Sarah Hall

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.

Geographies of money and finance II Financialization and financial subjects

In this report, I examine the growing interest in financial subjects within economic geography and the wider social sciences. I begin by locating this literature within work on financialization and earlier geographical research on money and finance. I then review the contribution made by research into everyday and elite financial subjects to understandings of the geographies of money and finance. I argue that recent work examining the role of space and place in constituting financial subjectivities is particularly important in allowing geographers to engage with emerging academic and policy debates about the changing nature of financial subjectivities within neoliberal economies.

Geographies of money and finance I: Cultural economy, politics and place

In this report, I review the intersection between cultural economy and economic geography research on money and finance. To date, economic geographers have engaged most extensively with cultural economy work on the calculative practices that (re)produce the international financial system. However, I argue that there is scope for economic geography to broaden its engagement with this literature by developing understandings of the co-constitutive relationship between variegated geographical contexts and calculative practices. Such an approach is valuable because it responds to calls for cultural economy research to consider the political and normative dimensions of money and finance more fully.

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.

Financialised Elites and the Changing Nature of Finance Capitalism: Investment Bankers in London's Financial District

This paper uses the financial and economic downturn widely dated back to summer 2007 to develop understandings of financial elites in Londons international financial district. Drawing on empirical research conducted into fee earning investment bankers and social scientific research into elites and power relations, I focus on the different modalities of power associated with the changing nature of these ‘financialised elites’. I argue that in contrast to earlier generations of financiers, the power of contemporary investment bankers emerges through their role choreographing transnational networks of financial actors associated with securitised and structured products rather than being purely read off their social or education background. I suggest that these networked forms of power relation are significant because, on the one hand, they have prevented investment bankers distancing themselves from the ongoing turbulence and uncertainty within the international financial system. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the ability of investment bankers to (re)produce such networks indicates that suggestions of the demise of ‘financialised elites’ in the wake of the global credit crunch may be too hasty as previous financial crises demonstrate the considerable ability of ‘financialised elites’ to seize moments of conjunctural opportunity to reinvent themselves through new financial products and organisations.

Geographies of money and finance III: Financial circuits and the ‘real economy’

This report focuses on the intersection between finance and the ‘real economy’. I begin by examining how political economy approaches to money and the wider financialization literature reveal the entangled relationship between finance and broader economic practices. I then review how recent work in economic geography has used these approaches to develop understandings of the role of financial circuits in everyday economic life and the implications of this for the international financial system. This research is important because it problematizes popular and policy calls to rebalance the economic activity in favour of the ‘real economy’. I argue that this highlights the need to examine how financial circuits might be produced differently in order to develop a more sustainable financial system and associated economy.

Ecologies of business education and the geographies of knowledge

The identification in political and corporate circles of business education as a means of (re)producing highly skilled economic elites has been reflected by growing academic interest in the sector. However, this research predominately studies business education in isolation from other practices of learning. In response, I develop geographical perspectives on knowledge and learning to situate business education within broader landscapes of corporate knowledge circulation, production and learning. Positioning business education as a topic of geographical inquiry in this way is valuable since it fosters a more critical understanding of the role of business education within capitalist space economies.

‘Relational marketplaces’ and the rise of boutiques in London’s corporate finance industry

In this paper I examine the rise of corporate finance boutiques in Londons financial district from the early 2000s onwards. These small firms, typically employing no more than 25 people, specialise in a single corporate finance client sector (such as telecommunications or the media). It is argued that the growth of these boutiques is best understood with reference to the changing circumstances faced by Londons established investment banks. Boutiques grew both in number and in size whilst well-known investment banking brands suffered significant decreases in profit margins, and redundancies were made across the financial services sector more widely. Two related theoretical perspectives are deployed to understand the growth of corporate finance boutiques in London within a ‘relational marketplace’. First, the concept of a marketplace is developed by spatialising recent work in new economic sociology on markets. Second, a relational perspective is used to conceptualise the coconstitutive networks that exist between corporate finance boutiques and investment banks within this marketplace.

Commoditising Learning: Cultural Economy and the Growth of for-Profit Business Education Service Firms in London:

Individuals working in graduate labour markets are increasingly expected to enhance their employability and career progression by undertaking lifelong education and learning within the workplace. Research has examined how graduates navigate this dynamic educational landscape, but the changing nature of educational providers has been comparatively neglected. In response, in this paper we examine the growth of for-profit business education service firms that have grown to meet the increased demand for lifelong learning and education by focusing on the financial business education sector in London. We develop cultural economy approaches to market making in order to understand how these educational service firms have developed by ‘stabilising’ new educational services and products that compete with, and seek to ‘destabilise’, more established forms of business education, particularly MBA degrees. In so doing, we position educational service firms as an important, yet hitherto neglected set of business services within economic geography. Moreover, by focusing on a relatively mature for-profit educational sector, the research presented in the paper has important implications for the development of educational landscapes beyond the case of financial business education as they become increasingly beholden to the activities of for-profit education service firms and wider discourses of markets in educational services.

Editorial: Financialization, Space and Place

This themed section of Regional Studies contains three papers that, between them, address issues that are of pressing concern within the unfolding of the postfinancial crisis economy. The papers were initially produced for an interdisciplinary workshop that sought to explore the relationship between financialization, space and place and, in particular, the relationship between debates about financialization and geographical approaches to money and finance. This debate is now moving on apace (for example, CHRISTOPHERS, 2012; FRENCH et al., 2009, 2011; PIKE and POLLARD, 2010) and the papers here are a further development of these arguments. The crisis broke in late 2007 and it continues to evolve in new ways. At one level, the financial crisis was ‘solved’ at the moment that governments intervened to underwrite the losses of banks and other financial institutions, but in absorbing these losses and debts, and making their repayment the liability of present and future taxpayers over many generations, states converted a financial crisis into a sovereign debt crisis. The level of national debt born by many developed economies is such that it will cast a shadow over economic development for years to come, and it brings to the fore two issues which are directly addressed by papers in this collection. The first is the issue of tax. As WAINWRIGHT (2011) has argued, tax avoidance has been a central concern of the financial sector over a long period of time and helps explain the geography of financial centres, as money flows to spaces that enable it to escape the clutches of fiscal authorities (SHAXSON, 2012). However, sovereign debt crises are also fiscal crises, in that to pay down the debt states must ensure that their taxation strategies are as effective as possible, and which may involve increasing taxes or ensuring that taxes levied are recovered as fully as possible. But at this current conjuncture, the present needs of the state are hampered by earlier rounds of regulatory and financial restructuring that have facilitated the emergence of a large and complex network of financial technologies that are dedicated to lowering the tax burden corporations and individuals capable of hiring them. Both the papers by Beaverstock et al. and by Engelen and Glasmacher reveal how central tax avoidance has been to the competitive success of the financial centres of both London and Amsterdam over a long period time, and which continues to be important in the ways that such centres market themselves to hyper mobile flows of capital. The ability of financial centres to mobilize money and capital in the interest of its owners and to direct it away from fiscal authorities is illustrated by a report for the Tax Justice Network which estimated that at least US