Consulting - a Creativity-Intensive Process? Insights from an Exploratory Case Study

Creativity is an important predecessor of any innovation and a competitive factor in many industries. However, only little is known about the management of business processes that are coined by creativity. The theory of managing creativity-intensive processes provides an analytical perspective for the understanding and management of these processes. Consulting processes, at first sight, seem non-creative but show strong parallels to creativity-intensive processes (CIP). In this paper we confirm the validity of the theory’s core concept and its properties with data from a multi-case study within the consulting industry. We contribute to the qualitative empirical validation of the TMCP and thus support the generalization of the theory. Moreover, the TMPC contains strategies that organizations can employ in order to manage CIPs. In showing that consulting processes are CIPs, these strategies can be transferred, as a practical contribution, to the management of consulting processes.