Daniel Muzio

Organizational professionalism in globalizing law firms

Are the challenges of globalization, technology and competition exercising a dramatic impact on professional practice while, in the process, compromising traditional notions of professionalism, autonomy and discretion? This article engages with these debates and uses original, qualitative empirical data to highlight the vast areas of continuity that exist even in the largest globalizing law firms. While it is undoubted that growth in the size of firms and their globalization bring new challenges, these are resolved in ways that are sensitive to professional values and interests. In particular, a commitment to professional autonomy and discretion still characterizes the way in which these firms operate and organize themselves. This situation is explained in terms of the development of an organizational model of professionalism, whereby the large organization is increasingly emerging as a primary locus of professionalization and whereby professional priorities and objectives are increasingly supported by organizational logics, systems and initiatives.

Introduction: Professions and organizations - a conceptual framework

This collection seeks to reconnect two separate streams of work on professional organizations and professional occupations. In particular the articles collected here identify two key themes: (1) the challenges and opportunities that professional organizations pose for established and emerging professionalization projects and (2) the extent to which professional organizations create, institutionalize and manipulate new forms of professionalism and models of professionalization. To this effect, this collection brings together a number of articles from a broad range of disciplines (sociology, management, healthcare, accountancy, law and geography), theoretical backgrounds and national contexts which explore the complex connections between professional occupations and organizations. Ce recueil cherche à reconnecter les travaux sur les organisations professionnelles et ceux sur les professions dont les objectifs de recherche divergent de plus en plus. Les articles présentés ici regroupent en particulier deux thèmes: (1) Les défis et opportunités que les organisations professionnelles présentent pour les projets de professionnalisation établis ou bourgeonnants et (2) la mesure dans laquelle les organisations professionnelles créent, institutionnalisent et manipulent de nouvelles formes de professionnalisme et de nouveaux modèles de professionnalisation. Dans ce but, ce recueil rassemble des articles d’un large spectre de disciplines (sociologie, gestion, santé, comptabilité, droit et géographie), d’écoles théoriques et de contextes nationaux qui explorent les relations complexes entre les professions et les organisations professionnelles. Esta colección de artículos busca reconectar con el trabajo sobre organizaciones profesionales y ocupaciones profesionales, puesto que estas agendas de investigación se han visto cada vez más desconectadas. En particular, los artículos recopilados en la presente identifican dos temas clave: (1) los desafíos y las oportunidades que las organizaciones profesionales plantean a los proyectos de profesionalización emergentes y establecidos y (2) el punto hasta donde las organizaciones profesionales crean, institucionalizan y manipulan nuevas formas de profesionalismo y modelos de profesionalización. A este efecto, esta colección recopila una amplia gama de artículos de diferentes disciplinas (sociología, administración, atención sanitaria, contabilidad, leyes y geografía), marcos teoréticos y contextos nacionales que explora la compleja relación entre ocupaciones profesionales y organizaciones profesionales.

The paradoxical processes of feminization in the professions: the case of established, aspiring and semi-professions

The past three decades have been characterized by dramatic labour market developments including the mass entry of women to exclusively male domains. Professional work is particularly indicative of this trend where growth in female membership has fuelled optimistic predictions of shattered glass ceilings and gender equality. This article seeks to challenge these predictions and to explore the associated assumptions linked with the feminization of work in the UK. It does so by focusing on three professional groups: law, teaching and management which, despite some substantial differences, present a common and recurrent theme in the gendered processes of professional projects that marginalize, downgrade and exploit women and womens work. It is argued that the fluidity of such processes lead to a series of paradoxes as the professions are increasingly dependent on the contribution of their female members and yet numerical feminization, without truly including women, serves to undermine and even reverse professional projects.

Professions in a globalizing world: Towards a transnational sociology of the professions

Globalization has significant implications for the professions, with the societies and the regulators around them changing and the realities of professional work in large organizations taking on increasingly transnational dimensions. However, while there is no lack of empirical studies of the globalization of individual professions and firms, the implications of processes of globalization, reregulation and governmental rescaling for neo-Weberian sociologies of the professions has not received the same attention. This article seeks to rectify this gap in knowledge by developing a transnational neo-Weberian sociology of the professions that takes account of the rescaling of the world that the professions inhabit and the important new research questions generated about the multi-scalar influences on the forms of regulation, power and legitimacy that underlie professional projects.

Can't Live with 'Em; Can't Live without 'Em: Gendered Segmentation in the Legal Profession

Successful professions have historically relied on the establishment of effective closure regimes. The last 30 years or so have witnessed a gradual erosion of the legal professions external closure regime, which seems to be associated with the gradual feminization of the legal profession. Women now represent the majority of salaried solicitors; yet, despite some recent progress,they still represent a mere quarter of partners. In reference to these developments this article seeks to cultivate a typology of patterns of gendered segmentation in the legal profession. We argue that gendered segmentation, which thrives on the ideology of womens difference, has become a defence mechanism of an embattled profession, ensuring that the elite segments hold onto their status and associated rewards while the feminized segments increase leverage without rocking the partnership system, effectively forming a reserve army of legal labour with lesser terms and conditions.

Towards Corporate Professionalization: The Case of Project Management, Management Consultancy and Executive Search

This article explores patterns of professionalization in a number of ‘new’ knowledge-based occupations: management consultancy, project management and executive headhunters. Against a general assumption in the literature that such occupations are unwilling and/ or incapable to professionalize, this article suggests how a professionalization project has indeed been in play within these occupational domains. Perhaps most interestingly, these occupations are developing a new pattern of ‘corporate’ professionalization which departs in significant ways from established paths and which is more appropriate for the specific knowledge-bases, occupational characteristics and historical circumstances of these occupations. Using semi-structured interviews with key institutional protagonists, the analysis identifies some new features of corporate professionalization, which despite differences in occupational structure and history, are common to the three professions under review and which may be relevant to a broader range of knowledge-based occupations. These include: organizational membership, client engagement, competence-based closure and internationalization. The article then proceeds to compare and contrast these new professionalization strategies and tactics with the more traditional processes followed by the established professions. Corporate professionalization, it is then argued, may present the basis for a new pattern of collective mobility and for a new understanding of professionalism in the 21st century. Cet article explore les modèles de professionnalisation dans un certain nombre de ‘nouvelles’ professions basées sur le savoir: conseil en management, gestion de projet et chasseur de têtes. Contrairement à l’idée généralement répandue dans la documentation qui veut que ces métiers soient réticents et/ou incapables de se professionnaliser, cet article suggère comment un projet de professionnalisation est en fait en place pour ces métiers. Le point probablement le plus intéressant est que ces métiers ont développé un nouveau modèle de professionnalisation ‘d’entreprise’ qui se distingue de plusieurs façons des méthodes établies et qui est plus approprié aux connaissances spécifiques, aux caractéristiques et aux circonstances historiques de ces métiers. Via des entretiens en partie structurés avec des acteurs institutionnels clés, notre analyse identifie de nouveaux aspects de la professionnalisation d’entreprise qui, en dépit de différences au niveau de la structure et de l’histoire des métiers, sont communs aux trois professions examinées et qui peuvent s’appliquer à une fourchette plus grande de métiers basés sur le savoir. Il s’agit de l’appartenance à une organisation, de la gestion de relations clients, de la clôture en fonction des compétences et de l’internationalisation. Nous comparons ensuite ces nouvelles stratégies et tactiques de professionnalisation aux processus plus traditionnels suivis par les professions établies. Il est ensuite soutenu que la professionnalisation d’entreprise peut présenter la base d’un nouveau modèle de mobilité collective et d’une nouvelle compréhension du professionnalisme au 21ème siècle. Este artículo explora los patrones de profesionalización en varias ocupaciones nuevas que se basan en el conocimiento: consultoría de gestión, gestión de proyecto y agentes de empleo para puestos ejecutivos. Contra una suposición general de que tales ocupaciones no están dispuestas a profesionalizarse y/o no lo pueden hacer, este artículo indica cómo ciertamente se ha llevado a cabo un proyecto de profesionalización dentro de estos dominios ocupacionales. Quizás lo más interesante es que estas ocupaciones están desarrollando un nuevo patrón de profesionalización ‘corporativa’ que se distancia de manera significativa del trayecto establecido y que es más apropiado para las características ocupacionales, circunstancias históricas y bases de conocimiento específicas de estas ocupaciones. Mediante entrevistas semi estructuradas con los protagonistas institucionales clave, nuestro análisis identifica algunas nuevas características de la profesionalización corporativa que, a pesar de sus diferencias en historia y estructura ocupacional, tienen algo en común con las tres profesiones sujetas a revisión y que podrían ser aplicables a una gama más amplia de ocupaciones basadas en el conocimiento. Estas características incluyen: membresía organizacional, compromiso con el cliente, cierre en base a la competencia e internacionalización. Luego procedemos a correlacionar y comparar estas nuevas tácticas y estrategias de profesionalización con los procesos más tradicionales adoptados por las profesiones establecidas. Se puede entonces argumentar que la profesionalización corporativa puede presentar la base para un nuevo patrón de movilidad colectiva y para un nuevo entendimiento del profesionalismo en el siglo 21.

The Reconstructed Professional Firm: Explaining Change in English Legal Practices

The paper provides a structural analysis of change in the English and Welsh legal profession over the last 25 years, using concepts drawn from Weberian sociology of the professions and more recent theory connecting agency and structure. Through a consideration of data returned to the Law Society, and other data, this paper outlines changes in the internal division of labour in English law firms. It is argued that, in response to external threats, especially the growth in the numbers of qualified recruits, the elite of the profession has reworked professional closure. From controlling access to training places (i.e. labour market closure), legal firms have shifted towards controlling conditions of work and promotion (identified as internal organizational closure). This has produced recognizable effects: it has sustained the remuneration and status of the professional elite of partners, but has also allowed the assimilation of large numbers of recruits to the profession, and the expansion in the size of legal firms, as well as supporting their continued profitability. However, the changes have also involved deterioration in the conditions of work and the promotion prospects of employed solicitors, and produced other effects considered in the paper. The argument is concluded with some critical comments on the work of the archetype theorists whose research into the organization of the professions is widely taken as authoritative. These authors suggest that the introduction of management is a defining characteristic of current reorganization of the legal profession among others, as is indicated by their notion of the managed professional business (MPB). It is suggested, instead, that engagement with management by the professional elite of legal firms in this study is at best rhetorical, and contemporary change in English law firms is better understood as the emergence of a reconstructed professional firm (RPF) based on a new professional closure regime.

Structure, agency and career strategies of white women and black and minority ethnic individuals in the legal profession

The legal profession in England and Wales is becoming more diverse. However, while white women and black and minority ethnic (BME) individuals now enter the profession in larger numbers, inequalities remain. This article explores the career strategies of 68 white women and BME legal professionals to understand more about their experiences in the profession. Archer’s work on structure and agency informs the analysis, as does Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998) ‘temporally embedded’ conceptualization of agency as having past, current and future elements. We identify six career strategies, which relate to different career points. They are assimilation, compromise, playing the game, reforming the system, location/relocation and withdrawal. We find that five of the six strategies tend to reproduce rather than transform opportunity structures in the legal profession. The overall picture is one of structural reproduction (rather than transformation) of traditional organizational structure and practice. The theoretical frame and empirical data analysis presented in this article accounts for the rarity of structural reform and goes some way towards explaining why, even in contexts populated by highly skilled, knowledgeable agents and where organizations appear committed to equal opportunities, old opportunity structures and inequalities often endure.

The Global Professional Service Firm: ‘One Firm’ Models versus (Italian) Distant Institutionalized Practices:

Through a historical case study of the internationalization of large English law firms into Italy, this paper uses Scott’s (2005) three pillars approach to look at how local institutions constrain and mediate the strategies and practices of global professional services firms. In doing so, it corrects the economic bias in the growing body of literature on the internationalization of PSFs by stressing how local regulations, norms and cultural frameworks affect the reproduction of home country practices, such as the one firm model pursued by large English law firms, in host-country jurisdictions. The paper also extends existing work on institutional duality (Kostova, 1999, Kostova & Roth, 2002) by developing a fine-grained, micro-level analysis which emphasizes the connections between institutions and practices. This is crucial, we contend, since the difficulties encountered by PSFs (and multinationals more generally) in their internationalization do not result from collisions between home- and host-country institutional structures per se, but between the diverse practices generated by distant institutional environments.

Professions, organizations and the state: Applying the sociology of the professions to the case of management consultancy

In the recent literature on knowledge-based occupations it is frequently noted that some groups, such as management consultants, have been far less successful than others in developing a system of professional regulation and organization. This is generally attributed to the functional characteristics of their knowledge base, which is too elusive, fuzzy and perishable to sustain traditional professionalization projects. It is also suggested that these groups have little interest in becoming professions and have relied instead on alternative occupational strategies. In this article, drawing on a range of secondary sources, the authors highlight certain limitations of this account and offer an alternative. Focusing on the historical development of professional associations in the context of management consulting in the UK, the authors illustrate the role played by the state and large firms in undermining efforts to professionalize. A key contribution of the article is to highlight the need for a more inclusive approach to understanding why new knowledge-based occupations have failed to professionalize, one that gives more weight to the historical context and the role played by other key actors in shaping change.