ABSTRACT
Professionals make decisions using principles of appropriate behavior, not just short-term expediency. Significant efforts have been made, and continue to be made, to "professionalize" consulting by promoting the use of the Certified Management Consultant qualification. Firms often develop their own cultures of what they think is "professionalism" and consciously or unconsciously socialize their employees into their specific definition of the term. An effective consultant who wishes to become "fully professional" must develop a long list of skills. Integrity is usually taken to be central to the idea of professionalism. Whether or not a consulting firm actually has the necessary standards of professionalism is proven by whether or not there are consequences for noncompliance. The tragedy of many consulting firms, and the source of their lack of professionalism, is that they have not put in place systems to enforce accountability for standards.
