Drawing on an empirical study of four major international management consultancies, this article examines managerial efforts to construct 'global' organizations. We show how these efforts are undermined by interoffice conflicts over the staffing of client projects. We argue that such constraints cannot be adequately understood as an outcome of inappropriate organizational structures and incentives since this explanation ignores the important role of institutional contexts. In this vein, we outline and develop four different institutionalist lenses and apply them to the empirical findings. In so doing, we reveal the need to adopt a multi-dimensional institutionalist approach to the study of 'global' firms, one that can account for not only national effects but also transnational and neocolonial influences on these organizations.

What are the power/identity implications of the increasing Englishization of non-Anglophone workplaces around the world? We address this question using an analytical framework that combines a focus on micro/meso-level processes of identity regulation with attentiveness to the macro-level discourse of English as a global language. Drawing on reflexive fieldwork conducted at a major French university, we show how Englishization is bound-up with processes of normalization, surveillance and conformist identity work that serve to discipline local selves in line with the imperative of international competitiveness. Concomitantly, we also show that Englishization is not a totalizing form of identity regulation; it is contested, complained about and appropriated in the creative identity work of those subject to it. Yet, moving from the micro/meso-to the macro-level, we argue that organizational Englishization is, ultimately, 'remaking' locals as Anglophones through a quasi-voluntary process of imperialism in the context of a US-dominated era of 'globalization' and 'global English'. We discuss the theoretical implications of these insights and open some avenues for future research.

The spread and use of English as the lingua franca of international business -'corporate englishization' -has received increasing scholarly attention in recent years but the focus has mostly been on the communication benefits and challenges of using English as a shared language inside multinationals. In this paper, we examine how English is used externally in the provision of business services and apply a postcolonial perspective to frame our analysis. Drawing on fieldwork in India within the call center units of two outsourcing organizations serving Anglo-American firms, we show how corporate englishization (1) relies on, and contributes to producing, comprador managerial cadres; (2) serves to construct a transnational intra-linguistic hierarchy of power and privilege; and (3) undercuts its own effectiveness by simultaneously eliminating and maintaining the alterity of the 'Other' through processes of mimicry. We thus show how corporate englishization does not merely overcome or, conversely, worsen transnational communication problems; it also (re-)produces colonial-style power relations between the 'Anglosphere' and the 'Rest'. Our analysis deepens our understanding of corporate englishization and opens a new avenue for postcolonial research on the role of language in international business. Our analysis also advances the field of postcolonial organization studies and has implications for international business scholarship more generally.

A growing body of research has challenged the commonly accepted view that multinationals have evolved into globally integrated networks, demonstrating instead that such organizations are sites of conflict between competing rationalities emerging from distinctive national institutional contexts. However, this research has neglected professional service firms (PSFs) in spite of them often being held as exemplars of the integrated network model. This article redresses this imbalance by focusing, in particular, on how PSFs seek to coordinate the horizontal flow of their human resources as a mechanism of inter-unit knowledge sharing. Drawing upon interviews in four PSFs, I show that these organizations have developed resource management systems that cannot simply be reduced to national institutional contexts. However, I also demonstrate that the process of resource management is subject to inter-unit conflicts that undermine its raison d'être. I argue that these tensions are symptomatic of both the Anglo-American model of multinational management and cross-national differences in market conditions.

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In recent decades, numerous professional service firms have gone 'global' in search new markets and to support clients requiring services across nations. Whilst a lively debate has developed over the organizational implications of this phenomenon, the role of the firms in globalizing the wider world economy has received less attention. In this paper, we address this imbalance through an inter-disciplinary synthesis of the literature at the intersection of the professions and economic globalization and apply a political perspective to frame our analysis. Our contribution is twofold. First, we argue for a broadening of the research agenda to better elucidate the critical role of professional service firms as agents of economic globalization. This role, we argue, should become a core research theme given the firms are not just businesses offering services across the globe but also active participants in the globalization of the world economy. Second, we shed light on and conceptualize the specific power strategies deployed by the firms as part of their role as agents of globalization. We develop an integrative framework which, firstly, distinguishes between 'design' and 'implementation' and, secondly, specifies how the firms exert power to their advantage in each of these related areas. This model provides a theoretical scaffolding for understanding how professional service firms shape and indeed become hegemonic agents of economic globalization.

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss the context- and power-sensitive approach to the study of multinationals that has emerged in the last decade, argues for the need to supplement it by a clearer focus on the wider geopolitical context in which multinationals operate and outlines the implications for the development of IB research in this area. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a summary overview of context- and power-sensitive studies of multinationals before proposing a research agenda for the next decade. In particular, it argues for the need to combine the institutionalist angle taken by context/power analyses with post-colonial theory as a means of bringing geopolitics into the study of multinationals, a task that CPoIB is well positioned to accomplish. Findings – The paper identifies a lack of “criticality” in context/power research and, in particular, a lack of attention to the neo-imperial character of multinationals with specific regards to their management and organisation. Research limitations/implications – The implications of this paper are that the nature of contemporary multinationals is further illuminated, especially their role in (re-)producing (neo-)imperial relations in a supposedly post-colonial world. Further, the paper suggests an agenda for future research on the relationship between imperialism and multinationals. Originality/value – The value of the paper is in drawing together more closely the study of multinationals as organizational structures and political systems with the history of imperialism and contemporary post-colonial theorising.

Structured AbstractPurpose -This paper draws on insights from critical accounting research to ground the globalisation of professional service firms more firmly in the history and actuality of imperialism. In so doing, the paper also helps in forging a stronger connection between accounting scholarship and interdisciplinary professions-focused debates in the wider field of management and organisation studies (MOS).Design/methodology/approach -This is a desk based study of existing literature on the globalisation of professional service firms analysed through the lens of imperialism via an exploration of relevant research on the accounting profession.Findings -The analysis reveals rich insights into the workings and impact of imperialism that can usefully be drawn on to better inform our understanding of globalisation in the professional services sector and, in particular, to develop existing interdisciplinary debates on the relationship between the professions and institutions at the global level.Research limitations/implications -The implications of this paper are that the nature of professional services firms (and the professions more generally) is further illuminated, especially their role in (re)producing imperialism in a supposedly post-national and postcolonial world. Further, the paper opens new avenues for future research on the relationship between professional service firms, globalisation and contemporary imperialism.Originality/value -This is the first attempt to draw together critical accounting studies of globalisation with research on the globalisation of professional service firms in the generalist field of MOS. In so doing, it contributes to a cross-fertilization of the two fields and helps in making the former more central to ongoing debates in the latter. The paper also contributes to the emerging body of postcolonial theorising in MOS by shedding light on the role of professional service firms in (re)producing imperialism in the modern world economy.