Partnership at heart of consulting companies

Successful management consulting firms generally operate under a partnership structure. Recently, partnership as an organizational arrangement has also become popular in China, as some corporations claimed to have adopted it and some others are considering it..

In contrast to its novelty in China, partnership has been in practice in the West for a long time, especially among professional service firms like law, accounting and consulting. After more than 100 years of development, the consulting profession has produced a small number of sustainably successful global firms. Partnership is their common underpinning.

Although many Chinese consulting firms also claim to be a partnership, their actual way of conduct is actually quite different from the international modus operandi.