Organizational Culture in Student-Consulting Firms : Maintaining Culture Despite High Employee Turnover

Abstract: This study explores student-consulting firms and how a strong organizational culture can be a key to mitigate their particular challenge of high employee turnover and how their management can work with different dimensions of organizational culture as tools to embed a strong organizational culture. A student-consulting firm is a consulting firm operated by students still engaged in regular educational programs that can be considered a form of knowledge-intensive firm (KIF). This study investigates how management in these firms work with organizational cul- ture through four dimensions, symbols, heroes, rituals and ceremonies, and values. These dimensions are based on Schein [1990] and extended by input from Hofstede et al. [1990] and Bolman and Deal [2003]. The findings of this study are based on three detailed case studies conducted at the three largest student-consulting firms in Sweden where semi-structured interviews were performed to investigate how manage- ment work with different managerial tools in these four dimensions. This study concludes that there are at least eleven discreet management tools that are used in these firms to mitigate the challenges that their high employee turnover implies. The findings provide in-depth insight into these tools and their usage and effect, thereby enhancing the understanding of the role of organizational culture and providing a framework for management.