The Formation Mechanisms Of Professionalization Features For Global Professional Service Firms

The 21 st century is the era of knowledge economy.In the context of the transfer from capital-based industries to knowledge-intensive industries,the growth of manufacturing is slowing down while the development of professional service industries is accelerating.Knowledge-based professional service industry — Global Professional Service Firms(GPSF)has the characteristics of knowledge customization,knowledge intensiveness and labor professionalism.GPSF provides customized strategies for different customers,mainly relying on the staffs with professional knowledge.As the globalization deepens,dependency and integration between services and production factors increase.Demands from customer market become more diverse and complicated at the same time,which highlights the role that GPSF plays in the development of global economics and fields of expertise.Professionalization is a key factor of GPSF that differs from other industries and an important topic focused by the academia.From the academic perspective,professionals and professional knowledge are the scholars' focus.Professionals have a monopoly on the use of their own knowledge,which allows proposing customized solutions flexibly based on different customers' regions and needs.Therefore,its most notable feature is its high degree of freedom and autonomy.Because of this,the traditional bureaucratic control method cannot be applied to GPSF.As one of the ways of management control,identity regulation enables employees to develop self-image and determine work directions based on management objectives,which has played a more important role in such a special industry like GPSF.At the same time,due to the needs on regional differences and flexibility for professional services,professionals are not restricted by nation factors and are more mobile.Professional knowledge is not the knowledge in the general sense since it has specificity and irreplaceability,and the management of such professional knowledge is also an important function of GPSF.Therefore,cross-border mobility of professionals,identity regulation and knowledge management are the key research topics of professionalization features.GPSF originated from Western Europe and North America,where markets have been mature for the professional services.The GPSF in China have a relatively short history and are still a nascent industry.The vigorous development of GPSF in China in recent years has created very urgent and practical needs for the academic community.Existing literature on GPSF in emerging markets is limited,mostly on a macro level without enough empirical data to support,instead of deep into enterprise.Therefore,the research topic of this dissertation is “how GPSF build Professionalization features in Chinese context under globalization”.This research was divided into three sub-projects focusing on transnational mobility,knowledge management and identity regulation.The relationships and interactions between them were also revealed.The first sub-project discussed how GPSF realized cross-border mobility in China based on mobility strategies from Andreotti et al.(2002).The forms,features,degrees of cross-border mobility,together with impacting factors and strategies of mobility were also investigated.The second sub-project was based on the knowledge management theory from Nonaka(1994),studying the methods and pathways of knowledge management among GPSF,the interaction between the ways and elements of knowledge transfer,and how knowledge transfer was impacted.Based on the studies in the previous two sub-projects,the third sub-project used “three dimensions” and duality of the system from Scott(2005)to further discuss how professional identities were built in GPSF on a micro level.In order to explore the research topics above,this research studied the surveys and interviews from the four major international accounting firms and used a multi-case study method based on Grounded Theory.The major conclusions are listed below.1.The mechanism construction of GPSF professionalization features.This article discussed the characteristics and strategies of transnational mobility,knowledge transfer and management,and identity regulation.This article focused on the GPSF professionalization features based on professional knowledge and professionals,presented the formation process of GPSF features,and answered the research question of this article.On this basis,further abstraction and refinement have formed the formation mechanism of GPSF professional characteristics.Under a professional culture,GPSF maintained its own professional features mainly through a professional legalized structure and a professional social structure.(1)The first feature of GPSF professionalization: transnational mobility.GPSF transnational mobility had the characteristics of continuity and legal validity,and the distance of spatial displacement was affected by the time span.At the right time and span,cross-border transfer can promote the professionals' career development.According to the strategy of Andreotti et al.(2012),GPSF professionals should be classified as "mobile" or "local".National heterogeneity,professional motivation,family stability and social networks were the disturbing factors of transnational mobility.Organizational goals and employee autonomy played a compensating role and achieved balance through interaction and flexible coordination.It presented a dynamic transformation track of "restriction-autonomy-elastic coordination-balance".(2)The second feature of GPSF professionalization: knowledge transfer and management.This research built an internal knowledge transfer process model based on SECI extension from three different levels including individual knowledge,codified knowledge transfer and team knowledge.The study found that GPSF subsidiaries actively carried out horizontal knowledge transfer through secondment work,training,learning,project interaction and strategic complementation.This also made up the gaps in the literature.At the same time,dual cultural elements,institutional elements,and geopolitical driven requirements have played a role in promoting and restricting GPSF knowledge transfer to various degrees.(3)The third feature of GPSF professionalization: identity regulation.In the regulatory dimension,the purpose of professional behavior restraint was to achieve organizational control goals through the standardization of employees' skills,so as to achieve a balanced state between professional autonomy and unified standards,maintain consistency with organizational goals,and build an identity of "system-controlled".In the normative dimension,GPSF embodied "regularity" through normative constraints such as organizational image and professionalism,and flexibly adjusted according to customer needs to reflect the characteristics of "chameleon" and gradually formed the localized "rootedness”,building an identity of "flexible and innovative".In the dimension of culture cognitive,cultural similarities made GPSF to reflect a "harmonious" emotional atmosphere and exhibit resistance under high-intensity work.Under the influence of traditional Chinese culture represented by the Confucianism,GPSF showed a “striving” commitment through social practice and built an identify of “united and ambitious”.2.GPSF professionalization and management control.Professionals usually had a relatively great autonomy,but an effective balance of management was achieved under the unified professional constraints because professional service firms used a management control that combined professional-style bureaucratic standardized control and decentralized group control.Professional-style bureaucratic standardized control was mostly a requirement for employees' standardized skills.Through professional training courses,their working skills were standardized and made into standards for future operations.However,standardization cannot be the only coordination mechanism or control method,because the work of professionals was innovative.In professional service firms,employees were highly specialized and group control was emphasized.Decentralized group control was mainly reflected in the leadership of team experts and controlled at a collective level.The potential theoretical contributions of this research include: firstly,GPSF professional features were summarized on the basis of studies on GPSF cross-border mobility,knowledge management and identity regulation in the Chinese context.A mechanism model was also developed to present the formation process of GPSF professional features.Secondly,the process of building professional identities on a micro level was deeply analyzed on three dimensions including regulation,standardization and cultural cognition.A GPSF identity regulation model was established.Thirdly,the study showed that professional service firms rely on a combination of bureaucratic standardized control and decentralized group control to achieve a balance between autonomy and standardization of the professionals.The features of GPSF management control were further explored,which enriched the management theory to a certain extent.Lastly,this research filled up the gap in the scope of research objectives.A neglected transnational industry type GPSF was studied in the Chinese context,which expanded the width of the empirical data and promoted the theoretical development in the field of professional services.