Abstract
The rationale for this special issue was a feeling among the editors that, in studies of management consultancy, the client had been neglected or inadequately portrayed. Although, as we shall see, the extent of this neglect may have been overestimated, the size and quality of the response to our call for papers suggest that our view was shared by many others and that a wave of client-focused research is now underway. In this introductory essay, we begin to set out the nature of this neglect, speculating on why the client has not played a more significant role in research. Describing the ways in which the client has been conceived in the literature, we discuss how this portrayal has evolved, turning to the articles that make up the special issue and pointing to possible areas of further research in this area.