James Faulconbridge

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.

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.

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.

Managing the Transnational Law Firm: A Relational Analysis of Professional Systems, Embedded Actors, and Time—Space-Sensitive Governance

Abstract This article argues that the relational approach can be particularly effective for addressing debates about the varieties of capitalism and the dynamics of institutional contexts. Using the case study of transnational law firms and data gathered through interviews with partners in London and New York, it makes two arguments. First, it suggests that the relational approach’s focus on the behavior of key agents when new or different work practices are encountered helps explain the management of institutional heterogeneity by transnational corporations (TNCs). Such an approach reveals the peculiarities of professionals and professional service managers and how they affect the response of globalizing law firms when home- and host-country business practices diverge. Second, the article shows how relational approaches can help disaggregate descriptions of national institutional systems to reveal the importance of studying their constitutive practices. Understanding these microlevel variations, which is missed by macrolevel categories like Anglo-American, is essential for explaining how firms cope with institutional heterogeneity. The author therefore argues that a better understanding of the effects of TNCs on national business systems can be facilitated by further developing the actor- and practice-focused analyses promoted by relational approaches.

Global Architects: Learning and Innovation Through Communities and Constellations of Practice

It is surprising that, despite widespread interest in the cultural industries, few questions have been asked about the geographies of learning and innovation in architecture. Particularly relevant to global architects are debates about the way stretched relational spaces and ‘global’ communities of practice connect individuals, firms, and regions into networks of learning that ‘perforate’ scales. This paper seeks to apply such debates to the case of global architects and to examine the spatiality of the practices that allow learning and lead to innovation in their work. It is shown that global architects participate in ‘local’ communities of practice that rely on face-to-face interaction, talk, and ‘buzz’. These ‘local’ communities are also part of ‘global’ constellations of practice constructed by forms of circulation: in particular, travel by architects and the circulation of texts and images in the media, which facilitate learning through human–nonhuman interactions. It is, therefore, suggested that in order to more effectively analyse the geographies of learning and innovation—in architecture but also other industries—focus needs to fall on (1) the geography of talk/buzz and communities of practice; but also (2) the geography of human–nonhuman interactions that form constellations of practice. Such a focus reveals that apparently local communities of practice are more often than not connected into global spaces of learning and innovation through constellations of practice produced by nonhumans.

Analysing the Changing Landscape of European Financial Centres: The Role of Financial Products and the Case of Amsterdam.

The turn of the twenty-first century saw the re-emergence of debates about the reconfiguration of European financial geographies and the role of stock exchange mergers in this process. There has been, however, no systematic attempt to date to analyse such changes. This paper proposes a specific conceptual framework to explore these issues. It uses a product-based analysis to examine, in the context of recent stock exchange mergers, the factors affecting the competitiveness of a financial centre. It argues that it is important to understand three intertwined influences - product complementarities, the nature of local epistemic communities, and regulation - and their contingent effects on change. This is exemplified by a tentative application of the framework to the case of Amsterdam in order to better understand its recent decline in competitiveness as a European financial centre.

Advanced Producer Service Firms as Strategic Networks, Global Cities as Strategic Places.

Abstract Sassen’s identification of global cities as “strategic places” is explored through world city network analysis. This involves searching out advanced producer service (APS) firms that constitute “strategic networks,” from whose activities strategic places can be defined. Twenty-five out of 175 APS firms are found to be strategic, and from their office networks, 45 cities out of 526 are designated as strategic places. A measure of “strategicness” of cities is devised, and individual findings from this are discussed by drawing on existing literature about how APS firms use specific cities. A key finding shows that New York and London have different levels of strategicness, and this is related to the former’s innovation prowess and the latter’s role in global consumption of services. Other cases of strategicness discussed in terms of the balance between production and consumption of APSs are Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai; Palo Alto; Mexico City; Johannesburg; and Dubai and Frankfurt.

New insights into the internationalization of producer services:Organizational strategies and spatial economies for global headhunting firms

This paper uses the exemplar of global headhunting firms to provide new insights into the intricacies of internationalization and related ‘spatial economies’ of producer services in the world economy. In particular, we unpack the complex relationships between the organizational rationale for, the selected mode of, and future benefits gained by internationalization, as headhunting firms seek and create new geographical markets. We achieve this through an analysis of headhunting firm-specific case study data that detail the evolving way such firms organize their differential strategic growth (organic, merger and acquisition, and alliances/network) and forms (wholly owned, networked, or hybrid). We also highlight how, as elite labour market intermediaries, headhunted are important, yet understudied, actors within the (re)production of a ‘softer’, ‘knowledgeable’ capitalism. Our argument, exemplified through detailed mapping of the changing geographies of headhunting firms between 1992 and 2005, demonstrates the need for complex and blurred typologies of internationalization and similarly complex internationalization theory.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TRAVEL: SOME EXPLORATIONS

Abstract. International business travel is now an omnipresent feature of working life for many millions of people around the globe. Whatever the organizational reason, it is now the likelihood that many individuals are engaged in undertaking work outside of the formal workplace in an irregular pattern which has become an almost ordinary aspect of their working‐life. Such is the magnitude of international business travel that it is now highly significant for bringing multi‐million dollar expenditure to countries and the global airline and hotel sectors, and supporting an international business travel management industry. Yet, surprisingly, little has been written on the agency of international business travel, beyond vignettes of the organizational requirement for physical proximity. In this introduction (and special issue) we consider what further academic analyses of business travel must do to extend knowledge and understanding of the growth and use of travel in the twenty‐first century. The article is in five parts. First, we consider the function of international business travel in firms as part of strategies to tie‐together spatially distributed subsidiaries. Second, we unpack the modes and spaces of business travel. Third, we discuss the impacts of business travel on both the traveller, but also the environment. Fourth, we introduce the major arguments and contributions of the four articles in this special issue. Finally, we identify future research agendas that should develop existing theory and understanding of the compulsion for international business travel.

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.