Extending Schein's client typology

Schein has this categorisation of clients:

• contact,
• intermediate,
• primary,
• unwitting,
• indirect and
• ultimate clients.

Contact clients are individuals who first contact the consultant. Intermediate clients are individuals or groups who get involved through meetings and other activities. Primary clients are those who own and manage the problem and may pay the bill. Ultimate clients are those whose welfare other clients and the consultant must consider. Unwitting clients are those related to the primary client but are unaware that they will be impacted. Indirect clients are those who are aware that they will be affected by consultancy interventions but either the consultancy or other clients do not know about them.

However, some researchers (like Sturdy) suggest that this model can be extended to include other clients, like ignored clients - those the consultant knows about, but discounts. "Proscribed clients" is the term that Sturdy uses, being people who are excluded from a change process through political manoeuvering.

Interesting. I wonder how much the public sector does this. And surely proscribed clients would be difficult to identify through research, because of the politics that proscribes them.

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STURDY, A., CLARK, T., FINCHAM, R. & HANDLEY, K. (2009) Between innovation and legitimation - boundaries and knowledge flow in management consultancy. Organization.
STURDY, A., HANDLEY, K., FINCHAM, R. & CLARK, T. (2009) Management consultancy : boundaries and knowledge in action, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Bovens models and Schein's

Months ago I saw a relationship between Schein's models of clients and Bovens actors. I thought I'd made a note of their relationships, I'd do it in a table, but I can't find anything. Schein has two models: one of client roles and the other is a model that classifies clients according to levels of problems. I think there is a match between Bovens actors and Schein's second model.

Schein's model considers problems at levels of:

• individual
• interpersonal
• group, which can be face to face or intergroup
• organisational
• inter-organisational or larger system

Bovens considers actors:

• individual
• collective
• hierarchical
• corporate

I can't yet quite see how they match, so I've sketched a graph and I'm still thinking. Perhaps I'll ask my colleague whose work gave me the idea for her suggestions.

Matching accountability to clients

After listening to a colleague's presentation of her MRes research on stakeholder understanding of museum value, I was stimulated to thinking how her seven types of values might be tabulated against types of stakeholder. Similarly, I could cross tabulate Schein's types of clients against Boven's types of accountabilities.

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• Bovens, M. 2007. Analysing and Assessing Accountability: A Conceptual Framework. European Law Journal, 13(4): 447-468.

• Schein, E. 1997. The concept of “client” from a process consultation perspective: a guide for change agents. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 109 (3): 202-216.