Organizational professionalism in globalizing law firms

Are the challenges of globalization, technology and competition exercising a dramatic impact on professional practice while, in the process, compromising traditional notions of professionalism, autonomy and discretion? This article engages with these debates and uses original, qualitative empirical data to highlight the vast areas of continuity that exist even in the largest globalizing law firms. While it is undoubted that growth in the size of firms and their globalization bring new challenges, these are resolved in ways that are sensitive to professional values and interests. In particular, a commitment to professional autonomy and discretion still characterizes the way in which these firms operate and organize themselves. This situation is explained in terms of the development of an organizational model of professionalism, whereby the large organization is increasingly emerging as a primary locus of professionalization and whereby professional priorities and objectives are increasingly supported by organizational logics, systems and initiatives.

[1]  Tim Morris,et al.  Organisation and expertise: An exploration of knowledge bases and the management of accounting , 1998 .

[2]  G. Hanlon.  Lawyers, the State and the Market: Professionalism Revisited , 1999 .

[3]  J. R. Wilcox,et al.  Understanding Organizational Culture , 1988 .

[4]  Paul DiMaggio.  The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor.Andrew Abbott , 1989 .

[5]  Paul D. Montagna.  Professionalization and Bureaucratization in Large Professional Organizations , 1968, American Journal of Sociology.

[6]  Pamela S. Tolbert,et al.  The Oxford handbook of work and organization , 2006 .

[7]  M. Reed,et al.  Expert Power and Control in Late Modernity: An Empirical Review and Theoretical Synthesis , 1996 .

[8]  S. Ackroyd.  Organization Contra Organizations: Professions and Organizational Change in the United Kingdom , 1996 .

[9]  A. Strauss,et al.  The Discovery of Grounded Theory , 1967 .

[10]  J. Flood.  Megalawyering in the Global Order: The Cultural, Social and Economic Transformation of Global Legal Practice , 1996 .

[11]  S. Ackroyd,et al.  Archetype Theory and the Changing Professional Organization: A Critique and Alternative , 2003 .

[12]  R. Greenwood,et al.  “P2-Form” Strategic Management: Corporate Practices in Professional Partnerships , 1990 .

[13]  E. Freidson.  Claims Examined. (Book Reviews: Profession of Medicine. A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge) , 1970 .

[14]  J. Faulconbridge,et al.  Reinserting the professional into the study of globalizing professional service firms: the case of law , 2007 .

[15]  A. Pinnington,et al.  Archetype Change in Professional Organizations: Survey Evidence from Large Law Firms , 2003 .

[16]  J P Bunker,et al.  Professionalism Reborn: Theory, Prophecy, and Policy , 1994 .

[17]  Eliot Freidson,et al.  Professional Dominance: The Social Structure of Medical Care , 1971 .

[18]  Royston Greenwood,et al.  Organizational Design Types, Tracks and the Dynamics of Strategic Change , 1988 .

[19]  R. Greenwood,et al.  Understanding Radical Organizational Change: Bringing Together the Old and the New Institutionalism , 1996 .

[20]  S. Ackroyd,et al.  On the Consequences of Defensive Professionalism: Recent Changes in the Legal Labour Process , 2005 .

[21]  M. Larson.  The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis , 1977 .

[22]  M. F.,et al.  Bibliography , 1985, Experimental Gerontology.

[23]  Jonathan V. Beaverstock,et al.  The Long Arm of the Law: London's Law Firms in a Globalising World Economy , 1999 .

[24]  Mark W. Dirsmith,et al.  The Calculated and the Avowed: Techniques of Discipline and Struggles over Identity in Big Six Public Accounting Firms , 1998 .

[25]  T. Johnson.  Professions and Power , 1972 .

[26]  W. Richard Scott,et al.  Reactions to Supervision in a Heteronomous Professional Organization , 1965 .

[27]  James Faulconbridge,et al.  Exploring the Role of Professional Associations in Collective Learning in London and New York's Advertising and Law Professional-Service-Firm Clusters , 2007 .

[28]  Eliot Freidson,et al.  Professionalism: The Third Logic , 2001 .

[29]  Sigrid Quack,et al.  Institutional Legacies and Firm Dynamics: The Growth and Internationalization of UK and German Law Firms , 2005 .

[30]  S. Ackroyd,et al.  The Reconstructed Professional Firm: Explaining Change in English Legal Practices , 2007 .

[31]  G. Hanlon.  Lawyers, the State and the Market , 1999 .

[32]  R. Greenwood,et al.  Understanding strategic change: The contribution of archetypes , 1993 .

[33]  R. Greenwood,et al.  Sedimentation and Transformation in Organizational Change: The Case of Canadian Law Firms , 1996 .

[34]  Henry Mintzberg,et al.  The Structuring of Organizations , 1979 .

[35]  G. Veigh,et al.  Professional Dominance: The Social Structure of Medical Care , 1971 .

[36]  A. Abbott.  The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor , 1988 .

[37]  Richard L. Abel.  The legal profession in England and Wales , 1988 .