DAF04 – Private Consultants and Notions of Accountabilities

Supervisors: Dr Umair Riaz and Dr Anwar Halari (Department of Accounting and Finance, The Open University Business School, Faculty of Business and Law)

Mode: Available for campus-based or distance learning.

Project description: 

In recent decades, private consultants, particularly large multinational firms, have become central actors in shaping public policy and institutional reform. Their influence spans sectors such as health, education, defence, taxation, and sustainability, where they advise governments, design regulatory frameworks, and implement strategic reforms. This growing entanglement between consultancy firms and public governance raises urgent questions about transparency, legitimacy, and accountability.

While consultants are often portrayed as neutral technical experts, their embeddedness in elite networks and their role in shaping reform narratives suggest a more politically charged function. The dominance of the Big Four firms in both public and private sectors, especially in auditing and advisory services, has intensified concerns about conflicts of interest, ethical boundaries, and the protection of public interest, particularly in contexts of cross-border tax avoidance and regulatory arbitrage. These activities raise ethical and legal questions, challenging the legitimacy of consulting firms in advising or auditing companies engaged in such practices, and prompting debate over the transparency and accountability of their advisory and audit services.

Despite their pervasive presence, academic literature has tended to marginalise consultants, treating them as peripheral implementers rather than as strategic agents of change. Existing studies often focus on reform outcomes (e.g., Grindle, 2004; World Bank, 2005) or critique broader reform paradigms like New Public Management (Miller & Rose, 2008; Sarker, 2006), without adequately theorising the political agency of consultants or the socio-institutional contexts in which they operate.

The accountability mechanisms that govern consultants are poorly understood. Traditional models of accountability based on transparency, performance auditing, and legal compliance are inadequate when applied to consultants embedded within informal, elite-based governance structures. Questions remain about how (or if) accountability is enforced when consultants are commissioned through non-competitive processes, insulated from public scrutiny, and protected by their political connections. In this context, public scrutiny of conflict-of-interest scandals involving private consultants heightens concerns about their role in auditing major global corporations. Such incidents have impacted public perception of consultancy firms as a whole, fuelling apprehension over the influence that the large consulting firms wield in corporate and governmental spheres. Although consultants have become crucial intermediaries between governments, private enterprises, and the third sector, academic research on their systemic role remains limited. Most studies focus on isolated cases, leaving a significant gap in understanding their broader societal impact.

An illustrative example:

Lucas and Guthrie (2024) offer a compelling case study of consultancy firms’ growing influence in Australian higher education. Their analysis of “thought leadership” reports and university reform strategies reveals how consultants have become central to academic capitalism, promoting market-oriented solutions, fiscal restructuring, and institutional unbundling. This example underscores the need to critically assess the long-term implications of consultancy involvement in public institutions.