Going global: professionals and the micro-foundations of institutional change

Abstract

This study links theories of relationality and institutional change to deepen understanding of professionals' role in globalization. In previous institutional research, it has been conventional to treat professionals as agents of firms or transnational organizations, and institutional change as the result of planned, strategic 'professional projects'. By bringing a relational analysis to bear on the problem of institutional change, this study reasserts the theoretical significance of individual agency and everyday interactions between professionals and their clients, peers, and organizational environment. It also broadens the model of agency to include invention and improvisation by individual professionals, as a counterpart to collective strategic action. The argument is based on data from a 16-nation study exploring the emergence of a particular 'globalized localism': the transformation of the asset-holding trust from a tool of medieval English landowners into a mainstay of contemporary international finance. Drawing on interviews with 61 wealth management professionals in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, this article uses their accounts of the diffusion and deployment of trusts to specify a new, more detailed model of the ways local practices and ideas develop into global institutions.K E Y W O R D S : professions, globalization, wealth management.

Professional service firms as agents of economic globalization: A political perspective

“…Indeed, Sikka and Hampton (2005: 327) note that US Senator Joseph Lieberman, following his investigation of tax evasion, stated that "ranks of lawyers, accountants, and financial consultants have abused the law and their own professional ethics simply for the sake of huge sums of money to be made helping their clients evade taxes". Harrington (2015) reaches similar conclusions in how work on wealth management firms.…”

Bad apples, bad barrels and bad cellars: a “boundaries” perspective on professional misconduct

“…These are not a new phenomenon (see for example Roberts, 1994) and have significant financial implications - Sikka and Hampton (2005: 327) estimate that in 2001 they cost the U.S. Government $311 billion in tax revenues. Importantly for our purpose, off-shore centres could not operate without the support of professionals, especially accountants and lawyers and those holding new forms of expertise, such as asset and wealth managers (see Harrington, 2015;Wójcik, 2013). As Palan et al (2010: 13) observe, it is no 16 coincidence that accountants from the Big Four are found in nearly all offshore financial centres and that their client base in these jurisdictions is almost exclusively comprised of corporations seeking to minimize their tax liabilities.…”

Turning vice into virtue: Institutional work and professional misconduct

“…The legality of this work is dependent upon the global web of tax havens, so practitioners typically create and manage a complex set of structures—such as trusts, corporations and foundations—to hold clients’ assets in multiple offshore jurisdictions. The clients themselves are usually residents and citizens of several countries, with assets spread across multiple states (Harrington, 2015; Beaverstock et al, 2004). To serve these clients, wealth managers must command professional skills in multiple domains; practitioners describe themselves as ‘part lawyer, part tax adviser, part accountant and part investment adviser all rolled into one’ (Parkinson, 2008: 20).…”