62 research outputs found
Internationalization of professional service firms
This chapter examines the internationalization of Professional Service Firms (PSFs),
outlining its drivers, varying forms, and organizational implications. It argues that
conventional internationalization theory does not apply straightforwardly to PSFs. The
authors identify three key sources of PSF distinctiveness—governance, clients, and
knowledge—and show how these generate not only differences between PSFs and other
types of organizations but also heterogeneity amongst PSFs themselves. Based on this,
four different forms of PSF internationalization are identified—network, project, federal,
and transnational—and the authors note that scholarly interest has mostly focused on the
last two of these. The chapter highlights change towards the transnational model as an
underlying theme in PSF research. It finds little convincing evidence that this model has
been successfully implemented and it is argued that, in general, PSFs are better
understood as federal structures controlled by a few powerful offices than as
transnational enterprises
Offshore call centre work is breeding a new colonialism
No abstract available
Brexit’s ‘Global Britain’: UK needs a clear economic strategy for its trading future, not a dead colonial fantasy
No abstract available
Brexit’s ‘Global Britain’: UK needs a clear economic strategy for its trading future, not a dead colonial fantasy
No abstract available
In the shadow of empire: Global Britain and the UK business school
In this essay, I scrutinize the ‘Global Britain’ project championed by the UK government since the Brexit vote and reflect on the role played by business schools in it. My argument is twofold. First, I contend the project is bound up with British imperialism, being at once the expression of a melancholic attachment to the colonial Empire of yesteryear and part of a long-standing effort to renew Britain’s imperial greatness in the so-called ‘postcolonial’ era. Second, I maintain that business schools, while notionally anti-Brexit, are complicit in the Global Britain project by virtue of propagating elements of its imperialist discourse. I conclude with some reflections on our role as scholars and educators in fostering debate on this project and challenging its imperialist underbelly
Englishization and the politics of knowledge production in management studies
Concerns have been voiced in recent years about the widespread use of U.S.-dominated journal rankings in business schools. Such practice is seen to have the effect of spreading globally a U.S.-style scholarly monoculture and reconstituting other forms of scholarship as marginal and inferior. In this essay, we explore the ways in which the English language is implicated in these processes. Drawing on language-sensitive studies of academic work and our own experiences as nonnative speakers of English, we argue that the use of U.S.-dominated rankings is not just hierarchizing and homogenizing the global field of management but also contributing to its Englishization. This, we contend, furthers the homogenization of the field while also producing significant language-based inequalities and inducing demanding quasi-colonial forms of identity work by those being Englishized
The work of global professional service firms
In this chapter, we consider their work, both in terms of their activities and internal organization as ‘global’ firms and in terms of their impacts on economies and ultimately societies worldwide. In doing this, we follow on from those who have highlighted the work GPSFs do for capitalism and elites (Morgan, 2006) and for the institutions of the economy (Muzio et al., 2013; Boussebaa, 2015b forthcoming; Muzio et al., 2013), by drawing attention to the intimate connections between the firms’ mode of organizing, their activities in markets throughout the world, and the structures of the global economy. In particular, we highlight five research agendas which, we believe, relate to a pressing series of questions about the powe
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