Money, honour and duty: Global professional service firms in comparative perspective

Spence, C, Zhu, J ORCID: 0000-0001-7891-0491, Endo, T and Matsubara, S (2017) Money, honour and duty: Global professional service firms in comparative perspective Accounting Organizations and Society, 62. pp. 82-97. ISSN 0361-3682

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Abstract

Research on professional service firms describes these organizations as having been increasingly colonized by commercial imperatives over the last 30 years. Extant studies contrast this now dominant ‘commercial logic’ – which privileges revenue generation - with a ‘professional logic’ – which privileges public service. There are two problems with this commercialization thesis. Firstly, it focuses almost exclusively on Western European and North American empirical contexts in order to draw conclusions about ostensibly ‘global’ firms, thereby universalizing a particular. Secondly, professionalism and commercialism are conceived of in essentialized fashion, with meanings ascribed to each a priori. In the present study, we seek to move beyond these problems by drawing on a comparative empirical study of partners in professional service firms in China and Japan. The results show that firms in each context demand quite different forms of capital and dispositions from firm members. This implies that literature on global professional service firms need to take cognizance of the extent to which certain ‘rules of the game’ are applicable beyond Western countries. Conceptually, the study both outlines a framework for understanding professional service firms in comparative perspective, and proffers a theorization of professionalism as a de-essentialized form of symbolic capital whose meaning is culturally contingent.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	35 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services, 3507 Strategy, Management and Organisational Behaviour
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	17 Sep 2020 15:05
Last Modified:	23 May 2026 04:40
DOI:	10.1016/j.aos.2017.09.001
Related Websites:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3101564
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