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p53). Business managers retained American subsidiaries of British accounting firms like Price Waterhouse to establish financial controls and carry out external audits for their growing organisations (McKenna, 1995, p53).

Management consultants have since the 1930s helped in the restructuring of large and important organisations in the advanced western economies and in the developing nations. The US government engaged numerous consultants, through the Second World War, to help in the reorganisation of civilian production, the military and the Federal Administration (McKenna, 1995, p53-55). McKinsey and Company were successful, by the 1970s, in decentralising a quarter of the hundred largest British organisations. Whether restructuring the Bank of England, the World Bank, Royal Dutch Shell or even the Government of Tanzania, management consultants ensured the dissemination of American management techniques worldwide (McKenna, 1995, p57).

A large part of the literature on management consultants is descriptive and categorises them in different ways. It is thus not easy to understand the essence of management consulting from the different perspectives in which the term is used. The contemporary categorisation of management consultants however brings about three important areas of concern for business firms that call for their involvement in organisational decision making (Nippa & Petzold, 2002, p1-3).

The first concern relates to the capacities of organisational managements for collection and analysis of relevant data and their motivation to outsource such activities to external consultants. Such concerns largely arise from (a) the limited availability of time with senior managements to access and examine important data and (b) the absence of know-how with them that is available with consultants. The knowhow and expertise available with consultants is another reason for their involvement in decision making. Such knowhow and domain specific knowledge helps clients to know where they stand, transfer know-how from other industries, avoid wheel reinvention and focus on organisational issues. The third and final issue concerns the acknowledgement that management consultants may help decision making in intensely political issues, where meaningful accord cannot be reached without external intercession (Nippa & Petzold, 2002, p1-3).

These concerns, according to Kubr, (1996), highlight the criticality of meaningful exchange between consultants and clients. Research reveals numerous ways in which organisations can profit from meaningful utilisation of management consultants. These include (a) legitimisation and confirmation of reorganisation decisions that have already been made, (b) reassurance by specialists, (c) insight into modern management methods and (d) the initiation of placebo-effects. The transfer of objectivity, know-how and legitimisation by management consultants to organisational managers has also been empirically established (Nippa & Petzold, 2002, p1-3).

3. Organisational Benefits in Making Decisions with use of Consultants
Marvin Bower, who led McKinsey and Company for five decades, advocated six reasons for engagement of external consultants, namely because they (a) offer competence that is not available within the organisation, (b) possess diverse know-how beyond the client's domain, (c) can allocate time to examine the problems, (d本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。