The article analyzes the development trend of this new field of Kazakh society as a consulting company. Copyright by analyzing the historical evolution of the consulting companies in the Kazakhstan, shows the problem areas of the process. Author in the analysis of trends in the development of consulting companies are using new methods to Kazakhstan science areas of knowledge. Author of the article concludes that the market of Kazakhstan consulting services have not yet fully formed brands in consulting, but there is a development of individual counseling in the field of management. In order to study the degree of institutionalization of consulting companies in Kazakhstan, a comparative study sites consulting companies.
Article differs with its novelty and an urgency of a theme of research. Really, one of aspects of transformation of the modern Kazakhstan society is formation on base already quite developed industrial society of a new industry — economic consulting. It should be noted a professionalism of consulting activity, because he is an independent and basic infrastructure of a market economy.
The management sociology is the boundary synthetic science studying sociological aspect of administrative activity. This science was generated on a joint of two independent disciplines: sociology and management.
Sociology is a science about a society as complete system and about social institutions, processes, social groups, relations between a person and a society, laws of people mass behavior. It is well-known that the primary goal of sociology is an objective analysis of social human relations in order to reveal laws of management of a society.
The term «management» has several meanings. Management in all business areas and organizational activities are the acts of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources.
The verb manage comes from the Italian maneggiare (to handle — especially tools), which in turn derives from the Latin manus (hand). The French word mesnagement (later ménagement) influenced the development in meaning of the English word management in the 17th and 18th centuries1.
Organization and coordination of the activities of an enterprise in accordance with certain policies and in achievement of clearly defined objectives. Management is often included as a factor of production along with machines, materials, and money. According to the management guru Peter Drucker (1909–2005), the basic task of a management is twofold: marketing and innovation.
Directors and managers who have the power and responsibility to make decisions to manage an enterprise. As a discipline, management comprises the interlocking functions of formulating corporate policy and organizing, planning, controlling, and directing the firm's resources to achieve the policy's objectives. The size of management can range from one person in a small firm to hundreds or thousands of managers in multinational companies. In large firms the board of directors formulates the policy which is implemented by the chief executive officer.
Business management can be defined as the acquisition, allocation, and utilization of resources through planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. Management involves the coordination of human, financial, material, and information resources in order to realize company goals and operate a business efficiently. Managers are the employees charged with these responsibilities. Managers play a variety of roles in a company, summarized as interpersonal roles, information roles, and decision-making roles. Managing entails five functions: planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. The day-to-day tasks of management include: considering problems and making decisions in how to deal with them, implementing courses of action, and reviewing decisions and actions and making any necessary changes. The basic elements of modern management practices can be traced to ancient times. The Egyptians, for example, developed advanced management techniques related to labor division, hierarchy of authority, and teams. They developed complex bureaucracies to measure and forecast river levels and crop yields, distribute revenues within the government, manage trade, and complete massive construction projects such as the pyramids. The Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and other cultures made similar contributions to management science.
Although management systems existed long before the modern era, it was not until the late 18th and 19th centuries that advanced business management techniques emerged in response to the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution resulted in the formation of extremely large organizations characterized by job specialization and the administration of large amounts of human resources. A new breed of middle-level managers were needed to plan and direct human efforts and to administer large pools of capital.
Among the most influential American contributors to management practice during the Industrial Revolution was Daniel C.McCallum (1815–1878), the superintendent of the Erie Railroad during the mid-1800s. To more efficiently manage the vast human and capital resources involved with construction of the railroad, he established a set of guiding management principles that emphasized: a specific division of labor and responsibilities, the empowerment of managers to make decisions in the field, compensation based on merit, a clearly delineated managerial hierarchy, and a detailed system of data gathering, analysis, and reporting that would foster individual accountability and improve decision making.
Because organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a system. This view opens the opportunity to 'manage' oneself, a prerequisite to attempting to manage others.
Management can also refer to the person or people who perform the acts of management. The problems studied by sociology of management:
- Control systems as social systems from the point of view of their functioning;
- Selection, arrangement, education of the staff;
- The relations developing between people with administrative functions;
- Statement and realization of the social purposes of management;
- The analysis of social consequences of administrative decisions;
- Research and making system to consider interests and opinions of workers
- Purposeful influence on operated subsystems and connected with it issues of
- discipline, responsibility and sense of duty;
- Intragroup regulation and social self-organizing in groups and at the enterprise;
- Interrelation of management and a level of society development [1].
Сonsulting services market has not fully formed brands in consulting yet, but we have the development of individual counseling in sphere of management.
In order to study the degree of institutionalization of Kazakhstan`s consulting companies there were a comparative study sites between consulting companies. Management Consulting is a «kind of intellectual career, where a qualified consultant provides objective and independent advices to contribute to the successful management of client organizations» [2;75].
It should be noted a professionalism of consulting activity, because he is an independent and basic infrastructure of a market economy. Kazakhstan consulting is weakly institutionalized, because it is unoriginal institute; it is difficult to consider consulting in Kazakhstan as an independent consulting profession at this stage. There is a special term — «professionalism» to the purchasing process and the inclusion of human occupation in the professional environment in the sociology of professions. The objective conditions of professionalization — is primarily the level of social division of work and appropriating to him richness of forms qualifications. Profession defines specialized places of employers in the production system and also determined of deep functional specialization. Having the objective production basis, professionalization means rapid growth of specific personal orientations, «tying» each worker to a specific activity. Deepening the special training, a person develops his interest in this job and seeks to improve the meaningfulness of work. Therefore, professionalization, as a general phenomenon, is a real progress in the relationship to work. Meaning of professionalization for the individual employer can be presented not only as the development of the profession, but as a process of entering into a professional group, and as the development of specific features of such group.
Kazakhstan`s consulting services market has not fully formed brands in consulting yet, but we have the development of individual counseling in sphere of management. Professional group is a group of people that united by the same profession, similar in content. Professional group has characteristics of a social group, adding to them a community of professional characteristics of its members. The inclusion of human to occupational group means ending the cycle of professional development and assimilation of professional culture. A set of interrelated professional groups forms the professional structure of enterprises (institutions). Study of the professional structure cannot be fruitful without the analysis of professional moving, changing, a professional mobility.
An example of such a professional group can serve professional associations. In particular, in Europe there is the European Federation of Consultants for Economics and Management (Phaeacians), USA — American Association of Consultants for Economics and Management (ACME) and the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) [3; 81].
Kazakhstan has the Kazakhstan Association of Independent Consultants and Appraisers, incorporated in 2000, with its member 350 consultants.
A qualified consultant builds its activities on the principles, which are a set of characteristics, the basic rules and techniques of consulting activities that should be considered by advising organization.
The weak institutionalization consulting conditioned by negative point as a lack of such specialties as «management consultant» in the register of professions Kazakhstan universities. Management Consultant specialty among the CIS is only in Russia, that founded the Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation, the School of Management Consultants. School of Management Consultants was established in 1992. The school is the only permanent educational structure in the Russian Federation and the CIS, which produces Certified Management Consultants. Many links are between the school's graduates, consultants, teachers of business schools, universities: scientists, information sharing, distribution of literature, in the union of one-time or permanent advisory team, joint discussions, etc. The school is the center of the total Russian working network management consulting, with access to a number of CIS countries.
The availability of this educational structure in Russia is an indicator of the development and institutionalization of consulting as a profession.
Another very important indicator of management consulting in Kazakhstan is the lack of an ethical code of professional management consultants. Ethical codes of professional consultants exist in many Western countries, where describes the rights and duties of the consultant and the client, the responsible parties, confidentiality and competence of the consultant. Special position in the Codes is the question of payment of consulting services. The author of the Code is responsible for the implementation of the Code. In order to study the degree of institutionalization of Kazakhstan`s consulting companies there were a comparative study sites between consulting companies. Nine sites of companies, ranging Internet search engine on demand «management consulting in Kazakhstan» has been selected to achieve this goal:
- BISAM Central
- BRIF Research
- IGM Consulting
- Personnel agency TOP
- Asia Consulting.
- Consulting research company «Ksilon Astana CG».
- Consulting Company Almaty Consulting Group PRO.
- Market Consult
- Business Technologies
The purpose of the site of analysis Kazakh consulting companies is to identify the degree of institutionalization of management consulting in Kazakhstan. To achieve this goal sites were analyzed in the following five basic criteria:
- web-site design,
- the presence of certain thematic pages,
- presence of a search engine on the site,
- presence of a forum on the website,
- the presence slogan of the company on the
According to the analysis of Kazakhstan consulting companies` sites` design, it can be concluded that the main page of the site does not seem to be very original presentation of information. Some sites don`t have a name, title, consultancy and represent only a list of pages, some graphic images, and the latest news in the field of economics and management (usually the global financial crisis from different angles discussed on sites consultancies in the «News»). Among such sites, you can identify these companies` sites: Asia Consulting, Personnel agency TOP Consulting, Business Technologies Growth.
Figure 1. The Logo «BRIF Research Group» — consulting company
Consulting Company Almaty Consulting Group PRO differs of Special original website design. If we talk about general trends, it should be noted that almost all the analyzed sites use symbols of success — the image of a business person, skyscrapers, and people discuss any growth charts and more. We should also note that all the names of Kazakhstan consulting companies are written in English, which once again proves that consulting in Kazakhstan is borrowed Institute and creator of the emphasis is probably was placed on the fact that potential customers will associate their company with Kazakhstan`s consulting company with more than experienced — western company.
Figure 2. The Logo «BISAM Central Asia» — consulting company
Kazakhstan`s consulting companies` weak websites` design is a clear indicator of institutionalization this industry, because the site is a «billboard», where the company anyway positioned itself in the market.
The presence of certain thematic pages on Kazakhstan consulting companies` sites varies from site to site. We should pay special attention to the presence of the pages on the site as «library» or «publication» and «forum». The following companies do not have Page «publish» on the website: Personnel agency TOP Consulting, Asia Consulting, Consulting Company Almaty Consulting Group PRO, Business Technologies Growth. At all other study sites this page exists. The page «forum» should show whether the company carries feedback from their actual or potential consumers. This page is only one company`s website: BRIF Research Group. The company BISAM Central Asia has a page of «client area», where you have the opportunity to leave your suggestions or comments, but it doesn`t involve the idea of the forum, like a form question — answer.
Three companies haven`t search engine on their site: Market Consult Group, Personnel agency TOP Consulting, Consulting Company Almaty Consulting Group PRO. Searcher is an indicator of elaboration site, comfort of use. The presence of a search engine can also mean a presence of a large amount of unstructured information on the site.
Presence slogan of the company on the website also suggests elaboration of company's strategy in general, about how the company is positioning itself on the market, what takes over the basic principles in their work. Slogan is usually placed after the name of the company, his logo. Slogans can be found only at four sites among the studied sites of companies: Consulting Research Company «Ksilon Astana CG» — objective analysis and effective solutions...; Market Consult Group — «Real Data for Real Business — Real Data for Real Business»; BISAM Central Asia — «Reliable information. Professional studies». Company Business
Technologies Growth through slogan decodes translates from English the name — «Modern management technologies for your business development».
Elaboration of companies` sites is always a measure of institutionalization industry, not just consulting. During the analysis it was revealed that information of consulting companies on their site puts on a serious form of submission, that is a potential customer of the company, by visiting the website, must understand that the company is engaged in this activity in a professional and a long time, which is reflected in the ever published News review of the Kazakhstan market and various expert estimates. Therefore, the information is not supplied, accompanied by «pop-up pictures» and sound. However, the absence of the names on the site, no forum, and slogan may indicate immaturity of the sector of the economy.
References
- Erushkina L.V. Sociology of management, Nizhniy Novgorod: Feniks, 2010, 321
- Milner B.Z. Organization Theory, Moscow: Infra-M, 2001, 480
- The World of the Institute for Management consulting. [ER]. Access mode: http://www.icmci.org/ (published on 05.2014)