Careers CAR

Journal of Professions & Organization
Special Issue: 25 Years Since P2: Taking Stock and Charting the Future of the Professional Organization

 Deadline for full papers: 1 December 2015                           Submit via: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jpo

We take the 25^th anniversary of Greenwood, Hinings and Brown's (1990) seminal paper on the 'P²' archetype of the professional partnership as opportunity to take stock and chart the future of the professional organization.

Much has happened over the past 25 years to reshape the landscape of professional service firms (PSFs), professional organizations more broadly (von Nordenflycht, 2010), and their study. For instance, the liberalization of the legal market in the UK and elsewhere has led to outside ownership and "Alternative Business Structures". The "Big Four" accounting firms are showing a renewed interest in the provision of legal services and rekindling debates about multidisciplinary practices (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006). What do these trends mean for the governance, management, and professional ethics of PSFs? While the 'P^2' archetype was introduced to account for the "distinctive characteristics" of professional partnerships 25 years ago, to what extent are they still distinctive today? Do we need to shift focus to how PSFs may be different from each other (Malhotra & Morris, 2009) and, in fact, similar to other types of organizations? If so, what can different types of PSFs and other organizations learn from each other? More broadly, as PSFs diversify and internationalize, what are the dynamics between international, multi-disciplinary ambition and national, professional oversight (Smets, Morris, & Greenwood, 2012)? What kinds of institutional work do professionals, clients, firms, and others perform to shape professional landscapes in their interest? In the quest for profitability, the focus of innovation is increasingly shifting from service to process to business model innovation, going beyond outsourcing and value chain disintegration (Sako, 2013) to produce entirely new service delivery models. What new models of innovation, but also business models and organizational forms are emerging? Finally, how are individual professionals incentivized to accomplish all this? Specifically, how do PSFs accommodate the work-life preferences of millennials (Malhotra, Morris, & Smets, 2010). Will the 'up-or-out' system, a cornerstone of the professional partnership, disappear? And, if so, what would replace it?

To address these questions, we invite scholarly papers from a wide range of disciplines and academic perspectives, such as organization theory, sociology of the professions, business history, communication studies, evolutionary economics, political science, strategy, economic geography, and anthropology. We encourage submissions considering the following questions:

·      PSFs are far more central to business and business scholarship today than they were 25 years ago. Have we fully identified why, how and to what extent PSFs are distinctive, as well as the consequences of their distinctiveness?

·      As professional, commercial and sometimes public interests become increasingly blended, how relevant is the 'P²' model today? Is it still a dominant organizational form or is it in retreat? How has it persisted for so long?

·      What alternative approaches to governance, ownership, and leadership have emerged? Which models fit which circumstances? Are new dominant approaches emerging or are we facing an increasing diversity of PSF models?

·      Given the liberalization and internationalization of professional services, what are the relationships between PSFs and their institutional environments? Is professional self-regulation still a viable model? What are the alternatives?

·      What is the focus of innovation in PSFs these days - and how is it delivered?

·      How has the nature of clients changed? How do clients-their heterogeneity, their changing needs, their changing internal demographics, etc.-shape the leading, managing, and organizing of PSFs?

·      Finally, how are PSFs accommodating the shifting preferences and priorities of their professional workforce? What challenges and opportunities do "millennials" pose for the management of PSFs and how do firms respond?

We explicitly invite submissions that cover different levels of enquiry (individual, firm, field), as well as multi-level studies. Also, we welcome a broad range of methods across the full spectrum of qualitative and quantitative approaches.

References:

Brint, S. 1994. In an age of experts: The changing role of professionals in politics and public life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Gilson, R. J., & Mnookin, R. H. 1985. Sharing among the human capitalists: An economic inquiry into the corporate law firm and how partners split profits. Stanford Law Review, 37(2): 313-392.

Gilson, R. J., & Mnookin, R. H. 1989. Coming of age in a corporate law firm: The economics of associate career patterns. Stanford Law Review, 41(3): 567-595.

Greenwood, R., Hinings, C. R., & Brown, J. 1990. "P2-form" strategic management: Corporate practices in professional partnerships. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4): 725-756.

Greenwood, R., & Suddaby, R. 2006. Institutional entrepreneurship in mature fields: The big five accounting firms. Academy of Management Journal, 49(1): 27-48.

Malhotra, N., & Morris, T. 2009. Heterogeneity in professional service firms. Journal of Management Studies, 46(6): 895-922.

Malhotra, N., Morris, T., & Smets, M. 2010. New career models in uk professional service firms: From up-or-out to up-and-going-nowhere? The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(9): 1396-1413.

Muzio, D., Brock, D. M., & Suddaby, R. 2013. Professions and institutional change: Towards an institutionalist sociology of the professions. Journal of Management Studies, 50(5): 699-721.

Sako, M. 2013. Professionals between market and hierarchy: A comparative political economy perspective. Socio-Economic Review, 11(1): 185-212.

Smets, M., Morris, T., & Greenwood, R. 2012. From practice to field: A multilevel model of practice-driven institutional change. Academy of Management Journal, 55(4): 877-904.

von Nordenflycht, A. 2010. What is a professional service firm? Toward a theory and taxonomy of knowledge-intensive firms. Academy of Management Review, 35(1): 155-174.