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Managers risk threatening the future of management consultancy

Management as Consultancy book cover

19 February 2015

New research by academics from the Universities of Bristol and Sydney, and Oxford Brookes University, reveals that the future of the multi-billion dollar management consultancy industry may be threatened by the increasing trend of managers adopting consultancy practices as their own.

Professor Andrew Sturdy from Bristol’s Department of Management, who was lead investigator on the project, said: ‘Our research was based on a large-scale, international study of management practices which clearly showed that managers are becoming more like management consultants in focusing on change, projects and clients.’

The potential impact of this trend could be significant for the management consultancy industry. As Professor Sturdy explained: ‘It now faces threats not only from other professional services companies, but also from its clients. But it is too early to say if the bubble has burst.’

Find out more in this two-minute video or on the PolicyBristol blog, or follow The Conversation.

The project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The research findings are available in a book, Management as Consultancy, published by Cambridge University Press on 19 February. The authors are Andrew Sturdy (University of Bristol), Christopher Wright (University of Sydney) and Nick Wylie (Oxford Brookes University).

For more information, please contact Professor Andrew Sturdy at andrew.sturdy@bristol.ac.uk.

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