No Best Practice for Best Practice
20 April 2012 at 4:56 am Lasse 4 comments
| Lasse Lien |
An important selling point for the consulting industry is that consultants can presumably help a firm identify and implement “best practice.” Surely the consulting industry is an important channel for disseminating knowledge of better ways of doing things, but identifying what constitutes best practice for a given firm in a given situation is no trivial task, and even if the best practice could be identified, transferring it will be a significant challenge.
This begs the question of whether there is a best practice for identification and transfer of best practices, and whether the consulting industry has identified and adopted such a practice. According to this paper Benjamin Wellstein and Alfred Kieser, the consulting industry in Germany is nowhere near a best practice for best practice. This goes for for both inter- and intra-industry transfer. I’ll bet my hat that this finding holds everywhere.
Well, I guess as long as the consulting industry keeps finding better practices for transferring better practices, we shouldn’t be too disappointed that there is no best practice for best practice. (HT: E.S. Knudsen)
Entry filed under: - Lien -, Evolutionary Economics, Innovation, Jargon Watch, Management Theory, Myths and Realities, Papers.
Organizations and Markets 
1.
Jim Rose | 20 April 2012 at 6:20 am
consultants are hired for the same reason economists are hired.
the directors of the company managed a major risk and met their fiduciary duties by taking expert advice.
2.
Peter Klein | 20 April 2012 at 11:56 am
Are there best practices for scholarship that analyzes the ability of consultants to identify and impliment best practices?
Turtles all the way down, baby.
3.
Lasse | 20 April 2012 at 12:10 pm
Nah, but see above for best practice for blogging about it
4. business model innovation design » right | 23 April 2012 at 5:28 am
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