Between regulation, promotion and consumption: Government and management consultancy in Britain

Business History

Volumn 47, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 449-465

  Kipping, Matthias ^a,b   Saint Martin, Denis ^c  

^a UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA   (Spain)

^b UNIVERSITY OF READING   (United Kingdom)

^c UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BUSINESS SERVICE; MANAGEMENT PRACTICE;

EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; EUROPE; UNITED KINGDOM; WESTERN EUROPE; WORLD;

NICOTIANA TABACUM;

EID: 18944388119     PISSN: 00076791     EISSN: 17437938     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00076790500055756     Document Type: Review

References (106)

1. A consultancy client interviewed for the Channel Four documentary 'Masters of the Universe', Part 2.
2. For a structured overview of this literature see M. Kipping and T. Armbrüster, Management Consultants and Management Knowledge: A Literature Review, CEMP report No.3 (Dec. 1998);
3. R. Fincham and T. Clark, 'Introduction: The Emergence of Critical Perspectives on Consulting', in T. Clark and R. Fincham (eds), Critical Consulting: New Perspectives on the Management Advice Industry (Oxford, 2002), pp.1-18;
4. L. Engwall and M. Kipping, 'Introduction: Management Consulting as a Knowledge Industry', in M. Kipping and L. Engwall (eds), Management Consulting: Emergence and Dynamics of a Knowledge Industry (Oxford, 2002), pp.1-16.
5. J. Micklethwait and A. Wooldridge, The Witch Doctors. What the Management Gurus are Saying, Why it Matters and How to Make Sense of It (London, 1996);
6. J. O'Shea and C. Madigan, Dangerous Company: The Consulting Powerhouses and the Businesses they Save and Ruin (London, 1997);
7. M. Ashford, Con Tricks: The World of Management Consultancy and How to Make it Work for You (London, 1998);
8. L. Pinault, Consulting Demons: Inside the Unscrupulous World of Global Corporate Consulting (New York, 2000).
9. H. Higdon, The Business Healers (New York, 1969);
10. A. Huczynski, Management Gurus: What Makes Them and How to Become One (London, 1993).
11. Ashford, Con Tricks, p.19.
12. A. Kieser, 'Managers as Marionettes? Using Fashion Theories to Explain the Success of Consultancies', in Kipping and Engwall (eds), Management Consulting, pp.167-183, here p.176.
13. The advantages of long-term relationships for both clients and consultants are discussed in more detail by C. Amorim and M. Kipping, 'Selling Consultancy Services: The Portuguese Case in Historical and Comparative Perspective', Business and Economic History, Vol.28 No.1 (Fall 1999), pp.45-56.
14. This is the title of another book, critical towards the dangers inherent in using consultancy services, C. Argyris, Flawed Advice and the Management Trap: How Managers Can Know When They're Getting Good Advice and When They're Not (New York, 2000).
15. See T. Clark, 'The Market Provision of Management Services, Information Asymmetries and Service Quality - Some Market Solutions: An Empirical Example', British Journal of Management, Vol.4 No.4 (1993), pp.235-51;
16. V.-W. Mitchell, 'Problems and Risks in the Purchasing of Consultancy Services', The Service Industries Journal, Vol.14 (1994), pp.315-39 and,
17. more in general, C. Gallouj, 'Asymmetry of Information and the Service Relationship: Selection and Evaluation of the Service Provider', International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol.8 No.1 (1997), pp.42-64.
18. D. Hartle, Public Policy, Decision-Making and Regulation (Montreal, 1979).
19. M.D. Reagan, Regulation: The Politics of Policy (Boston, 1987).
20. K.J. Meier, Regulation: Politics, Bureaucracy and Economics (New York, 1985).
21. See, for example, J. Braithwaite and P. Drahos, Global Business Regulation (Cambridge, 2000).
22. Cf. the contribution of David Courtwright in this volume.
23. For the early origins of this type of consulting activity in Britain, for example, see M. Ferguson, The Rise of Management Consulting in Britain (Aldershot, 2002);
24. for a broader overview, see M. Kipping, 'Trapped in their Wave: The Evolution of Management Consultancies', in Clark and Fincham (eds), Critical Consulting, pp.28-49.
25. See, for more details, M. Kipping, 'American Management Consulting Companies in Western Europe, 1920 to 1990: Products, Reputation and Relationships', Business History Review, Vol.73 No.2 (Summer 1999), pp.190-220.
26. See, for details, P. Tisdall, Agents of Change: The Development and Practice of Management Consultancy (London, 1982), esp. pp.24-30 and 55-60;
27. Ferguson, The Rise, chapters 3 and 4;
28. and, in a comparative perspective, M. Kipping, 'Consultancies, Institutions and the Diffusion of Taylorism in Britain, Germany and France, 1920s to 1950s', Business History, Vol.39 No.4 (Oct. 1997), pp.67-83.
29. See, for one example, L.L. Downs, 'Industrial Decline, Rationalisation and Equal Pay: The Bedaux Strike at Rover Automobile Company', Social History, Vol.15 No.1 (Jan. 1990), pp.45-73;
30. for more cases of Bedaux interventions, see C.R. Littler, The Development of the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies: A Comparative Study of the Transformation of Work Organization in Britain, Japan and the USA (London, 1982)
31. and S. Kreis, 'The Diffusion of an Idea: A History of Scientific Management in Britain, 1890-1945' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1990).
32. Cf. C.S. Maier, 'Between Taylorism and Technocracy: European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial Productivity in the 1920s', Journal of Contemporary History, Vol.5 (1970), pp.27-61;
33. and Y. Shenhav, Manufacturing Rationality: The Engineering Foundations of the Managerial Revolution (New York, 1999).
34. For a general overview, see N. Tiratsoo and J. Tomlinson, Industrial Efficiency and State Intervention: Labour, 1939-51 (London, 1993).
35. Cf. Ferguson, The Rise, pp.102-3.
36. On Butten and PA see ibid., pp.113-16;
37. Tisdall, Agents of Change, pp.52-5.
38. Before being sent to Abadan, Hurry was brought 'up to date regarding recent developments in practice with workshop organisation and engineering maintenance' within a two-week period; see the exchange of letters between the Managing Director of AIC, Norman Pleming, and various AIOC managers in July and Aug. 1944; BP Archives, Warwick, 41506.
39. L. Urwick, 'Letter to an MBA', published in October 1969, quoted by Tisdall, Agents of Change, p.58.
40. Management Consultants Association (MCA), Annual Report, 1961; to be found in the MCA archives, London, Box 22.
41. Its transcript is published under the title 'Management Consultants - An Assessment', The Manager, Vol.21 No.10 (Oct. 1953), pp.603-13 and 622-3, quotation p.603.
42. See N. Tiratsoo, 'High Hopes Frustrated: The British Institute of Management as an Agent of Change, 1947-1963', in F. Amatori, A. Colli and N. Crepas (eds.), Deindustrialization and Reindustrialization in 20th-Century Europe (Milan, 1999), pp.143-54.
43. Tisdall, Agents of Change, pp.38-9, based largely on information from the BIM's annual report;
44. cf. also Ferguson, The Rise, p.125.
45. For details of the vetting procedure and the Register's operations see 'Role of the Business Consultant', The Statist, 28 June 1952, pp.932-3.
46. Tisdall, Agents of Change, p.9;
47. see also Brian O'Rorke, 'The Management Consultancies Association - "A Way Ahead"', undated, sent in a letter dated 27 Nov. 1985 to the then MCA Chairman Len Brooks, MCA archives, Box 2. O'Rorke was the MCA's Executive Director at the time.
48. See the minutes of the MCA's General Policy Committee meeting on 12 Nov. 1963, MCA archives, Box 15.
49. Tisdall, Agent of Change, chapter 6;
50. Ferguson, The Rise, pp.125-6.
51. See a letter of 16 Nov. 1977 from the MCA Executive Director to Deloitte Haskins & Sells Management Consultants, which suggests that the MCA had received at least 148 enquiries so far that year; MCA archives, Box 4; thank-you letters can be found in various boxes of the MCA archives.
52. See the MCA archives, Box 1, which contains, among others, the dossiers for Mead Carney (admitted in 1964), Binder, Hamlyn, Fry (1966), Arthur Andersen (1969) and Arthur Young (1983).
53. Minutes of the Membership Committee Meeting on 26 Sept. 1967, MCA archives, Box 1.
54. See a note about 'Membership of M.C.A. with a list of Possible New Members', March 1963, MCA archives, Box 15.
55. According to the data provided to the MCA for the admissions process, in most cases, this happened during the 1950s. For more detail on the case of Price Waterhouse, see E. Jones, True and Fair: A History of Price Waterhouse (London, 1995).
56. See Tisdall, Agents of Change, pp.80-83.
57. Cf. also E.B. Mellett, From Stopwatch to Strategy: A History of the First Twenty-Five Years of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants (Toronto, 1988), p.7.
58. See for the IMC's activities Tisdall, Agents of Change, pp.83-94 and 107-8;
59. K. Hook, 'The Institute and the Profession', in Management Consultants: IMC 1995 Career Guide (London, 1994), pp.22-5.
60. R. Cowton, 'Leading Firm Quits Management Group', The Times, 25 March 1975, p.25; MCA archives, Box 3.
61. Brian Smith, quoted in ibid. See also his letter to the MCA Chairman, dated 20 March 1975, MCA archives, Box 3. The MCA remained firm, however. About ten years later, PA eventually decided to return to the fold.
62. C.D. McKenna, 'The Origins of Modern Management Consulting', Business and Economic History, Vol.24 No.1 (1995), pp.51-8
63. and idem., 'The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, 2000).
64. Cf. Kipping, 'American Management Consulting Companies'.
65. Tisdall, Agents of Change, pp.39-40.
66. 'Management Consultants - An Assessment', p.604.
67. Cf. Kipping, 'Consultancies, Institutions'.
68. Department of Industry, Consultancy and the Smaller Firm, by C.D. Jones (London, 1974).
69. See B. Atkinson and C. Lupton, 'Towards an Enterprise Culture? Industrial and Training Policy under the Conservatives', in S.P. Savage and L. Robins (eds), Public Policy and Thatcher (London, 1990), pp.45-59.
70. DTI, Evaluation of the Consultancy Initiatives (London, 1989), p.17.
71. OECD, Best Practices for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (Paris, 1995), p.145.
72. T. Burt, 'Management Consultancy: A Special Report', Accountancy (Aug. 1988), pp.94-100, quotation p.99.
73. Letter from P-E to the MCA with attached client list, dated 13 Jan. 1971, MCA archives, Box 4.
74. Letter from a PA Director to the MCA, dated 15 Jan. 1971, MCA archives, Box 3.
75. Letter to the MCA of 15 Jan. 1971, MCA archives, Box 4.
76. Letter to the MCA of 14 Jan. 1971, MCA archives, Box 4.
77. These examples are from list of assignments produced by Cooper Brothers, later Coopers & Lybrand, in Jan. 1971, Dec. 1972 and Nov. 1976, all of which can be found in the MCA archives, Box 1.
78. Cf. A. Ringe and N. Rollings, 'Responding to Relative Decline: The Creation of the National Economic Development Council', Economic History Review, Vol.LIII (2000), pp.331-53.
79. British Shipbuilding, 1972: Report to the Department of Trade and Industry by Booz-Allen and Hamilton (London, 1973).
80. For this and the following, see L. Johnman and H. Murphy, British Shipbuilding and the State since 1918: A Political Economy of Decline (Exeter, 2002).
81. A large number of studies concerned the textile and clothing industries, e.g. Investment Appraisal for the Clothing Industry: A Report prepared by Inbucon/AIC Management Consultants Limited for the Economic Development Committee for the Clothing Industry (London, 1973);
82. Workwear: The Changing Scene: A Study of the Strategic Future of the United Kingdom overall Industry prepared by W.S. Atkins and Partners for the Economic Development Committee for the Clothing Industry (London, 1971);
83. Hosiery and Knitwear in the 1970s: A Study of the Industry's Future Market Prospects: A Report prepared by Associated Industrial Consultants Limited for the Marketing Action Group of the Economic Development Committee for the Hosiery and Knitwear Industry (London, 1970).
84. See, for details, B. Ryerson, The Giants of Small Heath: The History of BSA (Yeovil, 1980);
85. B. Hopwood, Whatever Happened to the British Motor Cycle Industry? (Yeovil, 1981) and,
86. in general, B.M.D. Smith, 'The History of the British Motorcycle Industry 1945-1975', University of Birmingham, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Occasional Paper No. 3 (New series), Oct. 1981. We would like to thank Steve Koerner for drawing our attention to this story and providing us with a number of relevant references.
87. See A. Fels, The British Prices and Incomes Board (Cambridge, 1972), chapter 11, which stresses that the NBPI's claim for lasting significance lay less in its efforts to moderate inflationary pressures than its efforts to improve efficiency, especially managerial efficiency.
88. They summarised the results of various lunch meetings the Chairman of the interest group had held with representatives of the CSD and of NEDO, MCA archives, Box 1.
89. According to an undated draft letter from the MCA's Executive Director to the Editor of the Guardian, which was however never sent, MCA archives Box 4.
90. Letter from C.W. Bocock to Anne Shaw, the MCA Chairperson at the time, of 11 May 1967, MCA archives, Box 4.
91. Tisdall, Agents of Change, pp.73-5.
92. See its response to 'MCA Information Requested in Support of Application for Membership', dated 10 Aug. 1983, MCA archives, Box 1.
93. Inbucon 1926-1986, MCA archives, Box 2. The former Bedaux Consultancy had changed its name to AIC in 1938 and to Inbucon in 1972.
94. O. Blymke, 'Government Agency and Consultancy', in H. Von Weltzein Hoivik and A. Follesdal (eds.), Ethics and Consultancy: European Perspectives (Dordrecht, 1995), pp.128-35.
95. Slide from a FEACO presentation, sent by O'Rorke to a KPMG consultant on 18 May 1987, MCA archives, Box 3.
96. L. Metcalfe and S. Richards, Improving Public Management (London, 2nd edn. 1990), p.9.
97. Command Paper (Cmnd) 8616, Efficiency and Effectiveness in the Civil Service: Government Observations on the 3rd Report of the Treasury and Civil Service Committee HC 236 (London, 1982).
98. A.W. Russell, 'The Financial Management Unit of the Cabinet Office and the Treasury', Management in Government, Vol.2 (1984), pp.146-52, here pp.146-7.
99. T. Smith and A. Young, The Fixers: Crisis Management in British Politics (Aldershot, 1996), p.142.
100. P. Greer, Transforming Central Government: The Next Steps Initiative (Buckingham, 1994), p.124.
101. HM Treasury, Seeking Help from Management Consultants, Accountancy and Advice Division of HM Treasury (London, 1990), p.1.
102. D. Saint-Martin, Building the New Managerialist State: Consultants and the Politics of Bureaucratic Reform in Britain, Canada and France (Oxford, 2000).
103. J. Corneille, 'The Pros and Cons of Public Duties', Management Consultancy (March 1994), p.27.
104. P. Abbott, 'Government Work Fulfils Expectations', Management Consultancy (April 1994), pp.31-4.
105. M. James, 'Heavyweights in a League of their Own', Management Consultancy (April 1994), pp.36-8.
106. Office of Government Commerce, Management Consultancies Association and the Institute of Management Consultancy, Delivering World-class Consultancy Services to the Public Sector (London, 2002), p.2.