Exploring the management consultant’s dual role: A review and research agenda

Belongingness on the go: Examining road warrior consultants’ experiences of belongingness with their firms

“…First, our study speaks to past research on consultants. Unlike earlier work that focuses mainly on consultants' client-facing role, boundaries in consultant-client relationship and the liminality involved herein (Hartley et al, 2019), our study explores their consultancy-facing role. Further, the relatively limited body of work on consultants' consultancy facing role has focused on identity and relationships and specifically their implications (e.g., Bouwmeester et al, 2021;Costas, 2012Costas, , 2013Gill, 2015;Hoyer, 2022).…”

“…While there has been enough attention on consultants' role vis‐a‐vis the client, there has been relatively less emphasis on understanding their consultancy‐facing role and studies on the topic remain fragmented (Hartley et al., 2019; Hartley et al., 2021). Consultants perform a variety of roles within their consulting firms such as bringing in new business, managing people and knowledge, and assuming leadership positions (Hartley et al., 2019). This research emphasizes the importance of relationships (e.g., Lee et al., 2020), consultants' identity and belonging with respect to their firm.…”

“…The above differences may have a bearing on consultants' experiences of belongingness towards their firms. For instance, existing work suggests that consultants get a sense of belongingness from consulting team, which is like their informal community at the client site where they are outsiders (Hartley et al., 2019). Further, sometimes the dynamic between consultants and clients is adversarial as client's employees look at the consultant with suspicion and resentment (Barley & Kunda, 2006; Ko et al., 2005).…”

“…Our study contributes in the following ways. First, majority of research on consultants focuses on their client-facing roles and studies on their consultancy-facing role remain fragmented (Hartley et al, 2019). Thus, our BHATT and VAKKAYIL -459 study builds upon the existing research on consultants by examining their consultancy-facing role.…”