[4] After graduating from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1914, Edwin G. Booz developed the business theory that companies would be more successful if they could call on someone outside their own organizations for expert, impartial advice.

Booz established a small consulting firm in Chicago, and two years later, he and two partners formed the Business Research and Development Company, which conducted studies and performed investigational work for commercial and trade organizations.

In 2011, however, when the three-year noncompete provision expired, Booz Allen Hamilton began building out its commercial consulting practice, focusing on technology integration and cybersecurity programs.

Through the acquisition, Management Engineers added 17 partners and 145 staff to Booz & Company, along with a market position in Germany, as well as China, the UK and the US.

[19] The firm operates on a modified version of the Cravath System, under which employees are promoted within a certain time frame or "counseled out".

The Katzenbach Center at Strategy& has generated a research on the importance of fostering companies' informal organization to improve corporate performance.

In a white paper entitled "Fast Track to Recovery"[27] and the book Leading Outside the Lines,[28] Booz partner Jon Katzenbach uses various case studies to illustrate the exchange between the formal and the informal elements of organizations.