The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge Studies in the Emergence of Global Enterprise) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "In 1930, Business Week introduced its readers to a new professional service: management consulting..." (more)
Key Phrases: Booz Allen, Arthur Andersen, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"McKenna has unearthed the distinctly American origins of modern consulting in the evolution of financial market regulation - surprisingly and convincingly."
-John Clarkeson, Co-Chairman of the Board, The Boston Consulting Group

"This book should be required reading for everyone who teaches at a business school, as well as for all MBA students. I recommend it to anyone interested in the upheavals around corporate governance and professional ethics that marked the turn of the 21st century."
-JoAnne Yates, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

"If you use consultants, or claim to be a consultant, you should read this book."
-Charles Wilson, CEO, Booker Ltd.

"Witch doctors or miracle workers? Whatever your view of management consultants, it pays to understand how the world's leading consulting firms have become so influential. McKenna's superb history reveals how one crucial piece of US legislation - the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act - and one vibrant American city - Chicago - spawned an industry that has transformed the face of global business and national government in the 20th century."
-Martin Giles, Managing Director, The Economist Group, North America

"Fascinating, frightening, and perfectly timed - McKenna's sweeping survey shines a brilliant light on a profession that has always preferred to keep outsiders in the dark."
-Martin Kihn, author of House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and then Tell You the Time

"McKenna opens the private world of management consulting to his keen analytical eye, providing a rich, absorbing accounting of the rise and expansion of this profession, and a sharp critique of consulting's role in shaping the strategies of the world's largest corporations. This is a fascinating, revealing book about a profession that has received little serious, sustained scholarly attention."
-Walter W. Powell, Professor of Education & Sociology, Stanford University

"This history of management consulting analyses an important stream of the history of modern business itself. Today's managers can put its insights to practical use when engaging - or deciding not to engage - consultants."
-Tony Tyler, Chief Operating Office, Cathay Pacific Airways

"McKenna's book does a superb job of exploring the role that this industry played in transforming (not always for the better) a variety of different types of organizations - from businesses to religious and charitable associations to government agencies - and through them much of the fabric of modern life."
-Naomi Lamoreaux, Professor of Economics & History, University of California, Los Angeles

"History is not bunk. With Glass-Steagall repealed and the aftershocks of the Enron scandal by no means over, the timing of The World's Newest Profession could hardly be more fortuitous. McKenna's breadth of scholarship and clarity of argument will undoubtedly sit, like Banquo's ghost, at the consulting banquet for years to come."
-Fiona Czerniawska, Consulting to Management

"McKenna offers a lively look at a profession that has often been shrouded in secrecy, and shows how it has become enormously lucrative - although not always as a result of the quality of advice being doled out. Interesting and provocative, McKenna's book offers a lens to understand the development of the modern corporation."
-Jon Housman, Managing Director, The Wall Street Journal Europe

"It is an exhaustive account of the history of management consultancy that has been several years in the making. Although academic thoroughness is one of its chief merits, the book remains readable and entertaining throughout. McKenna's serious and not unsympathetic approach allows him to debunk certain myths about consultancy without falling into the trap of becoming an unthinking critic. It is a sober and truthful antidote to all the glossy consultancy marketing brochures that promise "strategic solutions" and "value-added" analysis."
-Stefan Stern, Financial Times

"Well-researched, thoughtful."
-Choice

"...this is a fascinating book whose accessible and clear writing style should ensure a wide readership. The footnotes provide a wonderful resource for any student of management consulting and knowledge-intensive firms. Its broad sweep and rich detail mean that it is destined to become a key text in this area."
-Timothy Clark, Durham University, Administrative Science Quarterly

"This groundbreaking study details how the leading consulting companies expanded after U.S. regulatory changes during the 1930s."
-Abstracts of Public Administration, Development, and Environment

'Christopher D. McKenna's masterful, impeccably researched, prize-winning study of management consulting exemplifies the best that business history has to offer to the larger historical profession, the business community, and to those who shape the public policy."
Albert Churella, Southern Polytechnic State University Journal of American History

Product Description

In The World's Newest Profession, Christopher McKenna offers a history of management consulting in the twentieth century. While management consulting may not yet be a recognized profession, the leading consulting firms have been advising and reshaping the largest organizations in the world since the 1920s. This groundbreaking study details how the elite consulting firms, including McKinsey and Booz Allen, expanded after U.S. regulatory changes during the 1930s, how they changed giant corporations, nonprofits, and the state during the 1950s, and why consultants became so influential in the global economy after 1960. As they grew in numbers, consultants would introduce organizations to "corporate culture" and "decentralization" but they faced vilification for their role in the Enron crisis and for legitimating corporate blunders. Through detailed case studies based on unprecedented access to internal files and personal interviews, The World's Newest Profession explores how management consultants came to be so influential within our culture and explains exactly what consultants really do in the global economy.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (June 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521810396
• ISBN-13: 978-0521810395
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #721,381 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book, January 18, 2007

By	Carol S. Johnson - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this book to read the section on Lukens Steel (about whom I am writing a book) but it was so good that I read the whole thing, just for pleasure. For me, it was a clear explanation of a world that I had glimpsed, but never entered. Now I know why Harvard MBAs make so much money.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Welfare recipients?, October 6, 2006

By	Declan Murphy (MD, US) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This is an excellent book covering the history and development of management consulting. The foundation and prospering of the "profession", its dependence on somewhat arbitrary regulatory decisions and the continuing impact of government policy and court actions on its development is clearly explained. There is also much practical comment and speculation on the likely effects of recent legal changes on the industry's development.

McKenna's detailed research and extensive knowledge of the field is evident but he (mostly) successfully avoids strangling his narrative with excessive detail, encapsulating them in footnotes. Speaking of which, the footnotes can be a little overpowering - more than 100 pages worth. Maybe he should have highlighted the more entertaining ones to make them easier to find.

Overall, I found the insights interesting and thought provoking. Definitely worth reading if you have an interest in the history or future of the profession.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will Management Consulting Ever Become a Bonafide Profession?, March 10, 2009

By	Justin Belkin (NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Before reading this book one might understandably confuse Cresap, McCormick & Paget with a swanky new seafood restaurant - like McCormick and Schmick's - rather than one of the original "Big 3" consulting firms of the 20th century. Few books, if any, document the rise of the managing consulting industry in America over the past 125 years as well as author Chris McKenna does here. An extremely well-researched book - with 103 pages of notes - "The World's Newest Profession" won the coveted Hagley Prize in 2007 for best business history book. The perfect accoutrement to the "Vault Career Guide to Top Consulting Firms," McKenna's book is a must-read for any MBA aspiring to a consulting career.

One of the most fascinating achievements of the consulting industry is how it has maintained an aura of professionalism despite simultaneously eschewing the trappings that are traditionally found in most other professions (i.e. law, accounting, etc.). To understand this phenomenon we must first turn to its origins. The quasi profession of consulting began in the 1880's with men like Frederick Taylor who helped American industry reengineer their shop-floors to achieve greater efficiency. These "industrial engineers" applied "scientific management" principles primarily to problems of "worker psychology, workplace and tool design, wage systems, and cost accounting." Once such efficiencies were achieved, however, businesses sought new solutions to a changing regulatory environment, which Taylorism was ill-equipped to address.

If we view the evolution of management consulting on a timeline continuum then "Taylorism" was the "Australopethicus" of the consulting world - a loose and distant cousin of modern consulting. In contrast, the "management engineers" and "cost accountants" of the 1920s, such as James O. McKinsey, were much more akin to the consulting brands we are familiar with today. This shift coincided with a period of regulatory reform that would further solidify "consulting" as a business function separate from that which was taking place within professional service firms at the time. McKenna writes, "The rise of management consulting as a distinct professional field occurred as a direct result of Congressional passage of the Glass-Steagall Banking Act in 1933" (p. 17).

Armed with their "general surveys," the leading consulting firms were sought after by businesses for two primary reasons: to legitimize internal decision making processes, and to learn best business practices from competitors. This does not mean, however, that consultants were engaged for each and every pressing business concern. The decision to "make or buy" was ultimately determined by whether or not the nature of the problem was "brief, specialized, and nonrecurring." In these instances businesses found great value in hiring consulting firms, in some instances even paying up to 2% of company revenue on consulting expenditures.

Over time the consulting industry began to consolidate with a few firms developing specializations in terms of core areas of competence and clients served. For example, under the newly invigorated leadership of Marvin Bower in 1939, McKinsey developed a specialization in administrative reorganization. Meanwhile other firms established reputations in information technology, or corporate strategy. Some firms, most notably Booz Allen Hamilton, became the consultant of choice for government agencies while others focused on corporations or not-for-profits. McKenna observes, "Management consulting firms, from the 1970s onwards, would generally fall into two camps: those who provided advice on corporate strategy, like BCG, Bain, and McKinsey, and those who provided advice on information systems, like Anderson (subsequently Accenture) and later IBM (p. 77)."

Since its humble beginnings the number of consultants per a manager has increased over 4X to "one for every thirteen." With a current annual domestic market size of $100 billion the industry shows no signs of slowing down, McKenna concludes, "Whether in computer systems, strategic counsel, organizational design, or corporate acquisitions, management consulting firms have become, and continue to be, a crucial institutional solution to executives' ongoing need for outside information" (p. 78). The only question that remains is whether an industry that has existed for over 125 years will finally become the world's newest profession.