Applying management consulting theories in dissertation work: a reflection

I have recently been involved in teaching a subject of Management Consulting-cum-research methods for Business Admin. students. From what I can figure out, management consulting theories and practices possess following characteristics that are not critical in Business Research-type of projects:

a. Management consulting project very often involves a transaction relationship with a specific client. Thus, in a typical management consulting report, greater effort is made to explain the specifications of deliverables to a client and the corresponding budget/ charging scheme for the delivery of the consulting service.
b. Managment consulting projects are more concerned about producing relevant knowledge rather than valid knowledge to specific clients as compared to academic dissertation project, which places more emphasis on knowledge validity than on knowledge relevance. In certain dissertation projects, there are no clients, though there are still targeted readers of the dissertation reports.
c. Management consulting projects are more problem-focused, thus more holistic than academic dissertation projects; academic dissertation projects stress more on the academic values of the reports than management consultiing projects, which mainly focus on delivering practical value and customer value to specific clients.
d. Largely due to point (c) above, management consulting reports spare less efforts on explaining and justifying research methods used as well as less efforts in literature review. The theories considered in management consulting reports tend to be less sophisticated than that in academic dissertation reports because business clients are considered less prepared to study sophisticated theoretical frameworks derived from comprehensive literature review.
e. Management consulting reports avoid using academic jargons and prefer terms that are familiar to their clients. Academic dissertation reports will do otherwise.

Once we are aware of these characteristics of mangement consulting theories and practices, I think it is useful for business admin students to study the management consulting literature to enhance their research skills. Nevertheless, such an effort will increase the cognitive complexity in handling dissertation reports because students need to master both research skills and management consulting skills. There are more readings to do on the students' part. The following diagram is a process model of management consulting formulated by me in 1986. It further clarifies the nature and scope of management consulting theories and practices.

Useful readings:

1. French, W.L., Bell, Jr., C.H. and Zawacki, R.A. (editors) (1989) Organization Development: Theories, Practice, and Research, BPI, Irwin.
2. Ho, J.K.K. (1986) A Study of Problem Contexts, Problems, and Attempted Solutions Using Systems Concepts, MA (Management Systems) thesis, Department of Management Systems and Sciences, University of Hull, UK.
3. Wickham, P. (2004) Consulting: Delivering an effective project, Prentice Hall.