Economic Advice and Rhetoric: Why Do Consultants Perform Better Than Academic Advisers?

Onno Bouwmester's presentation will be on his book:

Economic Advice and Rhetoric: Why Do Consultants Perform Better Than Academic Advisers? (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

The book compares the approaches of consultants and academic advisers and provides an in-depth analysis of their advice argumentation. Both compete on the market for economic advice, with consultants enjoying a larger market share and usually obtaining higher fees. However, academics criticize them for overcharging, shallowness, and quick-and-dirty methods. So, are consultants' clients misled or even cheated? Not necessarily. The book reveals that academics have drawbacks as well; their arguments are less balanced than consultants and their estimates contradict each other more.

Economic Advice and Rhetoric argues that clients should be cautious, on differing grounds, challenging academics to reconsider their understanding of consulting practices. Onno Bouwmeester illustrates that the instrumental concept of academic advice as assumed by mainstream economists and policy scientists does not guide the practice of academic advisers and thus creates wrong expectations. He deconstructs the current understanding of academic advice, and counters the view of critical academics that consultants' rhetoric is so misleading by comparing it to the rhetoric of academics.

Dr. O. Bouwmeester is associate professor in management and consulting at VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, where he defended his PhD: Advice as Argument: Economic Deliberation in Management Consulting and Academic Contract Research in 2008. Till 2001 he worked as senior consultant for KPMG. He holds Master degrees in philosophy and economics from the University of Amsterdam. His current research interest is in the rhetoric of management consultants. He is program director of the specialization Management Consulting in the master grogram Business administration, where he also teaches several courses and he is member of the management team of the department Management and Organization.