Managing Knowledge to Capture Value in Technology and Engineering Consultancies

In this paper we report the findings of a two-year project that examined how technology and engineering consultancies (TECs) manage knowledge and innovation to create and capture value. We studied eight multi-national consultancies at two levels. First, we examined the policies, processes and practices used at the corporate level to promote innovation, and capture the value created by it. Secondly, for each company we examined a specific innovative project. We found that whilst many of the policies, processes and practices used are similar to good practice in leading manufacturing firms, the ways in which they attempt to translate knowledge and innovation at the project level into value at the corporate level are far less well-developed, and are closer to practices elsewhere in the service sector