perspective which was
not adopted in our paper is the one of the “action researcher” as proposed by, for example,
Rapoport (1970). The scientifically oriented action researcher aims at optimizing “the realization
of both the practical affairs of the man and the intellectual interest of the social science community” (Rapoport, 1970, p. 510), having at his/her disposal a number of devices “to resolve the dilemma posed by service requirements on one extreme and academic goals of ‘pure and disinterested knowledge’ on the other” (Rapoport, 1970, p. 506). Clients of advisors who conduct academically based action research, for example, have to accept that the study’s outcomes might
have wider implications than the ones considered in relation to their initial knowledge needs, and
that they have to wait longer for the reports than they are used to when hiring a consultant. Although these measures may also be applicable to bridging the goals of both practical and academic
knowledge creation beyond the domain of action research, the differences between practical and
academic knowledge remains important, the more so because academic researchers are increasingly driven by the requirements made by the academic community (Gendron, 2008; Van Helden,
et al. 2010).
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A possible disadvantage of hiring an academic is that due to the complexity of the
scientific research methods used, the underpinnings of his or her advice may be relatively
difficult to assess by the public sector manager.
2.2 Differences in the process of knowledge creation
Knowledge created by consultants is experiential, which means that it is based on their
own practice and experience, by applying insights from previous cases to the current
case. Consultants mostly work in teams of varying composition, which gives them the
advantage to benefit from the experiences of colleagues in their own firm (Gherardi,
2006, pp. 259-260; Docherty and Smith, 2007, p. 277). Academics create knowledge by
using a scientific research approach related to certain methods and theories. In this process the interaction with colleagues of different cultures, who possess others kinds of
knowledge, is important (Gibbons, et al., 1994). In addition to explaining the existence of
an actual phenomenon, academics can also reflect on the possible future developments of
the phenomenon (Pollitt, 2006; Caldwell and Dorling, 1995). This feature of the academic knowledge creation process can be beneficial to public sector managers when they
need to anticipate future developments or avoid possible future problems.
Generally speaking, public sector managers are quite familiar with the way in
which consultants create knowledge, because it resembles their own methods of creating
knowledge (Caldwell and Dorling, 1995). This is why in this respect consultants have an
advantage over academics. However, when public sector managers have experience with
the scientific approach – for instance as a result of their own academic career or because
they conducted academic research in the past – the primary position of consultants
relative to that of academics will be less outspoken (Ospina and Dodge, 2005).
Academics often take a more independent approach to a public sector
organization because they adhere strongly to the values of their profession (Abbott,
1988), particularly with respect to impartiality and neutrality. When academics work as
‘external experts’ outside their normal university context, they will probably not give up
their autonomy and adhere to their academic status. On the one hand, public sector
managers can in certain cases be reluctant to address academics, for instance when they
suspect an opinion opposite to the one they are committed to themselves. On the other
hand, the authority of academic knowledge can be a reason for public sector managers to
approach an academic advisor to legitimate their choices or to mediate the opposite
interests within their own organization (Pollitt, 2006; Docherty and Smith, 2007, p. 277).
The focus is then on the choices to be adopted rather than on practical solutions to the
problems. The authority of academic knowledge, as presented in the academic’s
publications, particularly relates to its neutrality.
2.3 Differences in the ways through which the created knowledge is transferred
The extent to which public sector managers learn from the advice of external experts is
dependent upon the way in which the knowledge created by these experts is transferred.
In this respect the distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge is important (Polanyi,
1996; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Tacit knowledge is personal, unconscious, subjective, intuitive and therefore difficult to formalize and to share with others. Explicit
knowledge is formalized knowledge, which can be easily transferred to and elaborated by
others. Academics mostly create explicit knowledge because of the pressure within their
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professional group to publish the results of their work in reports, and especially in books
or journals (Ndozuau, et al., 2002; Gendron, 2008). Knowledge creation by consultants is
mostly a combination of tacit and explicit knowledge, where the tacit components relate
to their experiences in working for and with practitioners (Docherty and Smith, 2007).
The transfer of tacit knowledge requires a direct relationship between the creator
and the user of the knowledge, for example by jointly taking part in processes of
knowledge creation. This is called socialization. Explicit knowledge can be learned
through a rather impersonal relationship between the creator and the user of the
knowledge, for instance by reading a publication or attending a course. This is called interiorization. There might be situations in which public sector managers prefer the explicit knowledge created by academics, for example if they require some level of discretion
in developing an active role in the process of knowledge creation.
2.4 Summary and research questions
Table 1 summarizes the objectives, process and transfer of knowledge created by consultants and academics as experts of public sector managers.
Table 1 Public sector managers and knowledge created by consultants and academics
Types of differences in Consultants
Academics
knowledge creation
Objective of knowledge Solving practical and tech- Solving value-laden probcreation and kinds
of nical problems
lems
knowledge produced
Helping to solve well- Support in identifying probdefined problems
lems
Process of knowledge crea- Based on own experience Based on scientific aption
and that of colleagues
proach (methods, theories)
Transfer of knowledge
Resembles knowledge crea- Process is relatively indetion in organization
pendent and neutral towards organization; mediating in controversial interests by providing authorative opinions
Tacit
and
explicit Explicit knowledge transknowledge, where tacit ferred through interiorizaknowledge is transferred tion
through socialization
Given the research goal as set our in the introductory section, our theoretical reflections
about knowledge creation by academics and consultants give rise to the following research questions.
1.
Will public sector managers prefer the advice of consultants to that of academics when they need to solve practical and technical problems, whereas the
opposite applies when they need advice regarding value-laden problems of
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their organization?
2.
Will public sector managers approach consultants when they need to solve a
well-structured problem, whereas calling upon an academic is more suitable
when a problem is less-structured and requires a further specification?
3.
Given that academics make use of a scientific approach in producing
knowledge, does this make the type of knowledge more authoritative, being
especially important when controversial issues are at stake, than the experience-based knowledge created by consultants?
4.
Is socialization by means of close contacts between the public sector manager
and his or her advisor the typical way knowledge transfer in the case of tacit
knowledge, which is often produced by consultants, whereas interiorization,
which relates to a more impersonal transfer of knowledge by the public sector
manager, is applicable to knowledge created by academics?
It has to be emphasised that public sector managers can also opt for hybrid professional forms: academic-consultants or consultant-academics. These forms combine the
characteristics of both pure forms.**
3. Methods of data collection
The governmental structures in Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden differ to a large extent,
especially in terms of the degree of autonomy of the various governmental layers and the
range of activities of the organizations within each of these layers. This is why we decided to focus our empirical study on organizations with a similar position in the governmental system in each of the countries. This approach enabled us to avoid – or at least
limit – biases due to differences concerning their governmental systems. We selected
agencies within the central government layer, because in performing their governmental
activities they have a fairly autonomous position vis-à-vis the central government (ter
Bogt, 2003; van Thiel, 2006). Moreover, most of the agencies’ activities have an operational character, as opposed to policy-making activities, which are often the domain of
the core divisions of the central government.
In all three countries eight central government agencies were selected. In each
agency one top-manager was interviewed, thus summing up to a total of 24 interviews.
All agencies are large scale-organizations varying from some hundreds to about 28,000
employees. Within each agency we interviewed a senior manager with a long experience
regarding the types of issues at hand. We used an interview protocol developed on the
basis of the theoretical considerations elaborated in the previous section.
With respect to a public sector manager’s choice of approaching either a consultant or an academic as an external advisor, two different types of questions were used. The
first category of questions presents six brief real-life constructs (RLCs), on the basis of
**
Although we will not focus on these hybrid forms in our study, a further clarification may be
needed. According to Docherty and Smith (2007, pp. 277-278) academic consultancy has to be
distinctive to regular consultancy in various respects, especially by challenging existing practices,
by being neutral and impartial towards the client organization and by providing academic rigor.
Van Helden et al. 2010 see consultant-researchers as mediators between academic researchers
and the world of practitioners.
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which a public sector manager had to indicate whether he/she prefers either a consultant
or an academic. According to Lapsley and Llewellyn (1995, p. 223), “a real-life construct
is composed of specific elements and is used, first, to explore practitioners’ reaction to a
concrete agenda and, then subsequently, to prompt moves outwards from the construct thus facilitating connections with more general organizational processes”. We developed
six RLCs which on the one hand covered the content of the previously formulated research questions and on the other hand related to the types of problems encountered in
our years of experience in the fields of consultancy and applied research in the public
sector context. We analysed the reactions of our respondents by systematically examining
the communalities and differences in their preferences, including the provided underpinnings. The second category of questions aimed to shed light on the factual experiences of
public sector managers in hiring a consultant or an academic for a particular project. Our
analysis of these experiences focuses on three aspects which are prominent in our theoretical considerations: the type of topic of the advisory project, the reason for choosing a
consultant or an academic and their interaction with the organization.
The use of these different types of questions is meant to contribute to the validity
of the data collection on the phenomenon studied. In the case of asking for factual experiences, as in the second category of questions, public sector managers are expected to
avoid giving socially desirable answers. The purpose of asking opinions about real-life
constructs (RLCs, the first category) is to motivate public sector managers to reflect on
the types of issues regarding the decision to choose either a consultant or an academic.
Although a comparative multi-country study was not our initial intention, we did
not want our exploratory research to be based on data from only one country. Moreover,
all three countries included in our study - Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden - are characterized by a mature public sector, which substantially relies on hiring external expertise
from consultancy firms or the university sector. As indicated above, we selected organizations with similar organizational positions in the central governments of the three countries. Finally, a crucial point in choosing these three countries was the easy access to data
already in the early stage of the explorative research. This access was made possible because for several years all four authors had maintained close contacts with a number of
central agencies and their managers in these countries.
Our research is exploratory, which means that accomplishing a rich understanding
of an underresearched phenomenon outweighs the importance of a large sample for
achieving generalizable assertions. The exploratory character of our study is mainly due
the absence of an elaborated theoretical framework. Although we derived our research
questions from expectations based on the available studies about possibly relevant differences between consultants and academics as external experts of public sector organizations, these questions were formulated in an open way. Subsequently, we conducted interviews with 24 public sector managers to investigate their reactions to the six RLCs and
to assess their real-life experiences. Based on the literature review and the empirical
study we ultimately refined our expectations by transforming the research questions into
hypotheses, which were not tested in this paper.
Half of the interviews were held in June and July 2008 and the remaining half in
August and September 2010. Each interview was summarised and a report was sent to the
interviewee, who was asked to correct it and ultimately confirm its accuracy. All interviews lasted between one and one and a half hour.
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4. Findings
This section presents the findings of our interviews. The answers of the interviewees are
presented in a summarised form. However, if there are distinctive differences among the
interviewees from each of the three countries they are discussed in more detail. The analyses of both the responses to the RLCs and the real-life experiences with consultants or
academics as external experts, has informed our answers to the previously formulated
research questions. Based on these answers, we will subsequently develop hypotheses
about the preferences of public sector managers with respect to obtaining advice from
either consultants or academics. These hypotheses could then be tested in subsequently to
be conducted empirical studies.
4.1 Reactions on real-life constructs about approaching a consultant or an academic
According to our theoretical reflections, public sector managers prefer the advice of a
consultant to that of an academic when they need to solve practical and technical problems, whereas they prefer an academic when they need advice regarding value-laden
problems of their organization. Moreover, we expected that public sector managers
would attract consultants for solving well-structured problems and academics for specifying less-structured problems. In addition, we expected that academics produce their
knowledge by means of a scientific approach, making it more authoritative than the experience-based knowledge created by consultants, which would be particularly important in
case of controversial issues.
In order to assess the extent to which these expectations were shared by our interviewees, we developed six real-life constructs (RLCs) on the basis of which they had
to decide whether to approach a consultant or an academic as an external expert. First, we
asked our interviewees to choose among the following five alternatives: strong preference
for a consultant, preference for a consultant, consultant and academic are equally suitable, preference for an academic and strong preference for an academic. Subsequently, we
asked them to explain their preference.
RLCs 1, 2 and 3 are examples of practical or technical problems about which a
public sector manager might approach an external expert. Moreover, the problems underlying all three RLC’s are quite well-structured. RLC 1 concerns a restructuring of the organization, RLC 2 deals with the design of a new financial system and RLC 3 is about the
implementation of a new system for allocating costs to products. A substantial majority
(on average approx. 70%) of the interviewees expressed a preference for hiring a consultant when they were faced with the first three RLCs, which was in accordance with our
expectations. This also holds for the type of expertise relevant in these RLCs. For example, an interviewee argued: “One needs to have dealt with comparable cases in the past, it
is a matter of purchasing experience.” However, some interviewees preferred approaching an academic, especially among the Italian managers. Some of them argued that consultants are not suitable to do the job because they are mostly too focussed on the private
sector, or because the problem in question is strategic rather than technical.
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RLC 1 (18 prefer a consultant, 3 are indifferent, 3 prefer an academic)
As a public sector manager you criticise your own organization because it is too bureaucratic.
Due to the large number of layers in the organizational hierarchy and the strong power position of
the central staff, your organization is not sufficiently adaptive to the changes in its environment.
Therefore, you think that a restructuring of the organization would be desirable, in which the
lower level managers are given the responsibility and accountability for a broad spectrum of issues.
RLC 2 (18 prefer a consultant, 3 are indifferent, 3 prefer an academic)
Currently your organization uses two separate financial systems, one for external reporting and
the other for internal budgeting and accounting. In your capacity as public sector manager, you
want to introduce a so-called multi-purpose financial system that provides relevant information
for both external and internal purposes.
RLC 3 (16 prefer a consultant, 4 are indifferent, 4 prefer an academic)
A team of experts within your organization has developed a new system for allocating indirect
costs to products. In your capacity as public sector manager, you are satisfied with this system,
but its ultimate success will depend on an appropriate implementation approach, including testing
the system and training its potential users.
As will be explained below, the interviewees’ preferences with respect to RLCs 4,
5 and 6 were only partly in line with our expectations.
RLC 4 concerns a project in which a change of the attitude by both the managers
and the employees towards more competitiveness is crucial. Although the underlying
problem is still quite well-structured, it is a value-laden issue, which gives, according to
our theoretical framework, rise to a preference for an academic rather than a consultant.
However, only 6 of our interviewees (25%) reacted in accordance with this expectation.
As an interviewee indicated: “Because this is about attitudes, theories, and multiperspective understanding, I prefer an academic”. Another interviewee stated: “Here we
need an academic, who can discuss and explain attitudes and other difficult subjective
matters on the basis of scientific studies”. A third interviewee challenges the extent to
which the problem is well-structured, and argues: “If you need an explorative analysis, an
academic is better, when how to do-issues are at stake, a consultant is better.” However,
(about) two third of the interviewees preferred a consultant for doing the job, especially
when such a project aims at changing the behaviour of employees and when competition
is a theme. One interviewee, for example, indicated: “To tackle this problem you need a
consultant, who has more real world experience than an academic”. Another commented:
“Consultants are more aware of market features and market mechanisms as a consequence of their experience”.
RLC 4 (16 prefer a consultant, 2 are indifferent, 6 prefer an academic)
Until now your organization has performed its activities under rather monopolistic circumstances.
However, new legislation has introduced competition in your branch. The changes in your organization’s environment resulting from this new legislation require a change in the attitude of the
managers and employees of your organization. In your capacity as public sector manager, you
now have to focus on client orientation and competitiveness as key words of these changes.
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RLC 5 deals with the evaluation of a system for rewarding managers, which
turned out to be a controversial issue within the organization. According to our theoretical considerations, an authoritative evaluation made by an academic might be preferable.
However, our interviewees came up with diverging preferences; Almost 50% (11 out of
24) confirmed our expectation. An interviewee stipulated: “If you need an objective advice to give to the supervisory board, an academic is better”. Some interviewees argued
that advice by academics would be more legitimate because they work with scientific
methods. However, 5 interviewees expressed a preference for a consultant, because the
problem was regarded as rather technical. One interviewee indicated that “consultants are
more aware of market features and market mechanisms as a consequence of their experience”. Another commented that “consultants, especially from big firms, have a wider
awareness/experience than academics”. Another 25% argued that it depended upon the
type of problem whether a consultant or an academic was to be preferred. In this group
some respondents believed that a consultant is more suitable whenever the problem relates to practical issues, such as an insufficient implementation, whereas an academic is
more appropriate when quite fundamental differences in opinion are the problem. However, others indicated that a consultant is preferred when behavioural aspects dominate,
and an academic in the case of technical problems. In addition, some interviewees referred to the difference between a long- and a short-term project: “For a short-term problem we would approach a consultant to provide a quick solution, whereas in the case of
long-term issues, requiring a certain amount of time to solve, such as disagreements with
respect to basic values and attitudes, we would call upon the help of an academic.”.
RLC 5 (5 prefer a consultant, 8 are indifferent, 11 prefer an academic)
In your capacity as public sector manager, you introduced a new system for job appraisal for
managers three years ago. This system is based on quantitative information about issues such as
meeting budget targets, sick leave of employees, complaints of clients, and the productivity of
key processes. This system is considered highly controversial: some managers argue that it overrates the value of quantitative information and that it stimulates a tunnel vision. The supervisory
board of your organization therefore wants this system to be evaluated.
The issue raised by RLC 6 is a reflection on the organization’s future position in
the value chain. Given that RLC 6 is about an exploration of the organization’s future options, according to our theoretical framework the advice of an academic would be more
attractive than that of a consultant, especially because the underlying problem is both
value-laden and not well-structured in advance. However, just as in RLCs 4 and 5, our
interviewees expressed diverging preferences. About one third of the interviewees preferred an academic, mentioning open-mindness and impartiality as prominent requirements for dealing with this issue: “This problem usually needs a broader analysis, and
hence an academic is more suitable because he/she has a more open-minded view.” another interviewee argued: ”This requires an investigation that is neutral and impartial.
The problem is quite fundamental, so the mediator also has to advise or convince other
stakeholders, and therefore hiring an academic is better.” However, 4 interviewees (about
20%) expressed a preference for a consultant, as the following quotes illustrate: “It is
more of a practical problem and therefore I prefer a consultant to solve it.” “An experienced senior consultant capable of handling this turn-around management problem is
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needed.” Finally, almost half of the interviewees indicated that their preference would
depend on the nature of the issue (“I would prefer a consultant when behavioural aspects
are dominant, but an academic when various options need to be explored”. Other quotes
provide further arguments: “Legitimation and including societal developments require an
academic, while a clear positioning of the organization in a competitive environment requires a consultant.”; “ it depends on the typology of problem to be solved; it is possible
to make the link consultant-technical problem and academic-strategic problem, for example in organisation’s values and identity”.
RLC 6 (4 prefer a consultant, 13 are indifferent, 7 prefer an academic)
Your organization is faced with difficulties in the collaboration with one of your main client organizations. In your capacity as public sector manager, you need to tackle this collaboration problem. However, there seems to be more at stake. In spite of the uncertain future developments,
your organization is expected to continue its activities in a chain of service providers, which
means giving up your current position as a rather isolated service provider.
4.2 Factual experiences regarding projects executed by consultants and academics
All interviewees were invited to share their experiences with two projects, i.e. the first
project had to be an example of the assistance of a consultant, and the second of the assistance of an academic. Both projects needed to cover an issue within the broad domain of
public sector accounting and management, including topics such as the restructuring of
the organization, (for example making the organization more client-oriented), the introduction of a new accounting system, and improvements of management accounting instruments, such as budgeting, performance measurement and cost management. Both projects needed to refer to rather recent experiences, pertaining to the last five years during
which the interviewee had personally played a role. First, we invited the interviewee to
“tell his/her own story” without giving guidance. Subsequently, we asked for more particular details concerning the type of problem to be solved, the procedure for recruiting
an external expert, the degree of the organization’s involvement during the project execution, the outcome of the project, and the organization’s appreciation of this outcome.
We used this method of data collection for addressing two particular issues. The
first one aims to check responses to the RLCs regarding the types of advisory projects
(technical versus value-laden and well- versus less-structured), including reasons for preferring a consultant or an academic. The second issue concerns the way in which created
knowledge by a consultant or academic is transferred to the public sector manager. In this
respect our theoretical framework assumes that socialization by means of close contacts
between the public sector manager and his or her advisor is the typical way knowledge
transfers in the case of tacit knowledge, which is often produced by consultants, while
interiorization, which relates to a more impersonal transfer of knowledge, is applicable to
knowledge created by academics.
Appendix A1 gives an overview of projects executed by a consultant and Appendix A2 of projects executed by an academic. Both appendices list the topic of the project,
the reason for choosing a consultant or an academic and their interaction with the organization. Here we focus on the main outcomes.
Our investigations confirm our expectations concerning approaching consultants
for external advice. Consultants are approached for solving quite well-defined practical
problems, such as reorganising the client’s organization or helping them in designing and
12
implementing specific systems. In general, experience in comparable cases in the past is
the main reason for approaching a consultant. In a large majority (approximately 80%) of
the consultancy projects, the interaction between the consultant and the organization is
strong, in the sense that the organization provides the consultant with much input or the
consultant and the organization’s employees are working closely together in tackling the
problem at hand, which is illustrated by the following quote.
“We decided to call upon a consultant because this type of advisor is usually considered
to be more aware of organizations’ needs than academics, and therefore more capable of
reorganising the supply function of our agency..…We had an active role in the advisory
process because our employees provided all the information that the consultant needed to
define the features of each service and prepare a plan for restructuring our supply function.”
(Interviewee from an Italian organization)
Some interviewees gave more specific reasons for choosing a consultant, such as sectorspecific knowledge and flexibility towards the needs of the organization. A Dutch respondent answered: [the Agency] “has a limited amount of manpower which has to be
deployed as effectively as possible”. One of the Swedish organizations approached a consultant for a topic that, according to our expectations, would be more suitable for an academic, namely investigating stakeholders’ attitude. In this case the interaction between
the consultant and the organization was weak. Another Swedish respondent indicated:
“We needed help with process support to implement a new management system. We
could not convince the other managers, so we needed an outside consultant to do this
job.”
Appendix A2 shows that our expectations concerning approaching an academic for external advice are not always confirmed. On the one hand, some of the topics for which
academics were approached confirm the expectations of our theoretical framework. This
holds for an exploration of a new governance model, an examination of the question as to
why a current management control system does not work, and an exploration of genderneutral HRM policy. These types of topics relate to less structured or value-laden problems of the organization. On the other hand, we also noticed topics for which consultants
were expected to be the more suitable, that are actually addressed by academics. Examples are the development of a strategy for real estate management, the design and implementation of a management training programme, and the exploration of the functional
uses of an office building. These types of topics are practical and the underlying problems are rather well-structured. However, a closer look at these examples shows that the
reasons for calling upon an academic are actually in accordance with other expectations
indicated by our theoretical framework. Examples are the need for impartial advice, issues that specifically require trustworthiness, or when organizational values are at stake,
such as in the case of a management training programme.
This implies that in some cases the type of approach or the reputation is more important than the type of problem in calling upon a consultant or an academic, because
when only looking at the topic, also a consultant could be approached. The top management of an Italian agency, for example, wanted to gain support for a restructuring of its
organization from its employees. An academic expert, who had to produce handbooks
13
for the restructured organization, was called upon, because he/she was regarded to be
‘objective’ towards the topic at hand. A further illustration comes from a Dutch agency
which requested an expertise centre of a university to conduct an exploratory study on the
question how its new building should be organised (functions of the various spaces, furnishing, etc.). An independent point of view was seen as important, because the agency’s
employees should not be given the impression that the external expert is led by the general management or that it has a direct interest in the way in which the building will eventually be organized.
Appendix A2 also shows that only a minority of the projects conducted by academics (33%) is indicative of a weak interaction between the academic advisor and the
client organization. So, in these cases advice was given without much interaction with the
client organization, which is in line with our theoretical framework. This applies, for instance, to the design of a model for forecasting an organization’s work load, or the development of a new governance model for an organization’s supervisory board. However, in
contrast to our theoretical framework, a large majority (approximately 67%) of the ‘academic projects’ reveals a strong interaction between the academic expert and the client
organization, such as in the case of the development of new methods for data processing
and the design of complex information services. The following quotes illustrate that this
interaction is often informed by the need to give an impartial advice about issues in
which expertise in methods is desirable. Then these organization’s technical specialists
work together with their counterpart academics specialists.
“We base our statistics and methods on scientific grounds. We have regular exchanges
with two universities. We also have scientists in our staff, such as a PhD in statistics.
….In addition, we have a scientific board. They scrutinise new statistics and methods on
a scientific base. ……Our collaboration with university people has a long-term character
and is on-going.” (Interviewee of Swedish organization)
“A crucial issue in the development of these information products is whether the underlying methodology is adequate: are the concepts operationalized properly into indicators,
are the indicators well-measurable and understandable, etc.? To answer these questions it
is quite common to approach a specialised research bureau affiliated to a university. Two
considerations determine this choice: the level of these bureaus’ methodology expertise,
and their capability of serving the interests of the various stakeholders involved, which
are sometimes contradictory. These stakeholders know that an academic research bureau
is independent and not focussed on serving the interests of a particular group.……In
these kinds of situations the internal experts work closely together with the external consultants of these bureaus. ” (Interviewee of Dutch organization)
5. Conclusions and Discussion
Our theoretical framework has identified differences between consultants and academics
as external advisors of public sector organizations in terms of the types of topics on
which their advice is required, the types of knowledge they create, and the way in which
they co-operate with their client organizations in creating this knowledge. We conducted
24 interviews with top managers of central government agencies in Italy, the Netherlands
and Sweden. Our interviews with these public sector managers have shown that our theo14
retical framework is corroborated for approaching a consultant but it requires further refinement when calling upon an academic is at stake.
We expected that public sector managers would prefer the advice of a consultant
to that of an academic in the case of well-defined practical and technical problems, because a consultant provides knowledge that is primarily based on experience. Moreover,
we supposed that socialization by means of close contacts between the public sector
manager and his or her advisor is the typical way of knowledge transfer in the case of tacit knowledge, which is often produced by consultants. These expectations were corroborated by our empirical investigations.
We assumed public sector managers to approach an academic when they need advice regarding value-laden problems of their organization. In addition, we expected that
interiorization, which relates to a more impersonal way of knowledge transfer, applies to
the knowledge created by an academic. Finally, given that academics use a scientific approach in their knowledge creation, it was expected that their knowledge is considered
more authoritative, being especially important when controversial issues are at stake, than
the experience-based knowledge provided by consultants.
We found, however, that the reasons why organizations choose to approach an academic rather than a consultant as an external expert cannot be fully linked to our theoretical framework. We will provide various clues for this conclusion and Figure 1 summarizes our findings on the first two most important ones.
Preference for consultant when problem is unambiguous
Topic:
Practical and
technical problems
Topic:
Value-laden
problems of the
organization
Preference for academic when impartial advise is needed
due to potentially
diverging interests
Preference for consultant when behavioral aspects dominate
Preference for academic when a reflective value
analysis is needed
15
Figure 1. Type of analysis in addition to topic determines preference for consultant
or academic
First, academics turned out to be suitable for addressing topics for which consultants
were expected to be the best advisors, for example in the case of the design and implementation of a management training programme or the exploration of functional uses of
an office building. However, the decision to choose an academic rather than a consultant
was often motivated by the type of advice needed rather than by the topic, particularly
when the organization was faced with ill-defined problems or when ambiguous problems
needed an impartial advice.
Second, our research has provided a deeper understanding of the types of topics
concerning the values of the client organization that require the advice of either a consultant or an academic. Some of our real-life constructs on value-laden topics, like a controversial performance rewarding system or the position of the organization in the value
chain, show that public sector managers prefer a consultant when behavioural aspects
dominate, and an academic in the case of method problems or when various options need
to be explored.
Third, although we expected that projects executed by academics would involve
low levels of co-operation with the client organization, most of these projects showed a
strong interaction between the academic expert and the client organization. This was often the case when the technical specialists within the client organization worked together
with their counterpart specialists from a university. Only when research-oriented advice
is required, the transfer of knowledge by academics to the client organization is impersonal. Some RLCs indicated the importance of pragmatic reasons, such as the need to receive a quick advice which makes a consultant more suitable as an external expert than
an academic.
The above observations are reflected in the following set of hypotheses to be tested in future research, which can be seen as the outcome of our exploratory study.
Hypothesis 1: In the case of well-defined practical and technical problems, public sector
managers prefer the advice of a consultant to that of an academic, but an opposite preference is expected if due to potential conflicts of interests within the organization, impartial
advice is required.
Hypothesis 2: public sector managers prefer the advice of an academic to that of a consultant when they need advice regarding value-laden problems within their organization,
but an opposite preference is expected if the problems concern behavioural issues.
Hypothesis 3: A close cooperation between the external expert and the members of the
client organization (denoted as socialization) is the dominant approach to transferring
knowledge, irrespective of the question whether the external expert is a consultant or an
academic, except when research-oriented advice is required, involving the impersonal
transfer of knowledge by academics (denoted as interiorization).
We will now discuss some of our findings in the light of a perspective on consultancy
which emphasizes the use of persuasion to realize pre-defined solutions to management
16
problems.†† The traditional consultancy literature portrays consultants as experts who can
translate a vaguely articulated management problem into a diagnosis which forms the basis for concrete actions to solve the issue (Schein, 1988, p. 4). A more critical perspective
on consultancy, however, suggests that consultants are the persuasive communicators of
pre-defined solutions to managerial problems. In this view, consultants legitimate their
role by applying a number of rhetorical techniques to build a positive image of their expertise (Fincham, 1999, pp. 339 and 349). In line with this perspective, Christensen and
Skaerbaek (2010) have identified the purification role of consultants in a public sector
context. Purification is a mechanism used by consultants to make controversial ideas acceptable and unchallenged. Purification is an essential tool to be used in the interventions
of consultants as pervasive communicators. Via reports, presentations and discussions
these interventions include: confronting the existing and supposedly failing practice with
the new and promising approach, removing the resistance towards the new measure,
gathering support for it, and creating new identities for its users.
In order to shed some more light on the persuasive role of consultants, we further
analyzed our data by focusing on their role in implementation issues where persuasion
plays a major role. An analysis of the public sector managers’ factual experiences with
external experts revealed that consultants are generally more oriented towards implementation than academic advisors. From the 24 managers interviewed, 10 referred
to consultancy projects as purely implementation-oriented, while 5 more interviewees
reported on projects that combined design and implementation. In contrast, only three of
the 24 interviewees labeled their projects with academic advisors as implementation trajectories. Two of these implementation projects related to typical academic proficiencies,
the first to informing the employees of an organization about changing values due to public sector reforms, and the other to explaining the fundamentals of the valuation of intangible assets. In the third project the academic advisor was chosen for his particular and
long-lasting experience with the topic at hand. We add however, that our data did not systematically reveal whether or not the consultants conducted the implementation projects
predominantly on the basis of persuasion in the form of the purification of certain ideas
or tools, as indicated by Christensen and Skaerbaek (2010).
We conducted a similar analysis of the responses to the RLCs, in which implementation issues played an important role. In addition to the general arguments for preferring either a consultant or an academic as an external expert, the reactions to
RLC4 (aimed at making managers and employees more competition-focused) show that
consultants were perceived to be more suitable for learning the employees new ways of
thinking and acting (in which elements of persuasion are crucial), whereas academic advisors were preferred when reflections about the rationales behind the new attitudes were
at stake. We add that the responses to RLC3 (implementing a new cost allocation system)
did not refer to elements of persuasion as exercised by the consultant, but this may have
been due to the merely technical character of this RLC.
In every form of knowledge transfer legitimation and persuasion capacities are
important. More in particular, the more persuasive and legitimate the external adviser, the
more effective and efficient the knowledge transfer/gap-bridging process underlying an
advisory activity (Ichijo, 2007). However, irrespective of the impact of legitimation and
persuasion, the choice made by public sector managers to approach either a consultant or
††
We are grateful to one of the reviewers for suggesting this line of reasoning.
17
an academic advisor has to be based on the kinds of knowledge possessed by these experts, which brings us back to the main topic of our paper.
This section finally points to a number of limitations of our study, some of which also
hint at more specific directions for future research.
First, we recognize that the ordering of the RLCs may have influenced the interpretations of the respondents. When starting our interviews we deliberately first dealt
with the RLCs which were relatively easy to discuss, i.e. those which are supposed to address quite straightforward issues, such as decentralizing the responsibilities in the organization or the introduction of a multi-purpose financial system. When the interviewees
had become accustomed to the types of answers they were expected to give, i.e. making a
choice between a consultant or an academic as an external expert, more complicated issues were discussed with them, such as reflections on the position of their organization in
the value chain or the evaluation of a controversial rewarding system. The number of interviews was, however, too small for varying the order in which the RLCs were discussed
with the interviewees. As a result, we could not establish whether this order has had an
impact on the empirical results.
Second the reliability of our empirical study may have benefited from pre-testing
the RLCs, for example, on a sample of public sector managers which did not form part of
the ultimate study, in order to establish whether the RLCs and the related questions actually measured what they were supposed to measure. Instead however, we took other
measures to achieve this aim. All four authors of this paper are highly experienced in
conducting applied research and doing consultancy work. Furthermore, we as authors intensively discussed the way in which the RLCs had to be presented to the managers.
Moreover, as indicated above, we organized our empirical work in two rounds of 12 interviews, which would give us the opportunity to refine the formulation of the RLCs after
the first round. There was, however, no reason to do this because our interviewees indicated that the RLCs were clear descriptions of real-life cases. Some of them even spontaneously added that many of the RLCs closely resembled their own experiences.
Third, we did not systematically address possible differences in preferences for
consultants and academics as external advisors of public sector managers among Italian,
Dutch and Swedish central government agencies. It would be interesting to investigate
whether differences in the types of problems relating to the dominance of democratic or
economic issues would have an influence on the preference for a consultant or an academic and whether this preference varies across the three countries. It can be expected
that economic problems are the primary domain of consultants, while academics are more
suitable for covering democratic problems
Finally, our study focuses on differences between two groups of external advisors,
i.e. consultants and academics, whereas a further study of ‘intermediate groups’, such as
consultant-researchers, could enrich our understanding of the type of external expertise
needed by public sector organizations. It would even go a step further to examine the
possible match between types of advisory projects and the individual characteristics of
external advisors, i.e., their educational background, expertise and values, irrespective of
the group to which they belong.
18
Despite these limitations, our study has provided clear empirical findings on the preferences of public sector managers with respect to approaching either consultants or academic researchers as external experts. Moreover, our study has refined the theoretical expectations about these preferences. Referring to the research goal as formulated in the
introductory section, we conclude that the reasons of public sector managers to approach
either a consultant or an academic as an external expert, primarily relate to the various
characteristics of the types of problem to be solved, i.e. whether the problem is well- or
ill-defined and whether the problem is technical or value-laden. In turn, these characteristics are interrelated to the need for impartiality in giving advice and to the extent to which
behavioural aspects are at stake. In addition, irrespective of the question whether the advisor is a consultant or an academic, in the cooperation between the organization and the
external expert the latter is always the dominant party in terms of the transfer of
knowledge.
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20
Appendix A1 Factual experiences for involving a consultant as external expert
Organization Topic
Reason for choosing a consultant
Italy-1
Italy-2
Italy-3
Italy-4
Italy-5
Italy-6
Italy-7
Italy-8
Netherlands-1
Netherlands-2
Netherlands-3
Netherlands-4
Netherlands-5
Netherlands-6
Netherlands-7
Netherlands-8
Sweden-1
Sweden-2
Sweden-3
Sweden-4
Sweden-5
Sweden-6
Sweden-7
Sweden-8
Reorganise the supply function of
the organization
Implement management control
system
Implement an on-line library for
educational institute
Design of IT system
Real estate administration
Implement new accounting system
Implement new business intelligence (BI) system.
Implement new Balanced Scorecard System.
Reorganise primary processes due
to new tasks, incl. implementation
Reorganise as a response to a
strategy review , incl. implementation
Design and implement digitalised
application procedures for clients
Design and implementation of
cultural change
Evaluate the efficiency of real
estate management for asylums
Develop and implement a DMS
(digital management system)
Risks exposure in the organization’s planning and control process
Additional mutual service provision in the chain of justice, police,
and youth welfare
Implement of EFQM system
Investigate stakeholder attitudes
Implement gender-neutral HRM
policy
Explore working conditions and
methods for organization
Implement new management accounting system
Merge several databases in our
computer systems
Implement a new management
system
Implement new purchasing model
Awareness of organization’s needs
Interaction
with organization
Strong
Need for technical advice from experienced expert
Topic is mainly technical
Strong
Technical problem
Technical problem
Technical problem
Technical problem
Weak
Weak
Strong
Strong
Technical problem
Weak
Experience in comparable cases in
the past
Experience in comparable cases and
sector-specific knowledge
Strong
Strong
Strong
Need for technical expertise
Strong
Experience in comparable cases in
the past
Real estate expertise and avoiding
entanglement of interests
Experience in comparable cases in
the past
A choice between three consultancy
firms
Strong
An objective, independent judgement, no entanglement of interests
and methodical expertise
Only a few consultants have appropriate experience
Track record on excellence and costs
Previous experience in comparable
cases
Adaptability of tools to specific organizational needs
Experiences from the past
Strong
From a central procurement list of
consultants
From a central procurement list of
consultants
From a central procurement list of
Strong
Strong
Weak
Strong
Strong
Weak
Strong
Strong
Strong
Strong
Strong
21
for current assets and expenses
consultants
Appendix A2. Factual experiences for involving an academic as external expert
Organization
Topic
Reason for choosing an academic
Italy-1
Prepare handbook for organizational change
Design and implement management training
Develop strategy for real estate
management
Design of due diligence analysis
Real estate administration
Develop new statute as a consequence of transformation in
economic public body
No experiences
Train and reconstruct supply
function of Agency
Explore functional uses of new
office building
Explore new governance model
on supervisory board
Design of complex information
services
Design of forecasting model
for organization’s workload
Twinning project with other
agency to improve service
Focus on ccontent-oriented
economic-judicial issues
Formulate a statement about
the effectiveness of the supervision exercised
Recognition of behavioural
interventions
Develop methods for data processing
Investigate disfunctioning
management control system
Explore a more gender neutral
HRM policy
Introduce program for new
employees on ethics
Implement balanced scorecard
Valuation of intangible assets
Implement new budget devolvement to local offices
Trustworthiness of advice and legitimating organizational change
Values or organizational identity were
at stake
Need for a systematic vision
Italy-2
Italy-3
Italy-4
Italy-5
Italy-6
Italy-7
Italy-8
Netherlands-1
Netherlands-2
Netherlands-3
Netherlands-4
Netherlands-5
Netherlands-6
Netherlands-7
Netherlands-8
Sweden-1
Sweden-2
Sweden-3
Sweden-4
Sweden-5
Sweden-6
Sweden-7
Interaction
with organization
Strong
Strong
Strong
No particular reason, could also have
been a consultant
Technical problem
A high level of independence and level
of legitimation.
Weak
No experiences
Academic was hired without tender
Weak
Impartial advice of highly qualified
institute
Independent view and innovative
thinking
Advanced specialised expertise and
neutrality
Neutrality and methodological expertise
Earlier enjoyed a good reputation
Strong
Experiences from the past
In the beginning and end
Weak
To promote the legitimacy of the advice
Weak
Partially
Weak
Strong
Weak
Strong
Legitimacy and proven effectiveness
Weak
Based on long lasting contacts with
university institutes
Based on long lasting contacts with
university institutes
Previous experience in comparable
cases
Disciplinary expertise
Strong
Personal contacts
No information
Contacts and trust in the person
Strong
Weak
Strong
Strong
Strong
22
Sweden-8
Restructure top management
team to enhance efficiency
Experiences from the past
Strong
23