The Changing Paradigm of Consulting:
Adjusting to the Fast-Paced World

The Management Consulting Division (MCD) invites researchers, educators, consulting practitioners and executives to join us in an exciting conference focusing on the client-consulting cooperation in Vienna, Austria on June 11- June 13, 2009. The conference will highlight key experiences from the practice of consulting, the most current academic research on consulting and new ways of teaching consulting.

The program will consist of invited keynote speakers from the academic world, top executives from various industries and the public sector, and international management consultants. There will be panel discussions on topics related to the theme of the conference as well as paper and symposia presentations sub-mitted by the participants. Proceedings will be published with all the submissions accepted for presentation at the conference.
The conference will consist of a doctoral workshop on June 11, 2009 and a regular conference starting on June 11, 2009 in the afternoon and ending on June 13, 2009.

Conference Theme and Topics:

The dynamic global business world is providing a wake-up call and teaching a lesson these days to consultants, consulting firms and academics - to become more relevant and real-time.

• Gone are studies based on fees billed on time consumed.


• Clients are pressing for more involvement in projects.


• The role of consultants is turning into facilitators and doers, not analysts.


• Consulting firms are diversifying into outsourcing and venture capital.


• The training of consultants no longer lies in MBAs being hired with only functional discipline training.


• Pressures for professional accreditation and higher levels of integrity are increasing.

Lots of fall-out implications for the role of consultants, the process of consulting, the business model of firms, the teaching of consulting and research on consulting. These are just some of the changes and implications that will be discussed at the upcoming MCD conference in Vienna.

We invite paper and symposia proposals that deal with all the aspect of the theme The Changing Paradigm of Consulting: Adjusting to the Fast-Paced World.

Some questions to stimulate your interest and promote the development of your ideas

• What shape does a paradigm exchange take? – What are the significant developments in the client industry and in the field of management consulting?


• What influence does the economical crisis have on consulting firms?


• For which new topics in organizational development do consultants have to find solutions? For example: de-centralized leadership structures, international and multicultural teams, strategy development in a global context, cross cultural developments, consulting in emerging and fast growing markets, strategic alliances and collaborations, public-private partnerships, and so on.


• What will be the role of management consultants and which services will they provide? For example: integrating business expertise, process development and containment, coaching key personalities, and how could these be integrated?


• What consequences does this service portfolio have for the qualification of the consultant?


• Which didactic settings are suitable to train and increase professionalism in management consultants?


• What is professionalism in management consulting?


• Which models of self-organization and which business models in management consulting are successful?


• What are the fundamental differences between the various consultant firms in their consultancy approach?


• What constitutes a successful task division between management, internal consultants and external consultants?


• On which theoretical foundations can management and organizational consultants rely? – How much value do theoretical maps have for practical work?


• Which research topics are particularly interesting for the development of management consulting?


• Which research concepts provide suitable subject matter for business consultants?

Especially also desired are papers and symposia with the following emphases:

• Management Consulting in emerging and fast growing markets. Academics, managers and consultants from CEE and SEE countries, the NIS and the Baltic countries are very welcome.


• Strategic alliances and collaboration as a competitive advantage in the market of a globalized economy. How to consult collaborating systems?

In addition to the traditional academic submissions, clinical and practitioner submissions (entitled experience-based papers) are especially encouraged and welcomed.

Submissions and Guidelines

The type of submissions can be of the following three types: 1) Research-based papers, 2) Experience-based papers and 3) Symposia. Please indicate on the cover page which category the submitted proposal belongs to.

Doctoral students have the possibility of presenting their concepts and findings and sharing knowledge with senior researchers and consultants. They are also invited to submit a proposal.

Only submissions via e-mail will be accepted. A person can only appear in maximum two proposals either as single author or as a co-author. No new authors can be added after the proposal has been submitted.

All proposals will be double blind reviewed.

Format:

The proposal should consist of:
a) One cover page with the title of the abstract, contact details (name, working title, affiliation, address, email, phone, fax).
Remember to indicate to which category the abstract belongs to (see above)

b) Two pages with the abstract. Remember to also put the title on the first page of the abstract, but NO name and contact details. The font is Arial, size 11, single line spacing, top and bottom margins: 3 cm, left and right margins: 2 cm. The abstract should be emailed as an attached word document to ralph.grossmann@uni-klu.ac.at .

Full Papers should Contain:

Maximum 6.500 words including an abstract of approximately 250 words and
including a cover page with title, contact details (name, working title, affiliation, address, email, phone, fax) and category of the paper. The font is Arial, size 12, 1,5 line spacing, top and bottom margins: 3 cm and left and right margins: 2 cm. The paper should be sent by email as an attached word document to ralph.grossmann@uni-klu.ac.at .

Awards will be given to the best papers within various categories.

Conference Dates to Remember:

• December 19, 2008: Deadline for submission of proposals


• January 31, 2009: Information about acceptance of proposals


• March 31, 2009: Submission of full and formal papers


• April 15, 2009: Detailed Program online

Conference Fees

(includes two lunches and two dinners):

• 250€ on or before March 31, 2009


• 300€ from April 1, 2009 – May 31, 2009


• 350€ from June 1, 2009 or on-site


• 150€ doctoral students

Conference Venue:

The iff Faculty, the University of Klagenfurt, will be hosting MCD 09. The main campus of the university is based in Klagenfurt in the most southern federal state of Austria, Carinthia. Therefore all of the sessions will take place at the Hotel & Palais Strudlhof in Vienna. The hotel – a neo-classical palace revealing the spirit of that historical era –
is located near the city centre only a few minutes by foot from Vienna’s famous downtown street, the “Ringstrasse”.

The iff is a unique faculty built around societal issues and not around disciplines. As a result, scholars from a variety of disciplines, as well as experts and practitioners from numerous professions cooperate in interdisciplinary projects.

The Department of Organizational Development and Group Dynamics (ODGD) provides the Organizing Team for the MCD Conference. The Department combines consulting projects with research on management and OD issues. ODGD offers a doctoral program for professionals (managers and consultant), a two-year Master of Science in Organizational Development, various in-house management training courses and a program for Social Competence and Organizational Learning targeted at students from all studies at the University.

Organizing Committee:

The organizing committee responsible for the conference comprises of:
Professor Anthony F. Buono, Bentley College, US
Professor Leon de Caluwé, Free University in Amsterdam, Netherland
Professor Ann E. Feyerherm, Pepperdine University, US
Professor Larry E. Greiner, University of Southern California, US
Professor Ralph Grossmann, University of Klagenfurt, Austria
Professor Alfred Janes, Conecta, Austria
Professor Rickie Moore, E.M. Lyon, France
Professor Flemming Poulfelt, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Professor Ansgar Richter, European Business School, Germany
Professor Ginka Teogel, IMD - International Institute for Management Development, Switzerland
Professor Andreas Werr, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Professor Therese Yaeger, Benedictine University, US

Secretariat and Contact Information

Please feel free to contact either Kurt Mayer (kurt.mayer@uni-klu.ac.at) or Ralph Grossmann (ralph.grossmann@uni-klu.ac.at). The secretariat is located at: IFF-Organisational Development and Group Dynamics, Schottenfeldgasse 29, 1070 Vienna, Austria. Phone: +43 522 40 00 201. Fax +43 522 40 00 277.