Business, Management and Economics Research ISSN(e): 2412-1770, ISSN(p): 2413-855X Vol. 1, No. 8, pp: 107-118, 2015 URL: http://arpgweb.com/?ic=journal&journal=8&info=aims *Corresponding Author 107 Academic Research Publishing Group Consultants as Strategic Practitioners: An Analysis in the Sociological Field Research of Strategy-as-Practice Renato Lopes da Costa * ISCTE: Lisbon, Portugal Nelson Antonio ISCTE: Lisbon, Portugal Isabel Miguel ISLA: Santarém, Portugal 1. Introduction In fact, although the strategic management consulting activities have achieved considerable growth in terms of economic significance in recent years, these findings have not been properly accompanied by a greater number of conceptual and empirical researches, resulting in a shortage of insight about the effective work of the consultants (Fincham and Clark, 2002a). In Portugal, although some studies such as the ones of Ferreira and Peixoto (1992), Inácio and Weir (1993), Amorim (1999), Amorim and Kipping (1999), Silva (1997) and Freire (2008), have contributed in some way to the construction of scientific knowledge in this area, the truth is that none of them focuses on the study of practices and activities at the level of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Portugal. Internationally, although the progress and the heterogeneity of scientific studies carried out over the past decade in the area of strategic consulting for prestigious authors such as Sturdy (1997), Sturdy and Wright (2008), Sturdy (2009), Kaiser and Kampe (2005), McGivern (1983), McLarty and Robinson (1998), Fincham (1999), (Fincham and Clark, 2002a), (Fincham et al., 2008) (Karantinou and Hogg, 2001;2009), Werr and Linnarsson (2002), Werr and Styhre (2002), Jackall (1988), Clark (1995), Clark and Salaman (1996), Clark (2004), (Jarzabkowski, 2004;2005), Jarzabkowski et al. (2007), Jarzabkowski and Spee (2009), Jarzabkowski (2003), (Whittington, 2001;2002; Whittington et al., 2004; Whittington, 2006;2007) and Lundgren and Blom (2009) are synonymous of added value, the fact is retained is that also here the strategy workers hev not received much attention in the strategic field of research. Whittington (2007) gives us an example of this, by stressing out that until 2007 there were no articles published about consulting in one of the main strategy newspapers like the "Strategy Management Journal". A deeper and more recent research also shows there are no publications within the research field of strategy-as-practice and under the link of this area to the work of strategic consultants. On a more practical component, even though the recent move of the Strategy-as-Practice 1 (SAP) have implied some attention on the importance of consultants (Jarzabkowski et al., 2007; Jarzabkowski and Spee, 2009; 1 Movement created in 2007 by Whittington and Jarzabkowski through www.strategy_as_pratice.org internet site in order to understand the actions, interactions and multi-stakeholder negotiations to build a set of practical situations that result later in a particular activity, bringing to the center of the study actions and interactions in the field of strategic research and the research field of social complexity and causal ambiguity of the basic view of resource analysis, which comes to explain the practice that constitutes the strategic process Abstract: Although management consulting activities have obtained a considerable growth in terms of economic significance in recent years, these results have not been duly followed by a greater number of conceptual and empirical researches in this area. In order to fight the lack of studies on the actual work of management consultants, this article aims at answer to one question that remains open. Are consultants the real experts and the true practitioners of strategy as practice? The results of the empirical analysis in the form of semi- structured interviews and questionnaires given to management consultants and SME managers in Portugal shows that management consulting is founded on a knowledge-intensive base, although consultants cannot be called strategy practitioners as many authors call them. This is illustrated in the model presented in this article, which means this proposition is a new direction in strategic thinking in what the field's research strategy-as-practice concerns. Keywords: Management consulting; Strategy-as-practice; Knowledge.