Why it is worthwhile to answer my question

How does engagement increase value of consultancy projects?

If

• Engagement adds value
• Projects succeed because of engagement
• Human capital is good
• Intellectual capital is increased

Then
We know engagement is worth while, worth having, worth creating, worth doing, worth further research. But that is about a different question - does engagement add value? Engagement could provide collaborative advantage {Huxham, 1993 #838}. If it does, then is engagement worthwhile? I assume that if engagement adds value, then it is worthwhile. But what about the question of how engagement adds value?

220,000 people work in the UK consulting industry. How do they add value to UK business and in particular to the UK public sector that provides 29% of the consulting market? The intelligent client {Czerniawska, 2002 #894}who knows how to engage with consultants gains the value. So how does an intelligent public sector client engage with consultants?

The research isn’t there to tell us.

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Czerniawska, F. (2002) The intelligent client: managing your management consultant, Hodder & Stoughton. 894
Huxham, C. (1993) 'Pursuing Collaborative Advantage', The Journal of the Operational Research Society, 44 (6), pp. 599-611. 838

Commitment

How does commitment differ from engagement?

Organisational commitment refers to a person's attitude and attachment to their organisation {Saks, 2006}. The NAO requires engagement in order to obtain commitment {NAO, 2006 #109}, which implies that a consequence of engagement is commitment yet I'd have thought they were the same thing.

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NAO (2006) Central Government's use of consultants: Building client and consultant commitment. National Audit Office.
SAKS, A. M. (2006) Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21, 600-619.

Motivation

Motivation

• seeks to cause action so triggers activity
• is manipulative
• incidental activity
  
• has been replaced by latest buzz word 'engagement'{Marcum, 1999}

The Marcum paper is interesting because it identifies problems with motivation (paternalistic, manipulative, employees not partners) and needing replacing. Marcum suggests engagement theory might replace the concept.

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MARCUM, J. W. (1999) Out With Motivation, in With Engagement. National Productivity Review (Wiley), 18, 43-46.

Life

Sometimes life gets in the way of pursuing research.

Over a year ago we students were to pose for a photo for the OUBS research students' web page. I should have been in that photo, but daughter collapsed at breakfast and we both went off to hospital in an ambulance. Loads of tests later, we got told that she had low blood pressure. However, she kept collapsing at taekwondo so went back to the doctor. Now she's got a diagnosis of hyperthyroidism.

I had thought that my interruptions would be through elderly relatives being ill, not my teenage daughter.

But we all have some such problem:

• a colleague has a wife with heart problems,
  
• another's mother has just recovered from dengue fever
  
• others struggle with their marriage
  

Others will have problems but just won't have mentioned them. It's not anything to do with doing a PhD that brings the problems, just life.

Collaboration

Perhaps collaboration is the same as engagement.

• it is interchangeable with cooperation {Huxham, 1993} and means "something to do with working together". Huxham introduces the concept of "collaborative advantage" to solve problems together
  
• "strong collaborative relationships go hand in hand with good project performance" {NAO, 2006}

Shaffer {Schaffer, 2002: 55} indicates that under the traditional consulting paradigm, consultants do not agree to collaborate. That sounds like avoiding engagement, and engagement is the same as collaboration.

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HUXHAM, C. (1993) Pursuing Collaborative Advantage. The Journal of the Operational Research Society, 44, 599-611.
NAO (2006) Good governance: Measuring Success Through Collaborative Working Relationships. National Audit Office.
SCHAFFER, R. H. (2002) High Impact Consulting, Jossey-Bass.

Involvement

How does involvement differ from engagement?

• involvement often refers to user participation in a systems development process
  
• is distinguished from participation, being a separate construct that refers to a psychological state (Barki, 1989 : 53)
• is an intervening variable between user participation and system use (Hartwick, 1994) (which seems a bit like engagement being the intermediate variable between website drivers and consumer behaviour in Mollen's MRes dissertation)
• job involvement has to do with self image and how employees employ themselves in the performance of their job (Saks, 2006: 602)
• managers can be "a priori involved" or "inquiry involved" (Swanson, 1974) depending on whether they make queries about using a system or whether they initiate changes. Activities that make a change possible sound a bit like engagement to me.
• "working with others to get things done" {Axelrod, 2004 :xi} written after Axelrod's book on engagement makes it sound like Axelrod thinks engagement and involvement are the same.
  

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AXELROD, R. H., AXELROD, E., BEEDON, J. & JACOBS, C. D. (2004) You don't have to do it alone: how to involve others to get things done, San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler.
BARKI, H. & HARTWICK, J. (1989) Rethinking the Concept of User Involvement. MIS Quarterly, 13, 53-63.
HARTWICK, J. & BARKI, H. (1994) Explaining the Role of User Participation in Information System Use. Management Science, 40, 440-465.
SAKS, A. M. (2006) Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21, 600-619.
SWANSON, E. B. (1974) MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS: APPRECIATION AND INVOLVEMENT. Management Science, 21, 178-188.

Participation

I'm trying to distinguish between engagement and other concepts like participation.

• user participation for developing and testing IT projects
• dimensions of participation are: responsibility, hands-on activities, user-IS relationships (Barki and Hartwick, 1994 :423)
• "a set of behaviours or activities performed by users in the system development process" (Barki and Hartwick, 1989)
• increases bureaucracy {Axelrod, 2001}
  
• involves hearts and minds (Handley et al., 2007)
• leads to involvement (Hartwick and Barki, 1994)
• refers to a process of taking part and to the relationship with others that reflects the process, i.e. both action and connection, reserved for actors who are members of social communities (p56). It is not collaboration. It is a constituent of meaning so is broader than engagement. (Wenger, 1998)

Now that last point by Wenger, does sound important. Engagement is a sub-set of participation, whereas I'd been thinking of participation as something specialised, that meant users of systems had to participate (because management said so) but that management didn't do. Wenger's point concurs with Mike Hales findings that participation in design can work, but that strategic management has to do something too.

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AXELROD, R. H. (2001) Terms of engagement: changing the way we change organizations. Journal for Quality & Participation, 24, 22.
BARKI, H. & HARTWICK, J. (1989) Rethinking the Concept of User Involvement. MIS Quarterly, 13, 53-63.
BARKI, H. & HARTWICK, J. (1994) Measuring User Participation, User Involvement, and User Attitude. MIS Quarterly, 18, 59-82.
HALES, M. (1993) User participation in design - what it can deliver, what it can't and what this means for management. IN QUINTAS, P. (Ed.) Social dimensions of systems engineering: people, processes, policies and software development. Horwood.
HANDLEY, K., CLARK, T., FINCHAM, R. & STURDY, A. (2007) Researching Situated Learning. Management Learning, 38, 173-191.
HARTWICK, J. & BARKI, H. (1994) Explaining the Role of User Participation in Information System Use. Management Science, 40, 440-465.
WENGER, E. (1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.