| Abstract: | When companies recognise the limitations of seat‐of‐pants decision making, it is not always immediately clear where to turn in order to procure the information and advice that can result in better business decisions. The chosen resource might be a research agency (assumed to be fast‐acting); a management consultancy (likely to be reassuringly expensive); or sources in the academic world (popularly seen as ‘leading‐edge’). What is delivered will depend on the type of supplier chosen: so far, each of these resources has developed in isolation, with its own assumptions, methods and codes of conduct. Nowhere is this more starkly seen than among providers of qualitative research, the discipline that gave birth to focus groups and marketing‐oriented depth interviews. Depending on the supplier, the client may be provided with research that is process‐based, skills‐based or knowledge‐based. The design, practice and analysis of the research will differ accordingly. In this paper, it is argued that the time has come to establish a new form of business consultancy which understands the strengths and weaknesses of these three traditional approaches, which can offer research brokerage that makes available the most appropriate techniques, and which can bring together the distinctive offerings of market‐research agencies, universities and management consultancies as a total resource in helping clients to make optimal decisions. An acceptance of new kinds of professional alliances will be required, as ‘meta‐consultants’ look for cooperation, not competition, among those who are based in each of these three domains. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications. |
