Exploring public sectormanagers preferences forattracting
consultants oracademics as external experts
AbstractPurpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the
reasons why public sector managers approacheither consultants or
academics for their help in solving problems related to public
sector accountingand management reforms.Design/methodology/approach
A eld study based on reactions to real-life constructs andanswers
to questions about the experiences of public sector managers in
Italian, Dutch and Swedishcentral government agencies.Findings
Public sector managers approach consultants, due to their
experience-based knowledge,for solving well-dened practical and
technical problems. In the case of tacit knowledge, a
stronginteraction between the public sector manager and the
consultant, denoted as socialization, is thetypical way of
knowledge transfer. In accordance with expectations, public sector
managers approachacademics for advice regarding value-laden
problems in their organization. However, academics alsogive advice
about practical and technical issues, usually being the primary
domain of consultants, butoften when impartial advice is required.
Although the authors expected academics to transferknowledge rather
detached from their clients (interiorization), this was not
corroborated, because oftenacademics work closely with their
counterparts in the client organization.Research
limitations/implications The theoretical framework was helpful in
explaining therole of consultants, but it required renement in
explaining the role of academics as external experts.Practical
implications The paper contributes to a better articulated set of
preferences of publicsector managers in asking advice from either a
consultant or an academic.Originality/value The paper offers a
simultaneous and systematic empirical examination of theroles that
consultants and academics play in public sector management and
accounting reforms.Keywords Consultants, Academic advisors, Public
sector accounting and management, Accounting,Public sector
accounting, Italy, Sweden, The NetherlandsPaper type Research
paper
1. IntroductionDepending upon the issue and circumstances at
hand, practitioners can approacheither a consultant or an academic
(in the sense of an academic researcher) to help them
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in solving their problems. Within the market of external advice
on public sectoraccounting and management issues, public sector
managers are active on the demandside. On the supply side of this
market, consultants play a prominent role, as well asacademics, be
it in a more indirect way by conducting practice-relevant research
or bygiving advice to practitioners. Our study focuses on the
demand side of externalexpertise (for a supply side study see Van
Helden et al., 2010). In particular, our aim isto examine the
reasons why public sector managers approach either consultants
orresearchers for their help solving problems related to public
sector accounting andmanagement reforms.Our study focuses on an
under-researched area. First, there are only a limited numberof
empirical studies about the role of consultants in public sector
accounting. Mostnotably is the work of Christensen (2005, 2006),
who documents the prominent inuenceof auditing rms on the adoption
of accrual accounting in the State of New South Wales,Australia.
Moreover, research by Lapsley and Oldeld (2001) shows that
largemultinational consultancy rms are promoters of universally
applicable tool kits,whereas small locally-operating consultancy
rms are dedicated to deliveringcustom-made solutions for public
sector practice. Second, only incidental studiesinvestigate the
relationship between academic research and practice in accounting,
andthese studies concern management accounting in general rather
than public sectormanagement accounting (Foster and Young, 1997;
Selto and Widener, 2004). In the areaof management research, the
so-called research-practice gap has received much moreattention
(Rynes et al., 2001; Rynes and Shapiro, 2005; Van de Ven and
Johnson, 2006).As far we know, only Van Helden and Northcott (2010)
investigate the practicalorientation of public sector management
accounting research published in accountingjournals, both in terms
of their relevance and the way outcomes are communicated to
apractice-interested audience. They show that most of the papers
are directed towardsunderstanding or critiquing the use of
management accounting techniques, while othermore practically
oriented research objectives, such developing new techniques
andassessing the effectiveness of existing techniques, are largely
absent. Moreover, theyfound that about half of the papers identify
practical research implications. All in all, asimultaneous
examination of the roles that consultants and academics play in
publicsector management and accounting is lacking. Publications on
the differences betweenconsultants and academics as external
advisors of public sector managers are oftenreective studies
(Pollitt, 2006; Docherty and Smith, 2007), whereas systematic
empiricalresearch on this issue is largely absent. Our study is an
attempt to address this gap.At an academic level, our research goal
and the way in which it will be elaboratedis relevant, because it
contributes to a better understanding of the multitude of
reasonswhy public sector organizations hire either consultants or
academics as external experts.These reasons are related to issues
such as the types of problems to be solved throughknowledge
creation, the processes of knowledge creation, and the ways in
whichknowledge is transferred (Corcoran and McLean, 1998, p. 38,
for instance, point to thegeneral lack of knowledge with respect to
selecting a consultant in a public sectorcontext). A further
contribution of this research relates to the application of
real-lifeconstructs (RLCs), which is explained in the methods
section, as an innovative tool forstructuring a multitude of data.
At a practical level, this research may help public sectormanagers
as practitioners to better articulate their preferences with
respect to theirchoice between consultants or academics as external
advisors.
The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 discusses some
theoretical notions aboutknowledge creation by consultants and
academics in their role as advisors of a publicsector organization.
Subsequently, Section 3 elucidates the methods for data
collectionand analysis. Section 4 presents the ndings of our study,
which are then discussed inSection 5.
2. TheoryAs a consequence of public sector reforms, public
management is now faced with abroader scope of responsibilities:
from nding the resources for solving certainproblems to the control
of operations, achieving efciency and being accountable for
theresults accomplished (Barzelay, 1992; Pollitt and Bouckaert,
1999). This increase inresponsibilities could induce a gap between
the public sector managers actualprociencies and skills and those
that are in fact required, as a result of which they maycall 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 andCollett, 1978). First, external
experts can deliver particular services at lower costs
thanemployees of the organization itself, so there may be reasons
of economy. Second, whensuch an organization is in need of
impartial advice about certain issues, such as theeffectiveness of
a specic technique or approach, an independent view from an
outsidercan be important.From this point of view, external advice
is initially regarded as a mechanistic processin which a public
sector organization simply seeks to obtain the desired
knowledge.However, most of the literature on consultancy has
recently focussed on external adviceas a social interaction process
between the external advisor and the client
organization(Armbruster, 2006). Given this point of view, the
nature and result of any externalconsultancy activity do not only
depend on the knowledge of the external adviser, butalso on the
behaviour and requests of the client organization, including the
way inwhich the client organization and the external adviser
interact. This interaction includesboth the process of preparing
the advice and the way in which the ultimate outcome ofthe advice
is communicated to the client organization. As opposed to most of
the studiesdealing with aspects of choosing an external consultant,
we established that publicsector managers rst have to make a choice
between the two types of external adviser,i.e. a consultant or an
academic, before specically deciding who to approach. Publicsector
managers are expected to choose an external adviser on the basis of
his/hercompetences, i.e. the external advisers knowledge expertise
and the skills used inputting this knowledge into practice.By
viewing external advice as a process that continues after the
consultancytrajectory, and also considering the result of the
advice, three types of differencesbetween consultants and academics
can be relevant to public managers choices ofeternal expertise:(1)
Differences in the objectives and thereby in the kinds of knowledge
produced.(2) Differences in the process of knowledge creation.(3)
Differences in the ways in which the created knowledge is
transferred.
We will elaborate each of these aspects below. Prior to that we
clarify ourunderstanding of what is meant by researchers and
consultants. Researchers in ourstudy are university researchers,
because they are generally regarded as more
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distinctive from consultants than researchers working in
institutes for appliedresearch. Consultants can be afliated to
either big rms (such as the so-calledBig Four in auditing and
consultancy) or more locally working rms.
2.1 Differences in the objectives and related kinds of knowledge
producedAcademics create theoretical knowledge, whereas consultants
create practicalknowledge (Docherty and Smith, 2007). This
difference may have an inuence on thetypes 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 oftime, it seems more appropriate to approach a
consultant. If the organization faces aproblem caused by incoherent
values internally (at an individual level) or externally(at an
environmental level), academic expertise might be preferred
(Schein, 1992)[1].Often a consultant is approached by a public
sector manager to solve a well-denedproblem. The choice of a
consultant is based on his/her experience with tackling
similarproblems in the past. Because the public sector manager is
likely to have alreadyreected on this type of problem him/herself,
he/she will generally play an active role inthe process of
knowledge creation. In the case of an academics intervention, the
publicsector managers role is expected to be more passive, because
mostly the academic isnot called upon to solve a problem, but to
identify the problem to be solved or tovalidate the solution to a
certain problem as proposed by the manager (Nonaka andTakeuchi,
1995; Pollitt, 2006, pp. 259-60). In this case, the public sector
managercould opportunistically make use of the academics authority
to legitimize his/her ownpractice (Pollitt, 2003).A possible
disadvantage of hiring an academic is that due to the complexity of
theresearch methods used, the underpinnings of his or her advice
may be relativelydifcult for the public sector manager to
assess.
2.2 Differences in the process of knowledge creationKnowledge
created by consultants is experiential, which means that it is
based on theirown practice and experience, by applying insights
from previous cases to the currentcase. Consultants mostly work in
teams of varying composition, which gives themthe advantage of
benetting from the experiences of colleagues in their own
rm(Gherardi, 2006, pp. 259-60; Docherty and Smith, 2007, p. 277).
Academics createknowledge by using a scientic research approach
related to certain methods andtheories. In this process, the
interaction with colleagues of different cultures, who possessother
kinds of knowledge, is important (Gibbons et al., 1994). In
addition to explainingthe existence of an actual phenomenon,
academics can also reect on the possible futuredevelopments of the
phenomenon (Caldwell and Dorling, 1995; Pollitt, 2006). This
featureof the academic knowledge creation process can be benecial
to public sector managerswhen they need to anticipate future
developments or avoid possible future problems.Generally speaking,
public sector managers are quite familiar with the way in
whichconsultants create knowledge, because it resembles their own
methods of creatingknowledge (Caldwell and Dorling, 1995). This is
why, in this respect, consultants havean advantage over academics.
However, when public sector managers have experiencewith the
scientic approach for instance as a result of their own academic
career orbecause they have conducted academic research in the past
the primary position ofconsultants relative to that of academics
will be less apparent (Ospina and Dodge, 2005).
Academics often take a more independent approach to a public
sector organizationbecause they adhere strongly to the values of
their profession (Abbott, 1988),particularly with respect to
impartiality and neutrality. When academics work asexternal experts
outside their normal university context, they will probably not
giveup their autonomy and adhere to their academic status. On the
one hand, public sectormanagers can in certain cases be reluctant
to address academics, for instance when theformer suspect an
opinion opposite to the one they are committed to themselves. On
theother hand, the authority of academic knowledge can be a reason
for public sectormanagers to approach an academic advisor to
legitimate their choices or to mediateopposing 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
practicalsolutions to the problems under consideration. The
authority of academic knowledge,as presented in the academics
publications, particularly relates to its neutrality.
2.3 Differences in the ways in which the created knowledge is
transferredThe extent to which public sector managers learn from
the advice of external experts isdependent 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, 1966; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Tacit
knowledge is personal, unconscious,subjective, and intuitive, and
is therefore difcult to formalize and share with others.Explicit
knowledge is formalized knowledge, which can be easily transferred
to andelaborated by others. Academics mostly create explicit
knowledge because of thepressure within their professional group to
publish the results of their work in reports,and especially in
books or journals (Ndozuau et al., 2002; Gendron, 2008).
Knowledgecreation by consultants is mostly a combination of tacit
and explicit knowledge, wherethe 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 creatorand the user of the knowledge; for
example, by jointly taking part in processes ofknowledge creation.
This is called socialization. Explicit knowledge can be
learnedthrough a rather impersonal relationship between the creator
and the user of theknowledge; for instance, by reading a
publication or attending a course. This is calledinteriorization.
There might be situations in which public sector managers prefer
theexplicit knowledge created by academics; for example, if they
require some level ofdiscretion in developing an active role in the
process of knowledge creation.
2.4 Summary and research questionsTable I summarizes the
objectives, process and transfer of knowledge created byconsultants
and academics as experts of public sector managers.Given the
research goal as set out in the introductory section, our
theoreticalreections about knowledge creation by academics and
consultants give rise to thefollowing research questions:RQ1. Will
public sector managers prefer the advice of consultants to that
ofacademics in solving practical and technical problems, and will
the converseapply when they need advice regarding value-laden
problems of theirorganization?
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Types of differences inknowledge creation
Consultants
Academics
Objective of knowledge creation Solving practical and
technical
Solving value-laden problems
and kinds of knowledge
problems
Providing support in identifying
210
produced
Helping to solve well-denedproblems
problems
Table I.Public sector managers
Process of knowledge creation Based on own experience andthat of
colleaguesResembles knowledge creationin the client
organization
Based on scientic approach(methods, theories)Process is
relatively independentand neutral towards the clientorganization;
mediating incontroversial interests byproviding authoritative
opinions
and knowledge createdby consultants andacademics
Transfer of knowledge
Tacit and explicit knowledge,where tacit knowledge istransferred
through socialization
Explicit knowledge transferredthrough interiorization
RQ2. Will public sector managers approach consultants when they
need to solve awell-structured problem, as opposed to calling upon
an academic when aproblem is less-structured and requires further
specication?RQ3. Given that academics make use of a scientic
approach in producingknowledge, does this make the type of
knowledge they produce moreauthoritative (being especially
important when controversial issues are atstake) than the
experience-based knowledge created by consultants?RQ4. Is
socialization through close contact between the public sector
manager andhis or her advisor the typical way in which knowledge is
transferred in the caseof tacit knowledge, which is often produced
by consultants, and interiorization,which relates to a more
impersonal transfer of knowledge by the public sectormanager the
typical mode of transfer of knowledge created by academics?It has
to be emphasised that public sector managers can also opt for
hybridprofessional forms: academic-consultants or
consultant-academics. These formscombine the characteristics of
both pure forms[2].
3. Methods of data collectionThe governmental structures in
Italy, The Netherlands and Sweden differ to a largeextent,
especially in terms of the degree of autonomy of the various
governmentallayers and the range of activities of organizations
within each of these layers. This iswhy we decided to focus our
empirical study on organizations with a similar positionin the
governmental system in each of these countries. This approach
enabled us toavoid or at least limit biases due to differences
concerning their governmentalsystems. We selected agencies within
the central government layer, because inperforming their
governmental activities they have a fairly autonomous
positionvis-a`-vis central government (Ter Bogt, 2003; Van Thiel,
2006). Moreover, most of theagencies activities have an operational
character, as opposed to policy-makingactivities, which are often
the domain of the core divisions of central government.
In all three countries, eight central government agencies were
selected. In each agencyone top-manager was interviewed, thus
summing up to a total of 24 interviews.All agencies are
large-scale-organizations varying from some hundreds to about28,000
employees. Within each agency we interviewed a senior manager
withconsiderable experience regarding the types of issues at hand.
We used an interviewprotocol developed on the basis of the
theoretical considerations elaborated in theprevious section.With
respect to a public sector managers choice of approaching either a
consultantor an academic as an external advisor, two different
types of questions were used. Therst category of questions presents
six brief RLCs, on the basis of which a public sectormanager 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 specic elements and is used,
rst, to explorepractitioners reaction to a concrete agenda and,
then subsequently, to prompt movesoutwards from the construct thus
facilitating connections with more general
organizationalprocesses.We developed six RLCs that on the one hand
covered the content of the previouslyformulated research questions
and on the other hand related to the types of problemsencountered
in our years of experience in the elds of consultancy and applied
researchin the public sector context. We analysed the reactions of
our respondents bysystematically examining the commonalities and
differences in their preferences,including the provided
underpinnings. The second category of questions aimed to shedlight
on the actual experiences of public sector managers in hiring a
consultant or anacademic for a particular project. Our analysis of
these experiences focuses on threeaspects that are prominent in our
theoretical considerations: the type of topic of theadvisory
project, the reason for choosing a consultant or an academic, and
theirinteraction with the organization.The use of these different
types of questions is meant to contribute to the validity ofthe
data collection on the phenomenon studied. In the case of asking
for actualexperiences, as in the second category of questions,
public sector managers areexpected to avoid giving socially
desirable answers. The purpose of asking opinionsabout RLCs (the
rst category of questions) is to motivate public sector managers
toreect on the types of issues that arise regarding the decision to
choose either aconsultant or an academic.Although a comparative
multi-country study was not our initial intention, we didnot want
our research to be based on data from only one country. Moreover,
all threecountries included in our study Italy, The Netherlands and
Sweden arecharacterized by a mature public sector, which
substantially relies on hiring externalexpertise from consultancy
rms or the university sector. As indicated above, weselected
organizations with similar organizational positions in the central
governmentsof the three countries. Finally, a crucial point in
choosing these three countries was theease of access to data
already in the early stage of the research. This access was
madepossible because for several years all four authors had
maintained close contacts with anumber of central agencies and
their managers in these countries.Our research is exploratory,
which means that accomplishing a rich understandingof an
under-researched phenomenon outweighs the importance of a large
sample forachieving generalizable assertions. The exploratory
character of our study is mainly
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due the absence of an elaborated theoretical framework. Although
we derived ourresearch questions from expectations based on
existing empirical studies about possiblyrelevant differences
between consultants and academics as external experts of
publicsector organizations, these questions were formulated in an
open way. Subsequently, weconducted interviews with 24 public
sector managers to investigate their reactions tothe six RLCs and
to assess their real-life experiences. Based on the literature
review andthe empirical study, we ultimately rened our expectations
by transforming the researchquestions into hypotheses, which are
not tested in this paper.Half of the interviews were held in June
and July 2008 and the remaining half inAugust and September 2010.
Each interview was summarised and a report was sent tothe
interviewee, who was asked to amend it and ultimately conrm its
accuracy. Allinterviews lasted between one and one and a half
hour.
4. FindingsThis section presents the ndings of our interviews.
The answers of the interviewees arepresented in summarised form.
However, if there are distinctive differences betweeninterviewees
from each of the three countries these are discussed in more
detail. Analysisof both the responses to the RLCs and the real-life
experiences with consultants oracademics as external experts, has
informed our answers to the previously formulatedresearch
questions. Based on these answers, we will subsequently develop
hypothesesabout the preferences of public sector managers with
respect to obtaining advice fromeither consultants or academics.
These hypotheses could then be tested in subsequentempirical
studies.
4.1 Reactions to RLCs about approaching a consultant or an
academicAccording to our theoretical reections, public sector
managers prefer the advice of aconsultant to that of an academic
when they need to solve practical and technicalproblems, whereas
they prefer an academic when they need advice regardingvalue-laden
problems facing their organization. Moreover, we expected that
publicsector managers would hire consultants for solving
well-structured problems andacademics for specifying
less-structured problems. In addition, we expected thatacademics
produce their knowledge by means of a scientic approach, making it
moreauthoritative than the experience-based knowledge created by
consultants, whichwould be particularly important in the case of
controversial issues.In order to assess the extent to which these
expectations were shared by ourinterviewees, we developed six RLCs
on the basis of which they had to decide whetherto approach a
consultant or an academic as an external expert. For each RLC, we
rstasked our interviewees to choose among the following ve
alternatives: strongpreference for a consultant, preference for a
consultant, consultant and academic areequally 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
publicsector manager might approach an external expert. Moreover,
the problems underlyingall three RLCs are quite well-structured.
RLC 1 concerns a restructuring of theorganization, RLC 2 deals with
the design of a new nancial system and RLC 3 is aboutthe
implementation of a new system for allocating costs to products. A
substantialmajority (on average approximately 70 per cent) of the
interviewees expressed
a preference for hiring a consultant when they were faced with
the rst three RLCs,which was in accordance with our expectations.
This also holds for the type of expertiserelevant to these RLCs.
For example, an interviewee argued: One needs to have dealtwith
comparable cases in the past, it is a matter of purchasing
experience. However,some interviewees preferred approaching an
academic, especially among the Italianmanagers. Some of them argued
that consultants are not suitable for doing the jobbecause they are
mostly too focussed on the private sector, or because the problem
inquestion is strategic rather than technical.RLC 1 (18 prefer a
consultant, three are indifferent, three 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 powerposition of central
staff, your organization is not sufciently adaptive to changes in
itsenvironment. Therefore, you think that a restructuring of the
organization would bedesirable, in which lower level managers are
given responsibility and accountability for abroad spectrum of
issues.RLC 2 (18 prefer a consultant, three are indifferent, three
prefer an academic):Currently your organization uses two separate
nancial systems, one for external reportingand the other for
internal budgeting and accounting. In your capacity as public
sectormanager, you want to introduce a so-called multi-purpose
nancial system that providesrelevant information for both external
and internal purposes.RLC 3 (16 prefer a consultant, four are
indifferent, four prefer an academic):A team of experts within your
organization has developed a new system for allocatingindirect
costs to products. In your capacity as public sector manager, you
are satised withthis 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 and6 were
only partly in line with our expectations.RLC 4 concerns a project
in which a change of the attitude by both the managers andthe
employees towards more competitiveness is crucial. Although the
underlyingproblem is still quite well-structured, it is a
value-laden issue, which, according to ourtheoretical framework,
gives rise to a preference for an academic rather than aconsultant.
However, only six of our interviewees (25 per cent) responded in
accordancewith this expectation. As an interviewee indicated:
Because this is about attitudes,theories, and multi-perspective
understanding, I prefer an academic. Anotherinterviewee stated:
Here we need an academic, who can discuss and explain attitudesand
other difcult subjective matters on the basis of scientic studies.
A thirdinterviewee challenged the extent to which the problem is
well-structured, and argued:If you need an explorative analysis, an
academic is better, when how to do-issues are atstake, a consultant
is better. However, (about) two-thirds of the interviewees
preferredusing a consultant to do the job, especially when such a
project aims at changing thebehaviour of employees and when
competition is a theme. One interviewee, for example,indicated: To
tackle this problem you need a consultant, who has more realworld
experience than an academic. Another commented: Consultants are
moreaware of market features and market mechanisms as a consequence
of theirexperience.
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RLC 4 (16 prefer a consultant, two are indifferent, six prefer
an academic):Until now your organization has performed its
activities under rather monopolisticcircumstances. However, new
legislation has introduced competition in your branch. Thechanges
in your organizations environment resulting from this new
legislation require achange in the attitude of the managers and
employees of your organization. In your capacityas public sector
manager, you now have to focus on client orientation and
competitiveness askey words of these changes.RLC 5 deals with the
evaluation of a system for rewarding managers, which turned out
tobe a controversial issue within the organization. According to
our theoreticalconsiderations, an authoritative evaluation made by
an academic might be preferable.However, our interviewees came up
with divergent preferences. Almost 50 per cent(11 out of 24)
conrmed our expectation. An interviewee stipulated: If you need
anobjective advice to give to the supervisory board, an academic is
better. Someinterviewees argued that advice by academics would be
more legitimate because theywork with scientic methods. However, ve
interviewees (21 per cent) expressed apreference for a consultant,
because the problem was regarded as rather technical.
Oneinterviewee indicated that consultants are more aware of market
features and marketmechanisms as a consequence of their experience.
Another commented that consultants,especially from big rms, have a
wider awareness/experience than academics. Anothersix (25 per cent)
argued that it depended upon the type of problem whether a
consultant oran academic was to be preferred. In this group, some
respondents believed that aconsultant is more suitable where the
problem relates to practical issues, such as aninsufcient
implementation, whereas an academic is more appropriate when
quitefundamental differences in opinion are the problem. However,
others indicated that aconsultant is preferred when behavioural
aspects dominate, and an academic in the case oftechnical problems.
In addition, some interviewees referred to the difference between
along- 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 asdisagreements with respect to basic values and
attitudes, we would call upon the help of anacademic.RLC 5 (ve
prefer a consultant, eight are indifferent, 11 prefer an
academic):In your capacity as public sector manager, you introduced
a new system for job appraisal formanagers three years ago. This
system is based on quantitative information about issues suchas
meeting budget targets, sick leave of employees, complaints of
clients, and the productivityof key processes. This system is
considered highly controversial: some managers argue that
itoverrates the value of quantitative information and that it
stimulates tunnel vision. Thesupervisory board of your organization
therefore wants this system to be evaluated.The issue raised by RLC
6 is a reection on the organizations future position in thevalue
chain. Given that RLC 6 is about an exploration of the
organizations futureoptions, according to our theoretical framework
the advice of an academic would bemore attractive than that of a
consultant, particularly because the underlying problemis both
value-laden and not well-structured in advance. However, as was the
case withRLCs 4 and 5, our interviewees expressed diverging
preferences. About one-third of theinterviewees preferred an
academic, mentioning open-mindedness and impartiality
as prominent requirements for dealing with this issue. One
interviewee noted: Thisproblem usually needs a broader analysis,
and hence an academic is more suitablebecause he/she has a more
open-minded view. Another interviewee argued:This requires an
investigation that is neutral and impartial. The problem is
quitefundamental, so the mediator also has to advise or convince
other stakeholders, and thereforehiring an academic is
better.However, four interviewees (17 per cent) expressed a
preference for a consultant, as thefollowing quotes illustrate: It
is more of a practical problem and therefore I prefer aconsultant
to solve it; An experienced senior consultant capable of handling
thisturn-around management problem is needed. Finally, almost half
of the intervieweesindicated that their preference would depend on
the nature of the issue (I would prefera consultant when
behavioural aspects are dominant, but an academic when
variousoptions need to be explored). Other quotes provide further
arguments: Legitimationand including societal developments require
an academic, while a clear positioningof the organization in a
competitive environment requires a consultant.; it dependson the
typology of problem to be solved; it is possible to make the link
consultant-technical problem and academic-strategic problem, for
example in organisationsvalues and identity.RLC 6 (four prefer a
consultant, 13 are indifferent, seven prefer an academic):Your
organization is faced with difculties in its collaboration with one
of your main clientorganizations. In your capacity as public sector
manager, you need to tackle this collaborationproblem. However,
there seems to be more at stake. In spite of uncertain future
developments,your organization is expected to continue its
activities in a chain of service providers, whichmeans giving up
your current position as a rather isolated service provider.
4.2 Factual experiences regarding projects executed by
consultants and academicsAll interviewees were invited to share
their experiences with two projects, i.e. the rstproject had to be
an example involving assistance of a consultant, and the
secondinvolving assistance by an academic. Both projects needed to
cover an issue within thebroad domain of public sector accounting
and management, including topics such asrestructuring of the
organization (for example making the organization
moreclient-oriented), the introduction of a new accounting system,
and improvements inmanagement accounting instruments, such as
budgeting, performance measurementand cost management. Both
projects needed to refer to rather recent experiences,pertaining to
the last ve years, in 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 tobe solved, the procedure
for recruiting an external expert, the degree of theorganizations
involvement during the project execution, the outcome of the
project,and the organizations appreciation of this outcome.We used
this method of data collection to address two particular issues.
The rstone aimed to check responses to the RLCs regarding the types
of advisory projects(technical versus value-laden and well- versus
less-structured), including reasons forpreferring a consultant or
an academic. The second issue concerns the way in whichknowledge
created by a consultant or academic is transferred to the public
sectormanager. In this respect, our theoretical framework assumes
that socialization by
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means of close contact between the public sector manager and his
or her advisor is thetypical way in which knowledge transfers in
the case of tacit knowledge, which is oftenproduced by consultants,
while interiorization, which relates to a more impersonaltransfer
of knowledge, is applicable to knowledge created by
academics.Appendix 1 gives an overview of projects executed by a
consultant and Appendix 2of projects executed by an academic. Both
appendices list the nature of the project, thereason for choosing a
consultant or an academic and their interaction with
theorganization. Here, we focus on the main outcomes.Our
investigation conrms our expectations concerning approaching
consultants forexternal advice. Consultants are approached for
solving quite well-dened practicalproblems, such as reorganising
the clients organization or helping them in designingand
implementing specic systems. In general, experience in comparable
cases in thepast is the main reason for approaching a consultant.
In a large majority (approximately80 per cent) of the consultancy
projects, the interaction between the consultant and
theorganization is strong, in the sense that the organization
provides the consultant withmuch input or the consultant and the
organizations employees work closely together totackle the problem
at hand. As one interviewee noted:We decided to call upon a
consultant because this type of advisor is usually considered to
bemore aware of organizations needs than academics, and therefore
more capable ofreorganising the supply function of our agency [. .
.] We had an active role in the advisoryprocess because our
employees provided all the information that the consultant needed
todene the features of each service and prepare a plan for
restructuring our supply function(Interviewee from an Italian
organization).Some interviewees gave more specic reasons for
choosing a consultant, such assector-specic knowledge and exibility
towards the needs of the organization. A Dutchrespondent answered:
[the Agency] has a limited amount of manpower which has to
bedeployed as effectively as possible. One of the Swedish
organizations approached aconsultant for a topic that, according to
our expectations, would be more suitable for anacademic, namely
investigating stakeholders attitudes. In this particular case,
theinteraction between the consultant and the organization was
weak. Another Swedishrespondent indicated: We needed help with
process support to implement a newmanagement system. We could not
convince the other managers, so we needed an outsideconsultant to
do this job.As the data presented in Appendix 2 shows, our
expectations concerningapproaching an academic for external advice
are not always conrmed. On the onehand, some of the topics for
which academics were approached conrm theexpectations of our
theoretical framework. This holds true for an exploration of a
newgovernance model, an examination of the question as to why a
current managementcontrol system does not work, and an exploration
of gender-neutral human resourcemanagement (HRM) policy. These
types of topics relate to less-structured orvalue-laden problems
facing an organization. On the other hand, we also noticed
topicsfor which consultants were expected to be the more suitable
were actually addressedby academics. Examples are the development
of a strategy for real estate management,the design and
implementation of a management training programme, and
theexploration of the functional uses of an ofce building. These
types of topics arepractical and the underlying problems are rather
well-structured. However, a closerlook 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 specically requiretrustworthiness, or when
organizational values are at stake, such as in the case of
amanagement training programme.This implies that in some cases the
type of approach or the reputation of the expertis more important
than the type of problem in choosing to call upon a consultant or
anacademic, as when taking into consideration only the topic a
consultant could also beapproached. The top management of an
Italian agency, for example, wanted to gainsupport for a
restructuring of its organization from its employees. An academic
expert,who had to produce handbooks for the restructured
organization, was called upon,because he/she was regarded as being
objective towards the topic at hand. A furtherillustration comes
from a Dutch agency that requested an expertise centre of
auniversity to conduct an exploratory study on the question of how
its new buildingshould be organised (functions of the various
spaces, furnishing, etc.). An independentpoint of view was seen as
important, because the agencys employees should not begiven the
impression that the external expert is led by general management or
has adirect interest in the way in which the building will
eventually be organized.Appendix 2 also shows that only a minority
of the projects conducted by academics(33 per cent) show a weak
interaction between the academic advisor and the
clientorganization. So, in these cases, advice was given without
much interaction with the clientorganization, which is in line with
our theoretical framework. This applies, for instance, tothe design
of a model for forecasting an organizations work load, or the
development of anew governance model for an organizations
supervisory board. However, in contrast toour theoretical
framework, a large majority (approximately 67 per cent) of the
projectsinvolving academics reveals a strong interaction between
the academic expert and theclient organization. Examples include
the development of new methods for dataprocessing and the design of
complex information services. The following quotesillustrate that
this interaction is often informed by the need to give impartial
advice aboutissues in which expertise in methods is desirable. Then
these organizations technicalspecialists work together with their
counterpart academics specialists:We base our statistics and
methods on scientic grounds. We have regular exchanges withtwo
universities. We also have scientists in our staff, such as a PhD
in statistics [. . .] Inaddition, we have a scientic board. They
scrutinise new statistics and methods on ascientic basis [. . .]
Our collaboration with university people has a long-term character
and ison-going (Interviewee of Swedish organization).A crucial
issue in the development of these information products is whether
theunderlying methodology is adequate: are the concepts
operationalized properly intoindicators, are the indicators
well-measurable and understandable, etc.? To answerthese questions
it is quite common to approach a specialised research bureau
afliatedto a university. Two considerations determine this choice:
the level of these bureausmethodology expertise, and their
capability of serving the interests of the variousstakeholders
involved, which are sometimes contradictory. These stakeholders
knowthat an academic research bureau is independent and not
focussed on serving theinterests of a particular group [. . .] In
these kinds of situations the internal expertswork closely together
with the external consultants of these bureaus (Interviewee ofDutch
organization).
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5. Discussion and conclusionsOur theoretical framework has
identied differences between consultants andacademics as external
advisors of public sector organizations in terms of the types
oftopics on which their advice is sought, the types of knowledge
they create, and the way inwhich they co-operate with their client
organizations in creating this knowledge. Weconducted 24 interviews
with top managers of central government agencies in Italy,The
Netherlands and Sweden. Our interviews with these public sector
managers haveshown that our theoretical framework is corroborated
in terms of approaching aconsultant as an external advisor but it
requires further renement in relation to callingupon an academic as
an external advisor.We expected that public sector managers would
prefer the advice of a consultant tothat of an academic in the case
of well-dened practical and technical problems, becausea consultant
provides knowledge that is primarily based on experience. Moreover,
wesupposed that socialization by means of close contact between the
public sector managerand his or her advisor is the typical means of
knowledge transfer in the case oftacit knowledge, which is often
produced by consultants. These expectations werecorroborated by our
empirical ndings.We assumed that public sector managers would
approach an academic when theyneed advice regarding value-laden
problems facing their organization. In addition, weexpected that
interiorization, which relates to a more impersonal way of
knowledgetransfer, applies to the knowledge created by an academic.
Finally, given thatacademics use a scientic approach in their
knowledge creation, it was expected thattheir knowledge is
considered more authoritative, being especially important
whencontroversial issues are at stake, than the experience-based
knowledge provided byconsultants.We found, however, that the
reasons why organizations choose to approach anacademic rather than
a consultant as an external expert cannot be fully linked to
ourtheoretical framework. We will provide various clues for this
conclusion and Figure 1summarizes our ndings on the rst two most
important ones.First, academics turned out to be suitable for
addressing topics for whichconsultants were expected to be the best
advisors, for example in the case of the designand implementation
of a management training programme or the exploration offunctional
uses of an ofce building. However, the decision to choose an
academicrather than a consultant was often motivated by the type of
advice needed rather thanby the topic, particularly when the
organization was faced with ill-dened problems orwhen ambiguous
problems needed an impartial advice.Second, our research has
provided a deeper understanding of the types of topicsconcerning
the values of the client organization that require the advice of
either aconsultant or an academic. Some of our RLCs on value-laden
topics, like a controversialperformance rewarding system or the
position of the organization in the value chain,show that public
sector managers prefer a consultant when behavioural
aspectsdominate, and an academic in the case of method problems or
when various optionsneed to be explored.Third, although we expected
that projects executed by academics would involvelow levels of
co-operation with the client organization, most of these projects
showeda strong interaction between the academic expert and the
client organization. Thiswas often the case when the technical
specialists within the client organization
Preference forconsultant whenproblem isunambiguous
Public sectormanagerspreferences
219Topic:Practical andtechnical problems
Preference foracademic whenimpartial advice isneeded due
topotentially diverginginterests
Preference forconsultant whenbehavioral aspectsdominate
Topic:Value-ladenproblems of theorganization
Preference foracademic when areflective, valueanalysis is
needed
worked together with their counterpart specialists from a
university. Only whenresearch-oriented advice is required, the
transfer of knowledge by academics to theclient organization is
impersonal. Some RLCs indicated the importance of pragmaticreasons,
such as the need to receive quick advice, which makes a consultant
moresuitable as an external expert than an academic.The above
observations are reected in the following set of hypotheses to be
testedin future research, which can be seen as the outcome of our
exploratory study:H1. In the case of well-dened practical and
technical problems, public sectormanagers prefer the advice of a
consultant to that of an academic, but theconverse preference is
expected where potential conicts of interests withinthe
organization necessitate impartial advice.
Figure 1.Type of analysis, inaddition to topic,determines
preference forconsultant or academic
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H2. Public sector managers prefer the advice of an academic to
that of aconsultant when they need advice regarding value-laden
problems withintheir organization, but the converse preference is
expected if the problemsconcern behavioural issues.H3. Close
cooperation between the external expert and members of the
clientorganization (denoted as socialization) is the dominant
approach to transferringknowledge, irrespective of whether the
external expert is a consultant or anacademic, except where
research-oriented advice is required, involving theimpersonal
transfer of knowledge by academics (denoted as interiorization).We
will now discuss some of our ndings in light of a perspective on
consultancy thatemphasizes the use of persuasion to realize
pre-dened solutions to managementproblems[3]. The traditional
consultancy literature portrays consultants as experts whocan
translate a vaguely articulated management problem into a diagnosis
that forms thebasis of concrete actions to solve the issue (Schein,
1988, p. 4). A more criticalperspective on consultancy, however,
suggests that consultants are the persuasivecommunicators of
pre-dened solutions to managerial problems. In this
view,consultants legitimate their role by applying a number of
rhetorical techniques tobuild a positive image of their expertise
(Fincham, 1999, pp. 339 and 349). In line withthis perspective,
Christensen and Skaerbaek (2010) have identied the purication
roleof consultants in a public sector context. Purication is a
mechanism used byconsultants to make controversial ideas acceptable
and unchallenged. It is an essentialtool used in the interventions
of consultants as pervasive communicators. Via
reports,presentations and discussions, these interventions include:
confronting the existingand supposedly failing practice with the
new and promising approach, removingresistance towards the new
measure, gathering support for it, and creating newidentities for
its users.In order to shed some more light on the persuasive role
of consultants, we furtheranalyzed our data by focusing on the
consultants role in implementation issueswhere persuasion plays a
major role. An analysis of the public sector managers
factualexperiences with external experts revealed that consultants
are generally moreoriented towards implementation than academic
advisors. From the 24 managersinterviewed, ten referred to
consultancy projects as purely implementation-oriented,while ve
more interviewees reported on projects that combined design
andimplementation. In contrast, only three of the 24 interviewees
labeled their projectswith academic advisors as implementation
trajectories. Two of these implementationprojects related to
typical academic prociencies, the rst to informing the employeesof
an organization about changing values due to public sector reforms,
and the other toexplaining the fundamentals of the valuation of
intangible assets. In the third project,the academic advisor was
chosen for his particular and long-lasting experience withthe topic
at hand. We add, however, that our data did not systematically
revealwhether or not the consultants conducted the implementation
projects predominantlyon the basis of persuasion in the form of the
purication of certain ideas or tools, asindicated by Christensen
and Skaerbaek (2010).We conducted a similar analysis of the
responses to the RLCs in whichimplementation issues played an
important role. In addition to the general argumentsfor preferring
either a consultant or an academic as an external expert, the
responses to
RLC 4 (aimed at making managers and employees more
competition-focused) showthat consultants were perceived to be more
suitable for learning about employees newways of thinking and
acting (in which elements of persuasion are crucial),
whereasacademic advisors were preferred when reections about the
rationale behind the newattitudes were at stake. We add that the
responses to RLC 3 (implementing a new costallocation system) did
not refer to elements of persuasion as exercised by theconsultants,
but this may have been due to the merely technical character of
this RLC.In every form of knowledge transfer, legitimation and
persuasion capacities areimportant. In particular, the more
persuasive and legitimate the external adviser, themore effective
and efcient is the knowledge transfer or gap-bridging
processunderlying an advisory activity (Ichijo, 2007). However,
irrespective of the impact oflegitimation and persuasion, the
choice made by public sector managers to approacheither a
consultant or an academic advisor has to be based on the kinds of
knowledgepossessed by these experts, which brings us back to the
main topic of our paper.This section nally points to a number of
limitations of our study, some of whichalso hint at more specic
directions for future research.First, we recognize that the
ordering of the RLCs may have inuenced theinterpretations of the
respondents. When starting our interviews we deliberately rstdealt
with the RLCs that were relatively easy to discuss, i.e. those
which were supposedto address quite straightforward issues, such as
decentralizing responsibilities in theorganization or the
introduction of a multi-purpose nancial system. When
theinterviewees had become accustomed to the types of answers they
were expected togive, i.e. making a choice between a consultant or
an academic as an external expert,more complicated issues were
discussed with them, such as reections on the positionof their
organization in the value chain or the evaluation of a
controversial rewardingsystem. The number of interviews was,
however, too small for varying the order inwhich the RLCs were
discussed with interviewees. As a result, we could not
establishwhether this order has had an impact on the empirical
results.Second, the reliability of our empirical study may have
beneted from pre-testingthe RLCs, for example, on a sample of
public sector managers who did not form partof the ultimate study,
in order to establish whether the RLCs and the relatedquestions
actually measured what they were supposed to measure. However, we
tookother measures to achieve this aim. All four authors of this
paper are highlyexperienced in conducting applied research and
doing consultancy work. Furthermore,as authors, we intensively
discussed the way in which the RLCs had to be presented tothe
managers. Moreover, as indicated above, we organized our empirical
work in tworounds of 12 interviews, which gave us the opportunity
to rene the formulation of theRLCs after the rst round. There was,
however, no reason to do this because ourinterviewees indicated
that the RLCs were clear descriptions of real-life cases. Someof
them even spontaneously added that many of the RLCs closely
resembled theirown experiences.Third, we did not systematically
address possible differences in preferences forconsultants and
academics as external advisors of public sector managers among
Italian,Dutch and Swedish central government agencies. It would be
interesting to investigatewhether differences in the types of
problems relating to the dominance of democraticor economic issues
would have an inuence on the preference for a consultant or
anacademic and whether this preference varies between the three
countries. It can be
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expected that economic problems are the primary domain of
consultants, whileacademics 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, suchas
consultant-researchers, could enrich our understanding of the type
of externalexpertise needed by public sector organizations. It
would even go a step further toexamine the possible match between
types of advisory projects and the individualcharacteristics of
external advisors, i.e. their educational background, expertise
andvalues, irrespective of the group to which they belong.Despite
these limitations, our study has provided clear empirical ndings on
thepreferences of public sector managers with respect to
approaching either consultantsor academic researchers as external
experts. Moreover, our study has rened thetheoretical expectations
about these preferences. Referring to the research goal
asformulated in the introductory section, we conclude that the
public sector managersreasons for approaching 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-dened and whether the problem
is technical orvalue-laden. In turn, these characteristics are
related to the need for impartiality ingiving 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 thecooperation between the
organization and the external expert the latter is always
thedominant party in terms of the transfer of knowledge.
Notes1. With regard to the role of academics in producing
knowledge, another perspective whichwas not adopted in our paper is
the one of the action researcher as proposed by, forexample,
Rapoport (1970). The scientically-oriented action researcher aims
at optimizingthe realization of both the practical affairs of the
man and the intellectual interest of thesocial science community
(Rapoport, 1970, p. 510), having at his/her disposal a number
ofdevices to resolve the dilemma posed by service requirements on
one extreme andacademic 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
toaccept that the studys outcomes might have wider implications
than the ones consideredin relation to their initial knowledge
needs, and that they have to wait longer for theirreports than they
are used to when hiring a consultant. Although these measures may
alsobe applicable to bridging the goals of both practical and
academic knowledge creationbeyond the domain of action research,
the differences between practical and academicknowledge remains
important, the more so because academic researchers areincreasingly
driven by the requirements made by the academic community
(Gendron,2008; Van Helden et al., 2010).2. Although we will not
focus on these hybrid forms in our study, a further clarication may
beneeded. According to Docherty and Smith (2007, pp. 277-8)
academic consultancy has to bedistinctive to regular consultancy in
various respects, especially by challenging existingpractices, by
being neutral and impartial towards the client organization and by
providingacademic rigor. Van Helden et al. (2010) see
consultant-researchers as mediators betweenacademic researchers and
the world of practitioners.3. We are grateful to one of the
reviewers for suggesting this line of reasonin
