The creation of the public corporation in the 19th century drove out the partnership as the predominant form of organizational governance. Yet, within the professional services sector, partnerships have survived and prospered. Moreover, professional services firms that chose to abandon the partnership form tended to become private rather than public corporations. Drawing upon several theories, we compare the efficiency of the partnership relative to corporate forms of governance in the context of the professional services sector. We argue that the professional partnership minimizes agency costs associated with both the private and public corporation. We also argue from tournament theory and property rights theory that partnerships have superior incentive systems for professionals in particular and knowledge workers more generally. However, drawing upon structural-contingency theory, we identify limiting conditions, which affect the relative efficiency of the partnership. We argue that the corporation, especially the private corporation, will be the preferred form of governance where the limiting conditions are prevalent. Nevertheless, we also argue that under specific conditions the partnership form of governance will persist and prosper because it remains unusually suited to the management of knowledge workers.

Previous studies of knowledge transfer have identified a variety of impediments that derive from the knowledge base and the organizational context. However such explanations do not take account of the central role that individuals play in the knowledge transfer process, specifically in articulating and legitimizing the knowledge base and in shaping and interpreting the organizational context. This article examines the merger process as experienced within six accounting and consulting firms. It finds that professionals resist knowledge transfer when they perceive that the merging firms differ fundamentally in terms of the quality of their external image and the form of their knowledge base. Whilst professionals may attribute their resistance to commercial and objective concerns, their responses are also governed by highly personal and subjective factors. This study identifies this complex combination of factors as the twin fears of exploitation and contamination.

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Purpose-This paper seeks to understand: how and why do experienced professionals, who perceive themselves as autonomous, comply with organizational pressures to overwork? Unlike previous studies of professionals and overwork, we focus on experienced professionals who have achieved relatively high status within their firms and the considerable economic rewards that go with it. Drawing on the little used Bourdieusian concept of illusio, which describes the phenomenon whereby individuals are "taken in and by the game" (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992), we help to explain the "autonomy paradox" in professional service firms. Design/methodology/approach-This research is based on 36 semi-structured interviews primarily with experienced male and female accounting professionals in France. Findings-We find that, in spite of their levels of experience, success, and seniority, these professionals describe themselves as feeling helpless and trapped, and experience bodily subjugation. We explain this in terms of individuals enhancing their social status, adopting the breadwinner role, and obtaining and retaining recognition. We suggest that this combination of factors cause professionals to be attracted to and captivated by the rewards that success within the accounting profession can confer. Originality/value-As well as providing fresh insights into the autonomy paradox we seek to make four contributions to Bourdieusian scholarship in the professional field. First, we highlight the strong bodily component of overwork. Second, we raise questions about previous work on cynical distancing in this context. Third, we emphasise the significance of the pursuit of symbolic as well as economic capital. Finally, we argue that, while actors' habitus may be in a state of "permanent mutation", that mutability is in itself a sign that individuals are subject to illusio.

This study presents an empirical analysis of the micro‐dynamics of institutional work. Examining the ‘corporatization’ of large international law firm partnerships, the study identifies the dyadic relationship that develops between two different types of professionals, the managing partner and management professional, and demonstrates how their relationship becomes a key mechanism for institutional work. The study shows how, by working together, these individuals take advantage of differences in their relative social positions: specifically their formal authority, specialist expertise, and social capital. The study identifies seven forms of institutional work in which they engage and demonstrates how these multiple forms simultaneously encompass the creation, maintenance, and disruption of the institution of partnership. The study argues that this simultaneous occurrence helps to account for the phenomenon of sedimentation, whereby the gradually emerging institutional logic of the corporatized partnership is being integrated into the traditional partnership form.