The management consultant as a change agent : Critical success factors in change management

by Gustafsson, Andreas; Aspegren, David

Introduction Whether or not the consultancy business is a profession or an industry has been widely discussed. Many thinkers of today have agreed that it involves a bit of both. The consultancies are also supplying many different services; this thesis has its focus on the change management area and will also discuss the management consultant’s role as a change agent. Even if it is often hard to see what effects change has on organisations, change is important. Change management is however very hard and many projects do not reach their goals. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to describe the management consultant in its role as a change agent and identify problems in and around the change process. It further aims to finding examples of problems and success factors in order to improve change management. Method This is a study made with a deductive approach. The empirical data has been gathered by using qualitative semi-structured interviews. The main reason for the choice of having a qualitative study was to get a deeper knowledge in the field of study and also because of it being seen as the most preferable in order to answer the purpose. The interviews were performed on three management consultants and three clients, which have all been part of three different projects. Because of the focus on change agents in this study the authors made sure that all three consultants had this role when managing change. Result There are many factors that affect the implementation of changes in organisations. In the consultant’s role as a change agent it is important not to become the implementer, in the end it is the client organisation that is supposed to change. To achieve change that is successful there are some conclusions that the authors have found more important than others, among these are; creating involvement and joint commitment for change, finding the real problem and also not forgetting the importance of involving managers and leaders. iii