Innovation in small construction knowledge‐intensive professional service firms: a case study of an architectural practice

2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (12) ◽  
pp. 1269-1282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu‐Ling Lu ◽  
Martin Sexton
Keyword(s):  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Construction Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Intensive

INNOVATION AWARDS: REWARD, RECOGNITION, AND RITUAL

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (05) ◽  
pp. 1740006 ◽  
Author(s):  
LISA CALLAGHER ◽  
PETER SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Service Firm ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Professional Service Firm ◽  
Pluralistic Contexts

This paper draws on a detailed case study of an innovation awards-giving scheme in a professional service firm to consider the role of discretionary awards in encouraging and displaying innovation capabilities. Because of their association with competition, it might seem that awards are likely tools in pluralistic contexts such as professional service firms where risk-taking and collaboration require deep relationships with clients and with professionals from different specialisations. We intend to show how managers and professionals mobilised around the scheme using the rewarding, recognising, and ritualising of innovation through awards, as a platform to initiate and promote other organisational processes that foster innovation capabilities.

Clients and cases: ambiguity and the division of labour in professional service firms

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 408-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Alvehus
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Work ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Way

Purpose By drawing on a detailed case study of the work of tax consultants, the purpose of this paper is to develop a more detailed understanding of the role of ambiguity in professional work, and its relationship to the division of labour in professional service firms (PSFs). Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a three-year, longitudinal interpretive case study comprising 42 interviews, supplemented by observations and document data. Findings The research determines that processes of “obfuscation” and “privatisation” separate client work from case work. This maintains a division of labour between junior and senior professionals, which in turn facilitates financial leverage. The findings indicate that a more nuanced view on the role and origins of ambiguity is needed; particularly the role ambiguity plays in the division of labour. While inherent in professional work, ambiguity is also an effect of the way work processes are organised in order to obtain leverage. Research limitations/implications The research is based on a case study. Therefore, the paper explores its topic in empirical detail, but at the same time calls for exploring the topic in different contexts. The paper encourages further research on the role ambiguity plays being constituted by structural arrangements, and on the way the core of professionalism is inverted by the division of labour. The paper highlights the value of detailed empirical approaches for understanding professional work. Practical implications The paper draws attention to the way ambiguity becomes a part in sustaining a division of labour among professional workers, and to the importance of this in maintaining financial leverage as well as in creating a precarious work situation for junior professionals. Social implications The paper raises concerns about the way professional work is legitimated in society as opposed to how it is constructed in PSFs. Originality/value The paper challenges prevalent notions of professional work as ambiguous, offering instead a way of engaging with professional work processes in detail, theoretically and methodologically. Traditional assumptions about the division of labour and the “core” of professional work are problematized, and traditional assumptions about ambiguity as a cause of specific structural arrangements are questioned.

Client-Related Factors and Collaboration Between Human Assets

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Mawdsley ◽  
Philipp Meyer-Doyle ◽  
Olivier Chatain
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Law Firms ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
The Individual

Collaborations between individuals in firms have important implications for the development of relational and human capital. In knowledge-intensive contexts where collaborations are formed to deliver services to clients, collaboration decisions can involve nontrivial tradeoffs between short-term and long-term benefits: individuals and firms must carefully manage the tradeoffs between leveraging existing relational and human capital for the reliable performance of repeat collaboration and creating new relational and human capital through new collaboration. Building from the premise that servicing clients is central to collaboration decisions in human asset–intensive firms, we examine how client-related factors shape collaboration decisions among lawyers (partners) in UK law firms providing M&A legal advisory services. We focus on three key client-related dimensions that we predict govern collaboration decisions: the depth of individual- and firm-level relationships with the focal client, key client attributes that reflect the client’s status and its use of different firms to undertake its outsourced work, and client-driven individual- and firm-level resource constraint. Our empirical findings support our proposition that client-related factors influence the pattern of collaborations between individuals in firms. We also reveal how client-related factors at the individual level can have opposite effects on collaboration decisions from those at the firm level. Overall, our findings contribute to research on relational capital, strategic human capital, team formation, professional service firms, and the microfoundations of strategy.

The Role of Social Media in Knowledge Management

2017 ◽  
pp. 230-248
Author(s):  
Syed Afzal Moshadi Shah ◽  
Shehla Amjad
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
The World ◽  
Knowledge Intensive

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the importance of social media and theoretically link it with Knowledge Management (KM). A massive increase in social media usage around the world and its enhanced role in everyday life of employees offer enormous opportunities to businesses. One of the most important challenges that management faces in today's dynamic business environment is knowledge management. This becomes the key concern in professional service firms that are knowledge intensive in nature. The chapter discusses the association between social media and knowledge management. A theoretical model (SECI-SM) proposed by Shah, Khan, and Amjad (2013) is presented and discussed which is an extension of the seminal work of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995). The model puts social media at the heart of knowledge management system and processes. It purports social media as an ideal vehicle for knowledge sharing and retaining. The chapter discusses the superiority of SECI-SM Model and lays out some useful suggestions for businesses.

Knowledge management and business strategy

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (9) ◽  
pp. 25-28
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Business Strategy ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Competitive Edge ◽  
The One

Purpose – To investigate attitudes towards knowledge management (KM) in creative professional service firms (PSFs) and explore the role of communities of practice as a way to leverage expertise within the firm. Design/methodology/approach – Presents a single-firm case study of a medium-sized architectural practice in New Zealand. Findings – There is an old country saying along the lines that “muck and money should be spread around if they are to do any good” – and the same could very well be said about knowledge. Knowledge is an essential tool for PSFs. In areas like architecture, software development or media, being able to bring together expert creative knowledge is what gives PSFs their competitive edge. Research limitations/implications – Suggests opportunities for further research to extend the generalizability of findings by extending the study to a greater number of creative PSFs in a range of countries. Practical implications – Proposes a framework linking KM strategies based on codification and personalization with the overall business strategy of the organization through the use of communities of practice (CoPs). Social implications – Highlights the importance of CoPs as a potential source of competitive advantage for creative PSFs whose success depends on shared expertise and leveraging the knowledge contained within the business. Originality/value – Demonstrates that personalization and codification strategies for KM can be combined, focusing on the one most appropriate to the overall business strategy and using the other in a supporting role.

Teamwork and Collaboration in Professional Service Firms

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Task Allocation ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Peer Collaboration ◽  
Project Teams ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Professional Mobility ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The nature of teamwork in professional service firms, as in many other knowledge-intensive environments, is evolving from highly structured project teams to more fluid, open-ended, peer-to-peer collaboration such as that between powerful, high-autonomy partners. This shift is especially challenging because senior-level collaboration requires peers from different practice groups or offices with different sub-cultures to negotiate task allocation, credit recognition, and decision-making norms, which can be difficult and politically charged. Increased partner-level collaboration is further complicated by other trends in the PSF arena such as expertise specialization, heightened professional mobility, and increased competition. Yet, this phenomenon remains largely under-researched and under-theorized. The chapter therefore lays out a research agenda focusing on opportunities to better understand peer collaboration in PSFs. In addition, the chapter identifies ways that recent changes in the professional sector challenge our understanding of traditional teamwork, and it identifies specific gaps that deserve scholarly attention.

scholarly journals Reputation and identity conflict in management consulting

2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
William S Harvey ◽  
Timothy Morris ◽  
Milena Müller Santos
Keyword(s):  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Identity Conflict ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Loosely Coupled ◽  
External Stakeholders ◽  
Organizational Features ◽  
Knowledge Claims

Based on a case study of a large consulting firm, this article makes two contributions to the literature on reputation and identity by examining how an organization responds when its identity is substantially misaligned with the experience and perceptions of external stakeholders that form the basis of reputational judgments. First, rather than triggering some form of identity adaptation, it outlines how other forms of identity can come into play to remediate this gap, buffering the organization’s identity from change. This shift to other individual identities is facilitated by a low organizational identity context even when the identity of the firm is coherent and strong. The second contribution concerns the conceptualization of consulting and other professional service firms. We explain how reputation and identity interact in the context of the distinctive organizational features of these firms. Notably, their loosely coupled structure and the central importance of expert knowledge claims enable individual consultants both to reinforce and supplement corporate reputation via individual identity work.

scholarly journals The tensions of defining and developing thought leadership within knowledge-intensive firms

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
William S. Harvey ◽  
Vince-Wayne Mitchell ◽  
Alessandra Almeida Jones ◽  
Eric Knight
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Senior Leaders ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Leadership Strategy ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Thought Leadership

Purpose A major part of knowledge management for knowledge-intensive firms such as professional service firms is the increasing focus on thought leadership. Despite being a well-known term, it is poorly defined and analysed in the academic and practitioner literature. The aim of this article is to answer three questions. First, what is thought leadership? Second, what tensions exist when seeking to create thought leadership in knowledge-based organisations? Third, what further research is needed about thought leadership? The authors call for cross-disciplinary and academic–practitioner approaches to understanding the field of thought leadership. Design/methodology/approach The authors review the academic and practitioner literature on thought leadership to provide a rich oversight of how it is defined and can be understood by separating inputs, creation processes and outcomes. The authors also draw on qualitative data from 12 in-depth interviews with senior leaders of professional service firms. Findings Through analysing and building on previous understandings of the concept, the authors redefine thought leadership as follows: “Knowledge from a trusted, eminent and authoritative source that is actionable and provides valuable solutions for stakeholders”. The authors find and explore nine tensions that developing thought leadership creates and propose a framework for understanding how to engage with thought leadership at the industry/macro, organisational/meso and individual/micro levels. The authors propose a research agenda based on testing propositions derived from new theories to explain thought leadership, including leadership, reducing risk, signalling quality and managing social networks, as well as examining the suggested ways to resolve different tensions. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, they are the first to separate out thought leadership from its inputs, creation processes and outcomes. The authors show new organisational paradoxes within thought leadership and show how they can play out at different levels of analysis when implementing a thought leadership strategy. This work on thought leadership is set in a relatively under-explored context for knowledge management researchers, namely, knowledge-intensive professional service firms.

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