Disentangling the Effects of Team Competences, Team Adaptability, and Client Communication on the Performance of Management Consulting Teams

Management consulting firms play a crucial role in companies' strategic and organizational activities. In business practice, however, they are often criticized for providing inferior solutions due to the deficiencies in the client-consultant interactions. In this paper, we study the effects of team competences and team processes on the performance of consulting teams. We specifically examine processes related to consulting teams' interaction with their clients; i.e., the communication with their clients during the project and teams' adaptability to their task. Our analysis shows that the relationship between consulting teams' competences and their performance is sequentially mediated – first, by client communication; and second, by team adaptability. The results of this study contribute to research on teams in organizations, and consulting teams in particular, by disentangling the complex influences of team competences and team processes on team performance.