Bridging the Cultural Gap in Management Consulting Research

Although there are underlying assumptions that culture plays an important role in management consulting, cultural aspects have not yet been addressed explicitly in management consulting research. This article aims to show that the phenomenon of management consulting is culturally determined to a significant extent. At the same time, it will become clear that consultancies have a strong influence on clients, as well as on countries and societies. This will be discussed with the help of a proposed framework, consisting of four levels of analysis. Finally, the article ends with implications for future research aiming to amplify the culture-based consulting research programme.