The uniqueness of professional service firms (PSFs) has been well established. Accounting, law, engineering, and management consulting firms are known to differ significantly from both traditional manufacturing and service organizations in their organizational and managerial arrangements. Their...

Performance measurements may stimulate employee initiatives to improve operational performance, especially when they themselves participate in the development of their own departmental performance measures. Using the theory of planned behavior, we examine why this occurs in a beverage...

This paper reports on a developmental approach to performance-measurement systems (PMS). In particular, we look at characteristics of a development process that result in the PMS being perceived by employees as enabling of their work, rather than as primarily a control device for use by senior...

This paper reports the internationalization efforts of Dutch accounting firms from 1972 onwards. The two largest and most prestigious Dutch accounting firms in 1972 first built their own network of foreign offices. Their primary motive for doing so was to follow their clients who were spreading...

Purpose – Headquarters managers of a medium‐sized manufacturing company initiated a culture change in five of their dispersed wholesale units. The aim was for more external service quality. This paper aims to report the results of a test of three hypotheses, shedding light on the behavior of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the service behaviours of highly committed consultants engaged in face‐to‐face service provision with customers in the financial‐services industry. Design/methodology/approach – In‐depth interviews are conducted with 41 financial...