Exploring Management Consulting Firms as Knowledge Systems

Abstract

This article examines the nature and the generation, dissemination and translation of knowledge in large, global management consulting organizations. The knowledge system in consulting organizations is modelled as consisting of three interacting knowledge elements: methods and tools, providing a common language and knowledge structure; cases, carrying knowledge in a narrative form; and the experience of individual consultants that is essential for the adaptation of methods, tools and cases to the specific consulting project. A number of recent studies have characterized knowledge-management strategies as focusing on either articulate knowledge or tacit knowledge. We argue that a fruitful understanding of knowledge management in management consulting requires attention to the relations between the different elements that represent different kinds of knowledge. Based on case studies in Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and Ernst & Young Management Consulting (now Cap Gemini Ernst & Young) these knowledge elements and the interplay between them are identified and analysed. The main role of articulate knowledge is not to replace experience, but rather to support the generation, dissemination and use of it. A number of consequences of this conceptualization of the knowledge system are discussed in terms of the ability of the knowledge system to generate different types of learning and the complementarity of structural and individual knowledge.