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KNOWLEDGE-INTENSIVE FIRMS 47

>> ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Attempts have been made to maintain a fairly flat organizational structure throughout
the firm’s development. Even today, there is fundamentally only one level of manage-
ment, consisting of the founder (now Executive Chairman), Chairman and Managing
Director. Decision-making within the firm has typically involved significant numbers
of consultants as well as management. A worker committee, the Board of Manage-
ment, which consists primarily of consultants and one or two support staff, make
recommendations to management regarding day-to-day operations and organiza-
tion. Management communicates constantly with the whole of the firm (generally
using e-mail) regarding new projects and potential future projects. Turnover and
profitability are also communicated to everyone on a monthly basis. Consultants are
encouraged to innovate outside of client project work, and they can request financial
resources for this through the Innovation Exploitation Board. This forum includes con-
sultants from across the firm, as well as the management team, who meet regularly
to discuss the feasibility of new ideas proposed by consultants. All members of the
management team are also active consultants, contributing to project team-working
within the firm.
Consultants are organized across three divisions within the firm according to their
particular scientific expertise. These are Business Innovation (BI), Technology, Inter-
net, Media and Entertainment (TIME), and Engineering (ENG). While divisional man-
agers head up divisions, there are actually no hierarchical levels either within or across
divisions. Divisional managers tend to be those individuals who are prepared to take
on some minimal administrative responsibilities such as recording revenue genera-
tion and monitoring the projects that are being managed by consultants within their
own division. In many cases, divisional managers are actually remunerated less than
other consultants within their division (see section on ‘Performance management’)
and they also actively contribute to project working across the firm.
Divisions have emerged, merged and disbanded in a reactive manner over time,
based on the client project work in hand. In 1980, there were only two skill groups,
Engineering and Communications. However, in 1990, a divisional structure was
introduced in order to provide improved financial accountability. By 1996, seven
divisions existed including two business consulting divisions, Information Systems
and Applied Sciences. The Life Sciences division emerged at this time from the
Applied Sciences division when enough biotechnology projects had been secured
to ensure the divisions’ sustainability in the medium term. By 2000, however, Life
Sciences had again merged with the Engineering division together with Applied
Sciences. Business Innovation by this time incorporated both business divisions and
the Information Systems division. Despite the existence of divisions, consultants
tend to work in an interdisciplinary manner across divisions within small project
teams. This occurs because the nature of client requirements generally requires
cross-disciplinary skills and expertise. These project teams are self-forming and
self-managed. Project team-working is discussed in more detail within the section
on ‘Performance management’.

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