ABSTRACT

In recent years the professions have undergone radical transformation. With the advent of rapidly changing markets, more sophisticated and demanding clients, deregulation and increased competition, the generalist professional partnerships have given way to larger, more corporate forms of organization, comprising increasingly autonomous specialist business units.
This volume critically examines these changes through an examination of the archetypes which characterize accounting, health care and law practitioners. With examples drawn from Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA, Restructuring the Professional Organization will be of interest to all students of organization studies seeking to understand the issues and problems confronting the professions as they move to the new millennium.
Topics covered include:
* a review of the models of professional organization
*drivers of change in professional organizations
* internal dynamics of changes in these organizations
* new organizational forms and archetypes.

chapter |21 pages

Internationalization of professional services

Implications for accounting firms

chapter |19 pages

Institutional effects on organizational governance and conformity

The case of the Kaiser Permanente and the United States health care field

chapter |18 pages

Restructuring law firms

Reflexivity and emerging forms

chapter |29 pages

Professionals organizing professionals

Comparing the logic of United States and United Kingdom law practice

chapter |17 pages

‘All fur coat and no knickers'

Contemporary organizational change in United Kingdom hospitals

chapter |15 pages

Continuity and change in professional organizations

Evidence from British law firms

chapter |15 pages

The restructured professional organization

Corporates, cobwebs and cowboys