Discussion: View Thread

  • 1.  Input from International Consultants Needed...

    Posted 03-05-2007 11:07

    Greetings. My name is Fred Kwong and I am a PhD student in Organizational Development at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.

    As part of my dissertation work, I am seeking answers from international consultants to better understand how international consultants first got their start in the industry. Secondly, I am trying to understand the barriers associated with working internationally.

    The purpose of this study is to create a realistic "job preview" for individuals considering to enter into the field. Secondly, I hope to provide a knowledge base for academics that will help to enhance the curricula from which they teach.

    The current knowledge base is limited to individuals' own opinions. My goal is to take the results of this survey and find some generalizations that will help the field as a whole.

    This survey is setup in an open question format. You can take as much time as you would like answering the survey, and there are no wrong answers. If need be, you can close out the survey and re-enter it at any time so long as you save your work beforehand. All questions other than your name are required.

    Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Should you have any questions about this survey, feel free to e-mail me at fkwong@ben.edu 

    The survey can be found at the link below:

    If you should know of anyone who could help in this research project, feel free to forward this link to them.


    Kind Regards,

    Fred Kwong
    Ph.D. Candidate
    Benedictine University



  • 2.  Input from International Consultants Needed...

    Posted 03-05-2007 16:47
    Fred,
    it might help if you let us know what you mean by the term international consultant. For example, like many of the people subscribing to this list, I am primarily an academic. From time to time I act as a consultant to companies - sometimes outside my home country. I occasionally act as a consultant on transnational issues. Nonetheless if you are mostly concerned with people who act as consultants as their main profession,( perhaps people who engage in strategy consulting? or HR consulting, or marketing consulting, or consulting on military or political risk?), then I think you would find my experiences very atypical of the group you are interested in. This really is one of those research domains where the answers you find will depend on who you ask.

    Mark

    P.S. you will find a lot of variation by national group: consultants with international experience are a very small subset of consultants in theUSA but a very large proportion of consultants in Switzerland.

    Prof. Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
    Open University Business School


    ________________________________

    From: International Management Division Discussion on behalf of Kwong, Fred
    Sent: Mon 05/03/2007 16:06
    To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Input from International Consultants Needed...


    Greetings. My name is Fred Kwong and I am a PhD student in Organizational Development at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.

    As part of my dissertation work, I am seeking answers from international consultants to better understand how international consultants first got their start in the industry. Secondly, I am trying to understand the barriers associated with working internationally.

    The purpose of this study is to create a realistic "job preview" for individuals considering to enter into the field. Secondly, I hope to provide a knowledge base for academics that will help to enhance the curricula from which they teach.

    The current knowledge base is limited to individuals' own opinions. My goal is to take the results of this survey and find some generalizations that will help the field as a whole.

    This survey is setup in an open question format. You can take as much time as you would like answering the survey, and there are no wrong answers. If need be, you can close out the survey and re-enter it at any time so long as you save your work beforehand. All questions other than your name are required.

    Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Should you have any questions about this survey, feel free to e-mail me at fkwong@ben.edu


    The survey can be found at the link below:

    http://www.zipsurvey.com/LaunchSurvey.aspx?suid=15395&key=FC8EE453

    If you should know of anyone who could help in this research project, feel free to forward this link to them.


    Kind Regards,

    Fred Kwong
    Ph.D. Candidate
    Benedictine University


  • 3.  Input from International Consultants Needed...

    Posted 03-06-2007 22:28
    Hi Fred, you might get a biased sample. Non-academic consultants endeavor to bill as much time as possible to clients, and hence only a small proportion might respond; academics have a bit more freedom as to what we do with our time.

    I note that your survey is only in English; are you only sampling  English-speaking consultants? Again, might get biased results.

    Of course, you're at  US university, and they might have no interest in anything outside that country.

    Regards,
    Romie Littrell

    "Kwong, Fred" <FKwong@BEN.EDU> wrote:
    Greetings. My name is Fred Kwong and I am a PhD student in Organizational Development at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.

    As part of my dissertation work, I am seeking answers from international consultants to better understand how international consultants first got their start in the industry. Secondly, I am trying to understand the barriers associated with working internationally.

    The purpose of this study is to create a realistic "job preview" for individuals considering to enter into the field. Secondly, I hope to provide a knowledge base for academics that will help to enhance the curricula from which they teach.

    The current knowledge base is limited to individuals' own opinions. My goal is to take the results of this survey and find some generalizations that will help the field as a whole.

    This survey is setup in an open question format. You can take as much time as you would like answering the survey, and there are no wrong answers. If need be, you can close out the survey and re-enter it at any time so long as you save your work beforehand. All questions other than your name are required.

    Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Should you have any questions about this survey, feel free to e-mail me at fkwong@ben.edu 
    The survey can be found at the link below:
    If you should know of anyone who could help in this research project, feel free to forward this link to them.

    Kind Regards,

    Fred Kwong
    Ph.D. Candidate
    Benedictine University



    "International business is the general case; local business is the special case." - Peter J. Buckley
    Romie F. Littrell, BA, MBA,PhD, FIAIR, An fánaí fiáin
    AUT Business School N.Z., romie.littrell@aut.ac.nz
    http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
    http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
    Facilitator, Leadership & Management in Sub-Sahara Africa Conferences


    What kind of emailer are you? Find out today - get a free analysis of your email personality. Take the quiz at the Yahoo! Mail Championship.


  • 4.  Input from International Consultants Needed...

    Posted 03-08-2007 22:41
    Romie,

    I'm actually not as interested in what the consultant actually consults in, or how much they charge, but more interested in how they got started in doing international consulting, whether it be via academic means, or working for a larger consulting firm. Currently I am sampling US based consultants as that is where I think I will get the most leads, of course I am interested in consultants from other countries as well, but to narrow the focus for my dissertation, I will only look at US based consultants. I am also interested in the stories the consultants have to tell about working internationally. What where some issues, they have had to deal with that maybe they wouldn't see working domestically. I hope this helps to clarify what I am looking for.

    Regards,

    Fred



    ________________________________

    From: International Management Division Discussion on behalf of Romie Littrell
    Sent: Tue 3/6/2007 9:27 PM
    To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Input from International Consultants Needed...


    Hi Fred, you might get a biased sample. Non-academic consultants endeavor to bill as much time as possible to clients, and hence only a small proportion might respond; academics have a bit more freedom as to what we do with our time.

    I note that your survey is only in English; are you only sampling English-speaking consultants? Again, might get biased results.

    Of course, you're at US university, and they might have no interest in anything outside that country.

    Regards,
    Romie Littrell

    "Kwong, Fred" <FKwong@BEN.EDU> wrote:


    Greetings. My name is Fred Kwong and I am a PhD student in Organizational Development at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.

    As part of my dissertation work, I am seeking answers from international consultants to better understand how international consultants first got their start in the industry. Secondly, I am trying to understand the barriers associated with working internationally.

    The purpose of this study is to create a realistic "job preview" for individuals considering to enter into the field. Secondly, I hope to provide a knowledge base for academics that will help to enhance the curricula from which they teach.

    The current knowledge base is limited to individuals' own opinions. My goal is to take the results of this survey and find some generalizations that will help the field as a whole.

    This survey is setup in an open question format. You can take as much time as you would like answering the survey, and there are no wrong answers. If need be, you can close out the survey and re-enter it at any time so long as you save your work beforehand. All questions other than your name are required.

    Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Should you have any questions about this survey, feel free to e-mail me at fkwong@ben.edu

    The survey can be found at the link below:
    http://www.zipsurvey.com/LaunchSurvey.aspx?suid=15395&key=FC8EE453
    If you should know of anyone who could help in this research project, feel free to forward this link to them.

    Kind Regards,

    Fred Kwong
    Ph.D. Candidate
    Benedictine University




    "International business is the general case; local business is the special case." - Peter J. Buckley
    Romie F. Littrell, BA, MBA,PhD, FIAIR, An fánaí fiáin
    AUT Business School N.Z., romie.littrell@aut.ac.nz
    http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
    http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
    Facilitator, Leadership & Management in Sub-Sahara Africa Conferences

    ________________________________

    What kind of emailer are you? Find out today - get a free analysis of your email personality. Take the quiz at the Yahoo! Mail Championship <http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/mail/uk/taglines/default/championships/quiz/*http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk/> .


  • 5.  Input from International Consultants Needed...

    Posted 03-08-2007 23:04
    Mark,
     
    Currently for international consultant, I am looking for anyone who does international consulting work outside of their own country, although I may want to narrow my scope later to US based international consultants depending on the response rate is. What I am most interested in, is hearing the stories of how the international consultants got started in international consulting. As in your example, I am interested in if you got your start performing consulting part time because your an academic, and was approached, or perhaps actively sought out clients? I am interested in people like yourself, who work internationally from time to time, but also full time international consultants. My goal is to collect data to find out, what are the different roads that can lead you to international consulting, and how people got started in the field. My second interest is in the stories that consultants have to tell about issues or barriers that international consultants had to overcome or deal with when performing international consulting. I hope this helps to clarify what I am looking for.
     
    Kind Regards,
     
    Fred Kwong


    From: International Management Division Discussion on behalf of M.P.Fenton-OCreevy
    Sent: Mon 3/5/2007 3:47 PM
    To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Input from International Consultants Needed...

    Fred,
    it might help if you let us know what you mean by the term international consultant. For example, like many of the people subscribing to this list, I am primarily an academic. From time to time I act as a consultant to companies - sometimes outside my home country. I occasionally act as a consultant on transnational issues. Nonetheless if you are mostly concerned with people who act as consultants as their main profession,( perhaps people who engage in strategy consulting? or HR consulting, or marketing consulting, or consulting on military or political risk?), then I think you would find my experiences very atypical of the group you are interested in. This really is one of those research domains where the answers you find will depend on who you ask.

    Mark

    P.S. you will find a lot of variation by national group: consultants with international experience are a very small subset of consultants in theUSA but a very large proportion of consultants in Switzerland.

    Prof. Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
    Open University Business School


    ________________________________

    From: International Management Division Discussion on behalf of Kwong, Fred
    Sent: Mon 05/03/2007 16:06
    To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Input from International Consultants Needed...


    Greetings. My name is Fred Kwong and I am a PhD student in Organizational Development at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.

    As part of my dissertation work, I am seeking answers from international consultants to better understand how international consultants first got their start in the industry. Secondly, I am trying to understand the barriers associated with working internationally.

    The purpose of this study is to create a realistic "job preview" for individuals considering to enter into the field. Secondly, I hope to provide a knowledge base for academics that will help to enhance the curricula from which they teach.

    The current knowledge base is limited to individuals' own opinions. My goal is to take the results of this survey and find some generalizations that will help the field as a whole.

    This survey is setup in an open question format. You can take as much time as you would like answering the survey, and there are no wrong answers. If need be, you can close out the survey and re-enter it at any time so long as you save your work beforehand. All questions other than your name are required.

    Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Should you have any questions about this survey, feel free to e-mail me at fkwong@ben.edu


    The survey can be found at the link below:

    http://www.zipsurvey.com/LaunchSurvey.aspx?suid=15395&key=FC8EE453

    If you should know of anyone who could help in this research project, feel free to forward this link to them.


    Kind Regards,

    Fred Kwong
    Ph.D. Candidate
    Benedictine University



  • 6.  Input from International Consultants Needed...

    Posted 03-09-2007 12:28
    Hi Fred,
    My international experience came as a surprise. In 1996 I was asked by Baan
    company, at that time one of the leading ERP suppliers to search for an HR
    component for their ERP environment. More and more clients started to ask
    for HR, that was complete absent in the suite.
    Because of the possible win-win situation I would first visit their
    customers to see what they have made themselves, for instance Boeing and
    Northern Telecom, also their partners like Q Data Dynamique. This led to
    visiting them at their headoffices in Ontario, in Redding, in Kaapstad, in
    Madrid, in London, you name it.
    It also led to some related business I was able to provide for these
    customers. It was a very interesting time and I was sources in at Baan and
    again a lot of international consulting, was there also when the company
    broke down and as HR director I fired about 150 employees and a business
    unit to IBM. That was also the end of the international career. The former
    contacts were afraid to get touched by the downfall of Baan and refused
    contact with me.

    About issues. To tell you the truth I never encountered any issues different
    than the local ones.What kind of issues are you thinking of?
    regards


    Gijs Houtzagers
    Director competence center ERP
    Holland Casino
    Hoofdweg 640
    P.O. box 355
    2130 AJ Hoofddorp
    Netherlands
    Tel +31 23-5659319
    Cell phone +31 622934676


    -----Original Message-----
    From: International Management Division Discussion
    [mailto:IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Kwong, Fred
    Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 4:41 AM
    To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Input from International Consultants Needed...

    Romie,

    I'm actually not as interested in what the consultant actually consults in,
    or how much they charge, but more interested in how they got started in
    doing international consulting, whether it be via academic means, or working
    for a larger consulting firm. Currently I am sampling US based consultants
    as that is where I think I will get the most leads, of course I am
    interested in consultants from other countries as well, but to narrow the
    focus for my dissertation, I will only look at US based consultants. I am
    also interested in the stories the consultants have to tell about working
    internationally. What where some issues, they have had to deal with that
    maybe they wouldn't see working domestically. I hope this helps to clarify
    what I am looking for.

    Regards,

    Fred



    ________________________________

    From: International Management Division Discussion on behalf of Romie
    Littrell
    Sent: Tue 3/6/2007 9:27 PM
    To: IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Input from International Consultants Needed...


    Hi Fred, you might get a biased sample. Non-academic consultants endeavor to
    bill as much time as possible to clients, and hence only a small proportion
    might respond; academics have a bit more freedom as to what we do with our
    time.

    I note that your survey is only in English; are you only sampling
    English-speaking consultants? Again, might get biased results.

    Of course, you're at US university, and they might have no interest in
    anything outside that country.

    Regards,
    Romie Littrell

    "Kwong, Fred" <FKwong@BEN.EDU> wrote:


    Greetings. My name is Fred Kwong and I am a PhD student in
    Organizational Development at Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.

    As part of my dissertation work, I am seeking answers from
    international consultants to better understand how international consultants
    first got their start in the industry. Secondly, I am trying to understand
    the barriers associated with working internationally.

    The purpose of this study is to create a realistic "job preview" for
    individuals considering to enter into the field. Secondly, I hope to provide
    a knowledge base for academics that will help to enhance the curricula from
    which they teach.

    The current knowledge base is limited to individuals' own opinions.
    My goal is to take the results of this survey and find some generalizations
    that will help the field as a whole.

    This survey is setup in an open question format. You can take as
    much time as you would like answering the survey, and there are no wrong
    answers. If need be, you can close out the survey and re-enter it at any
    time so long as you save your work beforehand. All questions other than your
    name are required.

    Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Should you
    have any questions about this survey, feel free to e-mail me at
    fkwong@ben.edu

    The survey can be found at the link below:
    http://www.zipsurvey.com/LaunchSurvey.aspx?suid=15395&key=FC8EE453
    If you should know of anyone who could help in this research
    project, feel free to forward this link to them.

    Kind Regards,

    Fred Kwong
    Ph.D. Candidate
    Benedictine University




    "International business is the general case; local business is the special
    case." - Peter J. Buckley Romie F. Littrell, BA, MBA,PhD, FIAIR, An fánaí
    fiáin AUT Business School N.Z., romie.littrell@aut.ac.nz
    http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
    http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
    Facilitator, Leadership & Management in Sub-Sahara Africa Conferences

    ________________________________

    What kind of emailer are you? Find out today - get a free analysis of your
    email personality. Take the quiz at the Yahoo! Mail Championship
    <http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/mail/uk/taglines/default/championships/quiz/*http://
    uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk/> .