The paper examines the stated reasons for recent mergers between members of the (former) Big Eight accounting firms. The reasons are expressed in terms of hypotheses about the perceived advantages of very large size and the hypotheses are tested using 1986-9 data from the top 1000 Canadian...

This paper identifies two archetypes in large Canadian law firms to show how ideas of professionalism and partnership are changing, due in part to shifts in discourses in the wider institutional context. These changes in discourse themselves alter the interpretation of organizational structures...