Standardization and local adaptation

This study discusses the relation between the increased presence of global consultancies and the service supply in local markets as manifested in tenders to the public sector. By departing from a view on consultancies as systems of persuasion, different approaches for balancing demands for economies of scale through standardization and adaptation to the client organization are analyzed. An important point of reference is whether the services offered are based on the idea of management as an expert activity with universal relevance or as something departing from the unique and local in each situation. One particular aspect of this is whether consultancies argue that experiences from private enterprises may be applied in public units. The analysis identifies three fundamentally different adaptation strategies applied by consultancies. However, a tendency is that the advantages of reusing experiences from other settings and organizations are highlighted in the tenders. The clients’ experiences is generally deemphasized and reduced to input for adapting more standardized approaches and tools, Background and research focus The demand for external advice on management has grown dramatically during the last few decades throughout Europe and management consultants can be found involved in a wide spectrum of functional activities across industries (FEACO, 2000; Kipping, Furusten & Gammelsæter, 1999). This means that competence that earlier primarily was coordinated within organizations today to a larger extent is purchased externally. In this perspective management consulting is just one example of what appears to be a wider societal phenomenon, where external knowledge is becoming an increasingly important aspect of organizational life. Examples of this development can be found in many different functional areas like IT, technology, advertisement, law etc. (cf. Konsultguiden, 2000). Simultaneously, as organizational dependence on external competence on management appears to have increased, tendencies towards standardization are noted both with regard to consultancies’ messages (Abrahamsson, 1996; Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996) and working methods (Fincham, 1995; Nees & Greiner, 1985; Sturdy, 1997). Standardization as a phenomenon can be said to be closely linked to an increased belief in markets as means of coordination and is often described as something inherently positive, both from a consumer and producer perspective (Brunsson & Jacobsson, 1998). Among the arguments favoring standardization from a producer perspective are those seeing standardizations as a way of rationalizing and optimizing service production (Levitt, 1971; Chase, 1978; Hansen et al, 1999), as mean to internationalize service organizations (Gustavsson, 2000), but also as means for attracting and communicating with clients (Ernst & Kieser, 1999). However, the appropriateness for clients of what is seen as an increased supply of standardized models of management has been questioned, where management is regarded as too complex a phenomenon for standardized solutions to be applicable (Clark, 1995; Clark & Salaman, 1996; Engwall, 1998; Hilmer & Donaldson, 1996; Kieser, 1996; Poulfelt & Payne, 1994; Sturdy, 1997). The critique includes several points of departure, but can partly be derived from a research tradition emphasizing the local character of management, i.e. the relevance of organization’s technology and near surrounding (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Thompson, 1967). Another type of arguments highlights the importance of organizational culture where management to a high extent is being describes as a function of local preconditions in the form of institutionalized norms, rules, attitudes etc. (Hofstede, 1980; Whitley, 1992). The special characters of consulting services are also seen limiting the room for standardization on a global level, i.e. the large amount of discretion available to management consultants with regard to the fulfillment of their tasks (Clark & Salaman, 1996). The intangible character of services means that consulting services cannot be inspected pre-purchase, highlighting the importance for the consultants of establishing trust in the consultant and in the client interaction (Edvardsson, 1990). Since trust is culturally relative phenomenon and depending on an agreement or overlap between the consultants’ and the clients’ values, it is seen central to the consultancy to make an impression of understanding the client’s specific context and situation (Bergholz, 1999; Greiner & Metzger, 1983). Consequently, one way to see the services offered by consultancies is as representing a choice of balancing possibilities for economic leverage e.g. through standardization (Ernst & Kieser, 1999; Hansen, et al, 1999; Levitt, 1971) and a need for local adaptation (Bergholz, 1999; Clark, 1995). At the very least there is reason to assume that consulting firms’ internal demand for efficiency coexists with strong needs for global firms to show receptiveness to the locality of clients and national markets (Goshal & Bartlet, 1993). This latent tension or ambiguity to which there are no simple means-ends solutions, in combination with the intangible character of consulting services, instead can be argued to open up a rhetorical space for management consultancies. Convincing potential clients of the splendor of their ideas and solutions is therefore seen as a vital part of knowledge intensive firms work (Alvesson, 1993). Management consultants, it is argued, must actively take command of “the process by which images, impressions and perceptions of their value, and service quality is created” (Clark & Salaman, 1996 p.14). Against this background, an important question is how consultancies rhetorically try to convince clients of the value and relevance of their services. How do consultancies, when presenting themselves and their services, address the above sketched out ambiguity and balances these apparently incommensurable demands? Analyzing how consultancies in public tenders address the need for, and approach to, adapting their services to public units will approach these questions. Focusing on adaptation can be regarded especially suitable to highlight consultancies rhetorical strategies for balancing global and local arguments and is intended to highlight their inherent claims of the value and relevance of their knowledge and services. One particular aspect of this is if and how the consultancies argue that experiences from private organizations can and should be applied in public units. To enable a comparison between different tenders and consultancies the analysis is delimited to strategy-oriented services that deals with and reflects organizational ”core-issues”, e.g. like its identity and focus (Kubr, 1996). In a first step, a view of management consultants as ”systems of persuasion” as well as some methodological considerations is further elaborated. After briefly discussing the regulation guiding public procurement, the tenders are analyzed focusing on how adaptation is addressed. Bases on this analysis, the following section focuses on the distribution of strategies among different categories of consultancies. Finally, the supply of and demand for standardized models of management is discussed. Management consulting as the noble art of persuasion The assumption that consulting firms are dependent on the successful persuasion of clients of their value is by no means new. Several studies have reported that how a consulting firm and its consultants are perceived, that is its reputation, is the most important criterion identified by clients when selecting between firms (Askvik, 1992; Dawes, Dowling & Patterson, 1992; Clark, 1993). Consequently, convincing clients of the splendour of their ideas and solutions is seen as a vital part of consultants’ work. The extensive use of language and rhetoric are seen as central features of knowledge intensive firms as “the degree of elaboration of the language code through which one describes oneself, one’s organization, regulates client-orientations as well as identity” (Alvesson, 1993 p.1007). Clients accordingly, are seen making judgments about consultancies on the basis of their successful manipulation of generic symbols of expertise and authority (Starbuck, 1992). Service organizations such as management consulting firms are therefore frequently described as “systems of persuasion” that by using language and rhetoric draw upon as well as create and offer institutionalized myths/rationality surrogates (Alvesson, 1993; Clark & Salaman, 1998). These myths are made up of different taken-for granted beliefs about the order of things, e.g. on how organizations should look and function (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Three predominant rationalized myths in today’s society are: the rationality myth, the globalization myth and the universality myth (Meyer, 1994). Against this background, important reference points in the study are how consultancies when they describe themselves and their services relate to, and reinforce, these myths. However, these kinds of rationalized myths can be based on different assumptions on the grounds of management knowledge e.g. whether it is possible to identify and communicate the nature of knowledge as objective and thus transmittable in a tangible form or whether knowledge is more subjective and thus of a more unique and local nature (see Burrell & Morgan, 1979). By analyzing how adaptation is addressed in public tenders, management consultancies’ role as creators and distributors of generalized myths regulating the structure and actions of organizations, private as well as public, will be discussed (cf. Meyer & Rowan, 1977). Analyzing public tenders The study’s main empirical source consists of management consultancies’ tenders to public sector in Sweden. An important reason for this choice is that access is allowed to documents that otherwise would be difficult to analyze. However, the