Are Management Consultants Magicians?

Introduction
In this report we are going to answer the question whether management consultants are magicians. We will primarily refer to the article by Clark and Salaman (1996) “The Management Guru as Organisational Witchdoctor”. Prior to discussion some terms will be defined, especially pointing out the different focus of the article and hence its relevance to our topic. Then the article will be briefly summarised and discussed. Afterwards we will seek to extend the discussion to cover the topic of management consultants.
Definitions
Our focus of this paper is management consultants, while Clark and Salaman (1996) essentially focus on management gurus as consultants. They intentionally draw a strict line between them and other management consultants with the purpose to present their point clearly and evidently. We however face a more complex task in having to comment on all management consultants. In order to do that we will occasionally refer to various types of consultants, but inevitably much of the discussion will turn about management gurus as the metaphor most clearly applies to them.…