A study on core business shift from diagnosis service to systems integration service in major business consulting firms in Japan

Many business consulting companies in Japan gradually shifted their core business from business management diagnosis service into systems integration service after 1990's when they suffered from the economic recessions in Japan. In this paper, the reasons of the shift in the major business consulting companies in Japan were discussed from academic point of view, employing the related theories such as key performance indicators in professional service firm, value network and institutional isomorphism. And then conceptual business shift mechanism was created by integrating the three theories, and it was examined by the interviews to the four consultants who had worked or worked for the business consulting companies in Japan.