Mixing methods to investigate the effective engagement of management consultants

This paper recognizes the important role played in the business community by external management consultants and seeks to improve understanding of how this role can be performed. Insight from the change management and management consulting literature is used to further develop a general model of planned change including the phases of entering, contracting, diagnosing, leading, intervening and evaluating. Mixed methods blending a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews were combined to provide the data for this study. A quantitative survey was completed by a stratified sample of 198 company directors, chief executive officers, top managers, internal consultants and line managers in relation to the practice of external management consultants. Qualitative interviews with 16 leading figures in the Australian business community provide further insight. There is useful support for the model of planned change in the empirical results.