Large transnational professional service firms (PSFs) are highly influential in today's global economy because they underpin the integrity of financial markets, enable complex international transactions, and deliver ideas and advice to the world's largest corporations and governments. They sell...

This paper develops a model of practice-driven institutional change; that is, change that originates in the everyday work of individuals, but results in a shift in field-level logic. In demonstrating how improvisations at work can generate institutional change, we attend to the earliest moments...

In this chapter, we discuss the nature of innovation in professional service firms. We argue that the distinctive characteristics of these firms affect their innovation drivers, sources, processes and outcomes. We suggest that, paradoxically, innovation in professional services is primarily...

In this chapter, we discuss the nature of innovation in professional service firms. We argue that the distinctive characteristics of these firms affect their innovation drivers, sources, processes and outcomes. We suggest that, paradoxically, innovation in professional services is primarily...

Accounts of the spread of management ideas emphasizing the role of ‘supply-side’ actors underplay the active role recipients play in translating them into new and different forms. Comparing firms undergoing a similar process and looking at how a specific event unfolded, this paper aims to...

This paper examines the proposition that the traditional archetype of the professional partnership is said to have changed into a more ‘business-like’ entity, the managed professional business. It broadens the restricted case sample base on which much of the evidence has been adduced, by...

The adoption of the incorporated form of ownership in preference to partnership is linked to the shift to a more modem organizational archetype in professional firms. Yet existing empirical research offers insufficient insight into the organizational processes of this transformation in different...