The demand for strategy consultants to actively contribute to the improvement of cor porate performance has increased in recent years. This demand has brought a growing need to examine the appropriateness of different types of evaluation schemes. This article reports the results of an empirical study that examined how various measures of organiza tional effectiveness correlated with senior executives' perceptions of consultants' influ ence on strategy. The results support the validity of an evaluation scheme that emphasizes strategy consultants' contributions to increased organizational flexibility, or adaptability. These results also indicate that executives who hire strategy consultants for their con tributions to shorter range, profitability-oriented indicators of organizational effective ness are likely to be disappointed.
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