The Client and Performance

A theoretical study by Jang and Lee (1998) enumerates three fundamental parameters, which affect the success of the management of consultation: consultants’ capabilities; manner of consultation; and organizational characteristics of the client. According to Fleming (1989), key to a successful consultation process is the successful implementation of the outcomes of the consultation process, and the abilities of the client. Shapiro et al. (1993) assert that successful implementation of the assistance program depends on the level of cooperation between consultant and client. Rice (2002) found that entrepreneurs that evinced a greater willingness to cooperate were more influenced than others in the process of business support.
The client’s objective is the success of the consultation process and as derived from it, contributing to a higher level of performance. The quality of consultation management is the means to that end.

Program–Client Interaction and Performance

According to Rice (2002), an interaction between client and consultant is the result of the quantitative and qualitative contents contributed by each of the parties participating in the process of the assistance program. It is therefore to be asked whether an examination of those quantitative and qualitative contents is enough for the purpose of learning about the effectiveness of the assistance process?
An answer to this question may be found in psychological and sociological research centering on the interaction between consultant and client. Luborskt et al. (1997) found that a measurement of the intensity of interaction depends on an analysis of both the interaction and its outcomes. It is impossible to learn of the intensity of interaction by means of measuring only the contents provided to it by the participating parties (Smith and Glass, 1977; Garfield, 1988; Shapiro, Firth-Cozens and Stiles, 1989).
How does one measure an interaction? Sharpley at al. (2000) resorted to the level of rapport that the client experienced. The basis for choosing this estimation is a wide agreement in literature, where therapeutic alliance is of paramount importance in the client’s assessment of the consultation as successful.
Horvath and Greenberg (1989) disassembled the therapeutic alliance into three components: Bond is one of them - level of trust and emotional closeness experienced by both client and consultant.
As the subject under discussion is a relationship motivated by human parameters, there is considerable importance to the intensity of that relationship, derived from both affinity and friction between the participants in the assistance process, The greater the intensity of relationship, the better becomes the assessment of the quality and intensity of the interaction in process.

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