Governance of professional service firms: a configurational approach

Professional service firms (PSFs) such as accounting firms, management consultancies, or advertising agencies use very different forms of governance ranging from traditional professional partnerships to public corporations. In spite of the extensive literature, little academic work has been done to synthesize the wealth of theoretical and empirical work on PSF governance into a more comprehensive theory of PSF governance. Taking configuration theory as our theoretical approach, we identify three classes of design parameter (legal form, organizational governance structure, and the systems for managing professionals) and six contingency factors (service commoditization, service diversification, firm size, capital intensity, firm culture, and risk of litigation) that are synthesized into four configurations of PSF governance. These are described, respectively, as the founder-dominated, the collegial, the managerial, and the entrepreneurial configuration

Transformation of Working Environments Through Digitalization : Exploration and Systematization of Complexity Drivers

Digitalization has a significant impact on our working life and it allows whole industries to rethink their value chains. This paper examines how digitalization relates to complexity in work systems with respect to relevant organizational fields of work organization. 23 semi-structured interviews with experts from science and economy were conducted and analyzed. Key findings are that digitalization has far-reaching, interrelated implications for all organizational fields. Moreover, digitalization-related aspects were identified which have the potential to increase complexity in work systems

Service Productivity and Complexity in Medical Rescue Services

The increasing impact of services on economic wealth and income in high wage countries calls for a detailed examination of service productivity and complexity in current research projects. This paper describes the development of a measurement model of service productivity and complexity within the domain of medical service provision. While the measurement model of service productivity is partly literature-based, a novel construct is developed for service complexity. The reliability and validity of these constructs have been analyzed by a survey with 454 employees of German medical rescue service providers. Reliability of the construct is estimated by analyzing Cronbach’s alpha, average variance extracted, variance inflation factors and the significance, weights and loadings of the items. Furthermore, the relationship between the partial productivities (capacity, internal and external) as well as complexity and service performance is analyzed by using the structural equation modeling approach with partial least square method (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that the developed constructs have sufficient reliability, although the examination of validity highlights difficulties in quantifying service productivity and complexity. While a significant and substantial effect of internal and external efficiency on service performance could be proved, complexity influences performance only marginally and positively while capacity efficiency has no effect at all. Thus, further research is needed in order to foster the measurement model and to investigate possible nonlinear relationships between the constructs in more detail

Gestaltung von Eu-Komplexität im Arbeitssystem durch die Einführung Künstlicher Intelligenz

Neben der Digitalisierung wird auch der Künstlichen Intelli-genz das Potenzial zugesprochen, Komplexität zu beherrschen. Basierend auf einer Literaturanalyse werden Einflüsse von KI auf die Komplexität im Arbeitssystem vorgestellt. Anschließend wird das Potenzial von KI für die Komplexitätsbeherrschung anhand von 3 Anwendungsfällen aus den Kom-petenzzentren der Arbeitsforschung ‚WIRKsam‘ und ‚Arbeitswelt.Plus‘ dis-kutiert und Maßnahmen zur Gestaltung komplexitätsgerechter Arbeits-systeme abgeleitet