Hustling, hassling and making it happen: Researching consultants in a small firm context

The investigation of work in small consultancy firms poses particular challenges for researchers. These include the omnipotence of the founding entrepreneur, estrangement from the academic community, a lack of time, an ambiguous knowledge base and the ostensibly unitarist nature of work relations in such settings. Drawing on the experience of an intensive fieldwork study of employment relations in three small consultancy firms, this paper examines how an 'entrepreneurial' approach was used to address such contingencies. Key features of this process were the enactment of fieldwork opportunities, the potential creation of a 'joint venture' and the subsequent management of relations in the field. A degree of manipulation is an inherent feature of such an enterprise; but this should be seen in the context of a relationship of ''symmetry' between researcher and researched.