Integrity in management consulting: a contradiction in terms?.

Abstract

More and more management consultants are digging deep to unearth profound answers to ethical issues in the consulting business. Searching questions are being asked about how they perceive themselves. A number of failed consulting projects with dramatic consequences such as Swissair Group or Enron have recently hit the headlines and often brought questionable ‘principles of consulting’ to light (e.g. Byrne 2000, 2002). A tarnished image and eroding confidence have affected this industry especially hard: the whole business stands or falls by the consultant’s reputation, because consulting performance can only be ‘measured’ by approximation and estimation (cf. O’Shea & Madigan 1997, Ernst 2002). Increasingly, therefore, consultants are looking to a new, ethically more robust understanding of what they do.