“Creation of Value in Management Consulting: A Resources and Dynamic Capabilities Perspective”- Enrique Alfonso Paez, Candidate to Doctor of Business Administration (DBA), University of Manchester, Manchester Business School, July 2015 A... more
“Creation of Value in Management Consulting: A Resources and Dynamic Capabilities
Perspective”- Enrique Alfonso Paez, Candidate to Doctor of Business Administration
(DBA), University of Manchester, Manchester Business School, July 2015
A definition of value, a higher order construct, how it is created and its constituents
remains elusive. This research aims to explain value co-creation and its key enablers in
the management consulting industry.
Service Dominant Logic (S-DL) first published by Vargo & Lusch (2004) has fostered
extensive debate ever since, and with the Service Logic theory of the so-called Nordic
School of Marketing (Grönroos, 2011) they have encouraged research on subjects under
the optic of value co-creation (S-DL), value facilitation (SL) and exchange of service,
arguing that value is only phenomenologically assessed by the customer (S-DL) and
that the only real value is customer’s value-in-use (SL).
The understanding of how value is co-created has been scarcely researched empirically
as, for instance, Aarikka-Stenroos & Jaakkola (2012) have. Capabilities management
has been related to a firm’s resources and the Resource Based Value (RBV); however,
empirical research relating capabilities to the process of value co-creation in b2b context
has also been discussed as sparse (Lindgreen, Hingley, Grant and Morgan, 2012).
This research explores interconnectedness of value, relationship-interaction and
dynamic capabilities in management consultancy, and responds to the following
research question: What arrays of capabilities and interaction are required for
management consulting sustained value-facilitation? The subjects of relationship and
interaction are discussed as core to value co-creation while investigating the intervening
role of dynamic capabilities.
A qualitative abductive methodology is applied, founded on a critical realist
philosophical argumentation. The iterative deductive-inductive methods involved in the
abductive process ideally approach the open ended questions that emerge researching
social phenomena.
The data is obtained by elite interviews with executive consultants and CXO level
customers, who have had profound experience of consulting assisted co-creation
initiatives. Four abductive iterations of data collection and analysis are applied,
departing from a theoretical framework that emerges from the review of extant literature
and that is informed by the research question. The salient constructs from contextually
complex discussions are analysed and lastly synthesized in an overarching model.
This research contributes mainly in two areas:
(1) The identification of relationship / interaction in management consulting at the core
of value co-creation, and its key characteristics as a dynamic context. Co-creation is
proposed as an evolving-adaptive process dependent on relationship through
interaction.
(2) The identification of capabilities that allow relationship and co-creation and higher
order capabilities that develop capabilities, which emerge from deliberate reflection
of the consultant’s strategy. Such dynamic capabilities develop and orchestrate
capabilities for value facilitation and customer value creation.
Perspective”- Enrique Alfonso Paez, Candidate to Doctor of Business Administration
(DBA), University of Manchester, Manchester Business School, July 2015
A definition of value, a higher order construct, how it is created and its constituents
remains elusive. This research aims to explain value co-creation and its key enablers in
the management consulting industry.
Service Dominant Logic (S-DL) first published by Vargo & Lusch (2004) has fostered
extensive debate ever since, and with the Service Logic theory of the so-called Nordic
School of Marketing (Grönroos, 2011) they have encouraged research on subjects under
the optic of value co-creation (S-DL), value facilitation (SL) and exchange of service,
arguing that value is only phenomenologically assessed by the customer (S-DL) and
that the only real value is customer’s value-in-use (SL).
The understanding of how value is co-created has been scarcely researched empirically
as, for instance, Aarikka-Stenroos & Jaakkola (2012) have. Capabilities management
has been related to a firm’s resources and the Resource Based Value (RBV); however,
empirical research relating capabilities to the process of value co-creation in b2b context
has also been discussed as sparse (Lindgreen, Hingley, Grant and Morgan, 2012).
This research explores interconnectedness of value, relationship-interaction and
dynamic capabilities in management consultancy, and responds to the following
research question: What arrays of capabilities and interaction are required for
management consulting sustained value-facilitation? The subjects of relationship and
interaction are discussed as core to value co-creation while investigating the intervening
role of dynamic capabilities.
A qualitative abductive methodology is applied, founded on a critical realist
philosophical argumentation. The iterative deductive-inductive methods involved in the
abductive process ideally approach the open ended questions that emerge researching
social phenomena.
The data is obtained by elite interviews with executive consultants and CXO level
customers, who have had profound experience of consulting assisted co-creation
initiatives. Four abductive iterations of data collection and analysis are applied,
departing from a theoretical framework that emerges from the review of extant literature
and that is informed by the research question. The salient constructs from contextually
complex discussions are analysed and lastly synthesized in an overarching model.
This research contributes mainly in two areas:
(1) The identification of relationship / interaction in management consulting at the core
of value co-creation, and its key characteristics as a dynamic context. Co-creation is
proposed as an evolving-adaptive process dependent on relationship through
interaction.
(2) The identification of capabilities that allow relationship and co-creation and higher
order capabilities that develop capabilities, which emerge from deliberate reflection
of the consultant’s strategy. Such dynamic capabilities develop and orchestrate
capabilities for value facilitation and customer value creation.
