Editor's Note: How Firms Are Organized

There is a popular theory that suggests one of the best indications of a healthy organization has little to do with revenue growth or productivity. Instead, it's the level of consistency with which an organization's values and best practices are articulated by its people. From the most senior partner to the lowest-grade systems analyst, the greater the consistency with which a firm's values are being verbally transmitted, the more likely the firm is enjoying some degree of success — or so the theory goes.
If true, certain consultancies may be facing some rocky days ahead, given the number of consultants who now become tongue-tied when asked about recent organizational changes inside their firms.
The mistake certain firms are making, according to Charles O'Reilly, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University, is that they are looking to enhance their firm's organization across only one or two dimensions. In an exclusive Consulting interview, Professor O'Reilly explains how consulting organizations are today aligned across multiple dimensions, and how any enhancements require an alignment across all of them. According to the professor, to get liftoff inside the e-business space, consulting firms need everything aligned: values, systems, practices, and structures.
It was the enormity of such a challenge that led us to envision this issue's cover story entitled, "How Firms Are Organized." Along the way, we learned that there exist significant organizational differences between traditional strategy consulting firms and the industry's newly minted e-strategists. By having created their organizations from the ground up, the e-strategists have for the moment escaped the burden of realigning their firms for e-business — a challenge McKinsey & Co., Andersen Consulting, and so many others now face.
The fruits of e-business consulting are far too satisfying to resist, however. And consultancies small and large are speedily retailoring their offerings like never before, as you'll discover in our profile on Arthur Andersen Business Consulting. There, Consulting associate editor Mina Landriscina reveals how AA management no longer speaks of Big Five consulting rivals, but instead views the hard-charging e-consultancies as its most ardent competitors.
Once you have your fill of organizational science, we invite you to whet your career-building appetite with our feature profiling seven of the industry's most influential IT consultants.
And, just in case you'd prefer some perspective from outside the consulting world, we invited a client to share his views — but not just any client. You won't want to miss our interview with former Price Waterhouse consultant Tony Scott, who today holds the globally revered title of Chief Technology Officer for General Motors.
As always, we invite you to let us know what you're thinking. Whether your ideas are theory or fact, whether they are organized or otherwise, whether you are a consultant or a consulting client — we want you to know that your thoughts are always very welcome.