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If you think about it, the application of our psychological understandings to a business environment makes a lot of sense. What we know can improve human relationships, productivity, satisfaction, communication, leadership and decision making, training, and a host of other concerns in the world of work. Some of that vast store of knowledge has migrated to the web and below I cite some of the online resources you might use to learn more about consulting to businesses.

Family-Owned Businesses

Family business consultation is an expanding area of opportunity for clinicians because there is great need, according to Florence Kaslow, PhD, herself a family therapist and family-owned business consultant. According to Galagan (1990) more than 90 percent of American businesses are family-controlled, accounting for approximately 40% of the gross national product.

http://www.fambiz.com/

Here is a nicely searchable collection of perhaps 300 articles on all the aspects of family businesses such as conflict resolution, succession planning, intergenerational issues, sibling rivalry, etc. Well worth exploring.

Austin Family Business Program at Oregon State University

http://www.familybusinessonline.org/

It contains information on a variety of topics, e.g., succession, leadership development, and human resources, financial and estate planning and family relationships. They offer workbooks and checklists for sale (under Business and then Resources & Tools) which may be useful to consultants.

Coaching Executives

It seems that every consultant now calls him or herself a coach because that term is more acceptable than psychologist and most coaches are not psychologists.

Coach University

http://www.coachu.com .

They offer a two year training program which can be completed from home at a cost of $3500.

Small Business and Entrepreneurship Resources: Human Resources

http://www.prenhall.com/scarbzim/html/links/links17.html

Ideal for familiarization because it offers perhaps a hundred sites and papers on just about any human resources business topic: telecommuting, sexual harassment, psychometrics, job interviews, work teams, flextime, etc.

Healthy Culture

http://www.healthyculture.com/

Materials here support individuals, groups and organizations in taking charge of their cultures. Site includes a small workbook for planning culture change projects at:

http://www.healthyculture.com/CCP.html

Small Businesses

About.com, Small Business Information

http://sbinformation.about.com/business/sbinformation/index.htm

About.com lists hundreds of reviewed sites concerning small business under about 40 headings. This site is good for a survey of the whole field.

EWeb

http://www.slu.edu/eweb/

This site from the School of Business at St. Louis University focuses on entrepreneurs with many kinds of information to support them. The site is almost to big and offers links to at least a hundred other sites.

www.sookoo.com

This could be the future of search engines; focussed on one area. In this case "business strategies." If you wish to consult about strategizing, you will find here just about all that is available on the net: interviews with thought leaders, journals and reference materials, who does the consulting now, innovation, simulations, information systems, graduate degree programs, etc.