knowledge creation within professional service firms ...

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KNOWLEDGE CREATION WITHIN PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS: THE INFLUENCE OF THE INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT

Maxine Robertson Harry Scarbrough & Jacky Swan Warwick Business School University of Warwick Coventry CV4 7AL, UK Tel: +44 2476 522457 Email: [email protected]

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KNOWLEDGE CREATION WITHIN PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS: THE INFLUENCE OF THE INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT1 Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of institutional influences upon knowledge creation within professional service firms whose main business is the provision of consultancy services. Such firms, we argue, provide an important setting for examining such influences because their survival depends on their ability to mobilize and synthesize professional bodies of knowledge. They, therefore, directly confront the constraints that institutionalized professions pose for processes of knowledge creation. By exploring the influence of the institutional context, the paper extends earlier work on professional service and knowledge-intensive firms which has tended to adopt an organizational-level focus on knowledge creation. In such work, knowledge creation has been viewed in broad, taxonomic terms (for example, contrasting tacit and explicit forms of knowledge), which has tended to neglect the heterogeneous nature of knowledge and its embeddedness in different institutional contexts.

A comparative analysis of two firms located in different institutional contexts (science and the law) seeks to establish some of the major mechanisms through which professional institutions influenced knowledge creation. Specifically, our study focuses on three major arenas in which institutional influences were seen to operate; the relative work autonomy of professional groups; the means of knowledge legitimation; and the social identity formation of professional 1

The authors wish to thank Bob Hinings and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper


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practitioner. The analysis highlights institutional influences operating in these different arenas in both of our cases. However, significant differences in knowledge creating practices were also observed including different emphases on experimentation versus interpretation, different forms of personal networking, and significant differences in the relative importance of codifying knowledge in documentary form. These differences are explained by focusing on the different institutional means of legitimating knowledge across scientific and legal contexts.

In observing such institutional influences on work practices, however, our study does not negate the role and influence of management. Specifically, in the arena of social identity, managers in these case firms sought to accommodate professional norms within firm-specific arrangements, which shaped and mobilized a shared social identity for corporate ends. Managerial effort thus focused on developing a collective social identity based on elitism, as a means of leveraging individual creativity as an organizational resource.

Keywords : Knowledge creation, consultancy, professional service firms, social identity

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Introduction

The primary aim of this paper is to explore the influence of institutional context on the processes through which knowledge is created in professional service firms. Previous studies have identified the influence of the organizational context (Hansen et al, 1999; Blackler, 1995) and the client-consultant relationship (Sturdy, 1997; Sarvary, 1999) upon processes of knowledge creation, but relatively few have addressed the role of the wider institutional context in both stimulating and shaping this process. By addressing such institutional influences, this paper seeks to contribute to the existing literature in two main ways. Firstly, addressing the embeddedness of knowledge in different institutional contexts develops a more heterogeneous account of the process of knowledge creation. Existing studies of ‘knowledge-intensive firms’ and consultancies have tended to homogenize knowledge or have had recourse to broad taxonomic categories which frequently counterpose tacit and explicit forms of knowledge (cf. Nonaka, 1993; Hansen et al.,1999) In contrast, highlighting the influence of different institutional contexts helps to explain the heterogeneity of processes of knowledge creation (relative reliance on documentation, patterns of social interaction, and forms of knowledge-based outputs) even across ostensibly similar organizational settings. Secondly, through our comparative analysis of firms operating in scientific and legal contexts, respectively, we seek to establish the major arenas in which institutional factors influence knowledge creation. Here our account focuses on three major arenas in which such influences are likely to operate; the relative work autonomy of professional groups; the means of knowledge legitimation; and the social identity formation of professional practitioners.


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Professional service firms are an important setting for research in this field since their ability to compete successfully depends heavily on their ability to mobilize and synthesize professionalized bodies of expertise in order to create knowledge that satisfies client demands. Such firms directly confront the demands and constraints that institutional structures of the professions pose for processes of knowledge creation – constraints which have been highlighted by previous studies of the impact of professional norms and controls on innovation within firms (Drazin, 1990; Raelin, 1991). The nature of those demands and constraints, and their influence at firm-level, is explored in the paper through the findings from detailed longitudinal case studies conducted in two UK based professional service firms between 1996 and 1998. We focus here, in particular, on professional service firms that offer consultancy services to clients in the form of new products and processes. These professional service consultancy firms were selected for comparison for two reasons ; first, both firms offered a highly bespoke service to clients, the centerpiece of which was the ability to create and apply knowledge to new contexts on a continual basis; second, the institutional context for the knowledge creation process was significantly different in each case.

LegalCo primarily employed lawyers and specialized in the provision of strategic consultancy services to law firms. In contrast, ScienceCo employed scientists from a range of natural science disciplines to develop technological and scientific products and processes for clients primarily in the engineering, communications and biotechnology sectors. By comparing firms in distinctly different institutional (professional) contexts, our account provides insights into the differential effects of institutional contexts on knowledge creation processes. This analysis is facilitated by the relatively bounded nature of the knowledge base for each firm - both these consultancy firms

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served a narrowly defined client base and operated within a strongly professionalized institutional context – and both were almost entirely dependent on the expertise of their professional staff.

The paper is structured as follows: The next section begins with a brief outline of the literature that establishes a relationship between consultancy work and knowledge creation. This is followed by a review of competing perspectives on the influence of institutionalized professional contexts on work arrangements and working relationships in professional service firms offering consultancy services. This review highlights the major arenas in which institutional influences are likely to operate in respect of the knowledge creation process. Such influences, and their implications for knowledge creation, are then explored in detail through the comparative analysis of the LegalCo and ScienceCo case-studies. The final section then seeks to develop the theoretical implications of this analysis and its relevance to future research.

Consultancy work and knowledge creation

Consultancy work is viewed by some authors as involving the intensive creation and application of knowledge (Alvesson, 1995; Savary, 1999). Thus, consultancies are frequently classified as ‘knowledge-intensive’ firms, the latter being defined as ‘companies where most work can be said to be of an intellectual nature and where well-educated, qualified employees form the major part of the workforce’ (Alvesson, 2000: 1101). Despite the importance attached to knowledge as a defining characteristic of such settings, however, the available literature tends to adopt an organization-level focus which tends to neglect the heterogeneity of knowledge and processes of


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knowledge creation. Thus, studies define ‘professional knowledge’ as consisting of a predominantly technical-professional base codified in general principles (Torstendahl, 1992). Where the dynamics of knowledge are investigated more closely, this often involves the application of broad taxonomies rather than attention to the institutional specificity of particular forms of knowledge. Thus, Hansen et al. (1999) argue that consultancy firms employ two major strategies for managing knowledge, which they term ‘codification’ and ‘personalization’. These strategies are said to reflect a reliance upon explicit and tacit knowledge respectively. Similarly, Nonaka’s (1994) well-cited framework identifies four different modes of knowledge creation (socialization, externalization, internalization, combination) which are also premised on the interaction between tacit and explicit forms of knowledge.

Such accounts can be criticized for overstating the distinction between tacit and explicit dimensions of knowledge (Tsoukas, 1996), and for placing the emphasis on individual cognition without reference to the wider institutional context. Although Nonaka’s analysis, for example, discusses the role of socialization in the process of knowledge creation, social relations are presented as enabling conditions for creative action rather than as pervasive influences upon such action. Addressing the role of professional institutions in shaping expertise thus involves expanding the focus of analysis beyond the immediate confines of the knowledge creation process itself or the consultant-client relationship that it serves. It involves addressing the role of professional institutions in regulating the provision, creation and application of knowledge. That role has been subject to a variety of interpretations and is the subject of an extensive literature (Abbott, 1988; Whitley, 1988; Crompton, 1992). Suffice it to say, here, however, that professional institutions frequently transcend geographic and organizational boundaries and are

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therefore an important constituent of the institutional context for business firms in general (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Freidson (1994), for example, defines a profession as ‘an occupation that controls its own work, organized by a special set of institutions sustained in part by a particular ideology of expertise and service' (:10). Our subsequent analysis explores the ways in which such a professional context influenced the consultancy work in our case firms, in particular focusing on those aspects that seem particularly crucial to processes of knowledge creation.

The influence of the professional context on work practices and knowledge creation

In determining those features of the professional context which were seen as most likely to be observable in workplace settings, we analyzed existing literature on professional service and knowledge intensive firms, in tandem with the literature on the professions. This analysis suggested three features of the institutionalized professional context as being most relevant to the study of knowledge creation. The first of these features is the interplay between the jurisdictions (Abbott, 1988), standards and norms associated with particular professional contexts. This interplay is both a technical means of professionalism – standardizing expertis e and differentiating it from other commodities - and a social means of professionalization (Baer, 1986). Importantly, in relation to work practices, the definition of the profession’s jurisdiction and its maintenance through standards and norms secures the profession’s control of particular work activities. Relating this feature of the professional context to organizational settings, the important arena for institutional influence here is the degree of work autonomy available to


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professionals ; such autonomy being frequently identified as a correlate of professionalism in the workplace (Bailyn, 1988; Raelin, 1991; Starbuck, 1992).

A second feature of the institutional context is the epistemological base of the profession. Epistemological bases have critical implications for knowledge creating activities (Halliday, 1983; 1985, Macdonald, 1995, Knorr-Cetina, 1999). Thus, Halliday (1985) distinguishes between the scientific professions (engineering and medicine) that rely primarily on judgements of fact, normative professions (the clergy and the law) that rely primarily on judgements of value, and syncretic professions (the military and academia) that rely on an amalgam of scientific and normative foundations. In relation to our empirical study, we can see that this important distinction is grounded in the methods through which knowledge is created within different professional contexts and subsequently legitimated at the institutional level. Thus, in producing judgements of fact, the scientific method relies on experimentation, replication and induction. In contrast, in arriving at judgements of value, legal methods are characterized by deduction from previous cases and precedents and re-interpretation of existing judgements.

These different epistemological bases of the scientific and legal professions suggest very different ways of linking knowledge creation to the wider knowledge claims of the profession. In scientific professions, claims to knowledge are legitimized by the application of the scientific method (principally experimental) to natural and biological phenomena. Once established and replicated through the scientific method and validated by the scientific community such knowledge claims transcend particular contexts (Collins, 1985). In contrast, ‘lawyers point to the law finding of judges and the law making of legislatures’ (Halliday, 1985: 426). Thus the

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knowledge claims of the legal profession extend only to particular jurisdictions and particular points in time.

It is also important to recognize that as well as the broad epistemological differences that arise between professions, such differences are also found amongst different specialisms within a broad professional grouping. Thus across different professions such as the law and science and across different scientific professions, distinctive ‘epistemic cultures’ can be found. (KnorrCetina, 1999). Epistemic cultures being “those amalgams of arrangements and mechanisms ….which, in a given field, make up how we know what we know (:1 italics authors own). Such cultures are characterized by different social, discursive and material practices, including different levels of interaction with natural objects, different sign systems, and so on. By focusing on different epistemic cultures we might therefore begin to highlight “the complex texture of knowledge as practiced” (:2) and thus acknowledge the heterogeneity of knowledge creating activity.

The implications of knowledge claims at workplace level have received less attention than other elements of professionalism. However, as Abbott (1988) notes, workplace settings create specific pressures on such claims. These include the pressures posed by interactions with other professional groups, and the emergence of distinctive specialisms and sub-specialisms. Thus, in reviewing the wider influence of the professions, we also need to be sensitive to the emergence of, what may be quite distinctive epistemic cultures at workplace level.


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A third feature of the professional context is the formation of social identity. Again, the arena of social identity is already highlighted in existing literature on knowledge-intensive firms as a critical ingredient in their smooth functioning and overall performance (Alvesson, 1995; 2000). At the same time however, the influence of the professions on the identities of their members is also highlighted in the literature. Schein, for example, defines professional identity as the relatively stable and enduring constellation of attributes, beliefs, values, motives, and experiences in terms of which people define themselves in a professional role (Schein, 1978). Professional groups are said to ‘act as the means whereby communities represent themselves to others in the field’ (Greenwood et al., 2002: 62). This is not to say, however, that professional identity is either monolithic or unchanging. Rather, in an organizational context, professional identity is seen to evolve interactively with role change (Ashforth and Saks, 1995).

These major features of the institutional context were identified from our analysis of the literature as being the most likely to influence processes of knowledge creation. Zilber (2002) emphasizes that institutionalization is the interplay between actors, actions (practices and structures) and meaning. In the cases and analysis that follows we seek to focus on these three facets specifically in relation to knowledge creation. In seeking to establish the extent of such influence in practice, we focussed on those correlates of the institutional context which could be studied within particular work settings. This involved, firstly, a concern with the degree of work autonomy enjoyed by the consultants in our case firms. This is related, as described above, to the influence of professional jurisdictions and norms. Second ly, our study focused on the ways in which the knowledge creation practices of consultants in the two firms reflected the wider knowledge claims of their respective professions. Such practices would be expected to reflect, to

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a large extent, the ir different epistemic cultures. Thirdly, we were concerned to explore the formation of social identity. In particular, this included the extent to which professional and organizational influences were apparent in the self-categorizations and norms of behaviour expressed within knowledge creating activities.

Given the aims of the study, the research questions were designed to explore interrelationships rather than test propositions. Specifically, by selecting institutional contexts with very different epistemological bases we sought to create a comparative dimension in the study, which was relevant to our concern with knowledge creation and would serve to contextualise the nature of professional work. This would allow us to identify, at a broad comparative level, the interrelationships between institutional contexts and patterns of knowledge creation at an organizational level .

The research, therefore, aimed to address the following three questions: 1. Is there an observable relationship between the institutional context and the ways in which knowledge is created in professional service firms? 2. How do the work practices in distinctly different professional service firms reflect the features of their institutional context, and hence how does this shape the process of knowledge creation and legitimation in each setting? 3. What role does social identity perform in processes of knowledge creation in professional service firms?


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Methodology

This research adopted an exploratory, qualitative and longitudinal case study approach extending over three years. The major strengths of case study research design are the flexibility and provision of opportunities for triangulation afforded by multiple data collection methods (Yin, 1984). Case studies generate insight and understanding of organizational complexity and allow for the development of a more holistic perspective on organizational phenomena (Mitchell, 1983). The limits of qualitative research involving a small set of cases are well documented and clearly it would not be possible to generalize from these findings. However, given the lack of literature contextualising work activities in different professional service firm settings, an indepth longitudinal method affords the opportunity to begin to develop insight regarding complex organizational processes and provides directions for future research.

The firms were selected on the basis of their ability to demonstrate that their competitive strategy was grounded in offering a highly customized service to clients that relied upon a distinctive, well-developed professional knowledge base. Thus firms were chosen on the basis of their longevity (age), sustained performance (increasing resources, growth and profitability), client base (global but niche markets) and labour force characteristics (professional). As considerable access was sought, negotiations took place with the leaders of each firm in order to establish the boundaries of the research and access to primary and secondary data sources.

The qualitative study of work practices within each of the firms focussed on the development of particular projects. Projects were the characteristic vehicle for processes of knowledge creation

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within these firms, and thus provided the most important site for the investigation of institutional influences on such processes. Semi-structured interviews of approximately one and a half to two hours were conducted with a cross sectional sample of consultants and managers in ScienceCo and with all the staff LegalCo. Three people in each firm agreed to perform the role of key informants throughout the period of the research, clarifying and explaining issues as they arose. These people were selected on the basis of their length of service and willingness to participate in the research. At least 10 to 12 hours was spent with each of these informants. Interviewees were asked to discuss the way in which they worked both individually and in project teams and to discuss changes that had occurred over time. They were also asked to discuss those organizational arrangements (structural, procedural, and cultural) that they perceived as either facilitating or constraining project working. In addition one of the authors had the opportunity to observe the interaction of consultants during project working in both firms and these observations were recorded. Access to project and client documentation was also provided. All of the data sources used in this research are summarized in Table 1.

(INSERT TABLE 1 HERE).

As is typical in studies that are primarily inductive, the analysis was an iterative process in which the data was constantly revisited (Yin, 1984, Eisenhardt, 1989). An interpretative approach using some of the coding techniques proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1990) and Miles and Huberman (1994) such as open coding and matrix displays was used to generate the primary findings. The case studies were conducted sequentially rather than consecutively. Thus themes generated from data pertaining to ScienceCo were subsequently used to analyze the data from LegalCo.


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Selective coding shaped the selection, validation and refinement of the institutional influences upon processes of knowledge creation within the case firms that are reported here.

Recent research suggests that the processes involved in analyzing qualitative data have motivated a change in the traditional frameworks that were used for ensuring the validity of data (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998). Specifically, to ensure validity, qualitative data must be checked against the criteria of credibility and transferability. Thus the major findings were presented to both firms to ensure validity. Data transferability was addressed by using an interview protocol for collecting data that was primarily drawn from the existing literature.

The Case Studies

This section presents the case material, structured around the themes of work practices, knowledge claims and social identity. These have been identified above as key areas for institutional influences on knowledge creation processes in professional service consultancy firms.

ScienceCo

ScienceCo was founded in 1986 and, by the time of our study in 1996 the firm employed 140 people. Of these, 116 were highly educated (predominantly PhD) scientists from numerous disciplines encompassing 19 different nationalities. Over this 10 year period the firm grew in size, revenue (over £26 million p.a.) and profitability (around £2 million). ScienceCo's main

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business is in inventing new concepts and products for companies around the world, sold to clients as intellectual property rights (IPR). For example, ScienceCo invented a widely-used electronic security tag, now manufactured and marketed throughout the world by a Swedish firm. The 3 leaders (Executive Chairman – the original founder, Chairman, and Managing Director) have been with the firm since its inception and are internationally acknowledged experts in the scientific and engineering communities. The organization is described in publicity material as a ‘uniquely innovative, laboratory based, business and technology, consulting and investing company’.

Work practices Consultants are organized loosely across seven scientific ‘divisions’ within a flat organization. The divisional structure operates primarily, however, for financial reporting purposes only. In terms of work practice, organization centres on self-forming and self-managing project teams which span the divisions. Project leaders tend to ‘emerge’ in each of these teams and will typically be the individual who has had most contact with the client. This means that relatively inexperienced consultants can lead projects. This is particularly important symbolically, as the firm’s leaders attempt to promote values of autonomy and egalitarianism. Over time, inexperienced consultants are expected to develop project management skills. This tends to be fairly sporadic, however, as

there is little formal training and no standard procedures for

managing or documenting projects.

During project work, both the unique skills of individual consultants as well as collective contributions from some or all of the team are relied upon to deal with novel problems occurring


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during experimentation and the invention process. Consultants rely primarily on face-to-face communication (supported by some limited e-mail communication) in order to collaborate. Consultants in ScienceCo consider themselves uniquely qualified in their particular areas of expertise. As a result, the problem-solving expertise applied in project working is generally sourced internally. Indeed, consultants were affronted by any suggestion that they would need to rely upon sources external to the firm to acquire and create knowledge. As one consultant stated “ We have some of the best brains here – why look elsewhere?”. Consultants are not expected to rigorously account for their time and have the opportunity, therefore, to conduct both basic and applied scientific experimentation outside their project working time. Consultants actively seek to be at the forefront of scientific and technological developments, which demands access to a broad scientific knowledge base and a considerable degree of inter-personal networking.

Working conditions are such that consultants are trusted to self-manage their time within and around project working. For example, they are free to choose their hours of work. It is quite common, therefore, for some consultants to work intensively throughout weekends and holidays and then take extended holidays (sometimes lasting 2-3 months). Significant financial resources (approximately £1 million p.a. at the time of the research) are available to experiment outside of project working if consultants choose to do so. Consultants are also provided with the necessary finances to participate in any professional activities they feel will extend and develop their expertise and knowledge base, including conferences and workshops.

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Knowledge claims Knowledge creation typically involves the combination of existing bodies of knowledge in new ways (Cohen and Levinthal 1990; Kogut and Zander, 1992). The key features of this process in ScienceCo are, firstly, the reliance on experimentation, and secondly, the exploitation of interpersonal networks to acquire relevant knowledge. In eliciting existing knowledge, consultants rely heavily upon face-to-face exchanges and personal networks. In combining such knowledge in new ways, the ScienceCo consultants then engage in basic or applied experimentation alone or, occasionally, in pairs. Although the results of experimentation are formally recorded, once a scientific 'fact' has been established to the satisfaction of the consultants concerned, little reliance is subsequently placed on the documentation supporting the experiment.

Once they have achieved a satisfactory outcome, the consultants seek to translate the tangible results of their project working into various forms intellectual property. The patent process therefore serves as the institutional mechanism for knowledge claims. It is important to note however, that whilst all projects have to be legally documented in a manner that will satisfy patenting requirements (so that the intellectual property rights can be sold to clients), previous project documentation does not play an active role in current project working. Instead, consultants prefer to learn actively for themselves by experimentation and by discussions with others, in large part because they see this activity as enlarging and amplifying their personal knowledge and scientific expertise. Whilst they do refer to scientific facts and make notes during experimentation, documentation is patchy and the recording of observations is ad hoc and sporadic. There is therefore little attempt to recycle knowledge from one project to another and ‘reinventing the wheel’ is typical during project working. These ‘organic’ (Burns and Stalker,


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1962) features of experimentation and reinvention are generally considered by consultants to be vital for innovation and knowledge creation. As one consultant stated “ We know we may be reinventing the wheel but we are reinventing it in new ways”.

Social identity Aside from concerted efforts to foster a strong sense of autonomy and egalitarianism, characterized by a distinct lack of formal hierarchy, a number of other organizational arrangements also serve to reinforce a strong sense of professionalism and an 'elite' identity within the firm. These identities coalesce and appear to be important for stimulating knowledge creation, both within and outside of project working. Elitism is manifest in the way in which the selection process is characterised by a very high rejection rate, despite the fact that the firm has a constant need to recruit. This was a matter of some pride the part of management and staff. As the Human Resource Manager commented: ‘You get a CV and the person has a great CV and they’ve worked for a high powered research agency, and that’s brilliant, you’ve got to see them. But, you know that there is a pretty strong chance that the moment you meet them you’re going to know that they’re not one of us.’ Only three or four candidates typically proceed to a second, panel interview from an original short-list of around 10. The panel interview involves peer selection involving at least 6 consultants from across divisions who judge whether candidates will generally ‘fit in’ – demonstrate that they are ‘one of us’ - and, importantly, whether they will be able to share their knowledge and expertise effectively with others. Significantly, there has to be consensus across the panel for a selection decision to be made. Thus, individual consultants can, and often do, veto a selection decision if it is felt that there could be problems working with the candidate. This naturally leads to very high rejection rates.

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Consultants explicitly identify themselves as 'scientific consultants'. This, they suggest, is quite different to “merely being a management consultant”. As such, many are dedicated to the advancement of scientific knowledge and recognize that considerable investments need to be made in their own professional development. The resources that are available for this, together with the exceptional working conditions in place, suggest that the leaders of the firm also recognize the importance of reinforcing and sustaining a strong professional ethos. Consultants respond positively to these conditions. The majority appearing to be highly motivated and generally striving to invent and innovate in order to command respect from peers within the firm. In such an egalitarian, yet elitist environment, demonstrating one’s professional scientific expertise is one of the very few ways of being noticed.

The physical environment in ScienceCo also serves as an important symbol of professionalism and elitism, being both hi-tech yet discreetly expensive and affording considerable comfort to both consultants and clients. As in Alvesson’s (1995) study of an expert consultancy, the functional attributes of corporate architecture and interior decoration are subsidiary to their perceived expressive, symbolic and communicative qualities.

LegalCo LegalCo was founded in 1990. The firm provides strategy and organizational development services to law firms. In 1995 the firm was restructured as a limited company. In the late 1980s with competition developing in the legal services sector, partners within leading law firms began to realize that they knew relatively little about competition and strategy. LegalCo sought to distinguish itself from the large, US-based global consultancies such as Bain and McKinsey at


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this time by offering strategic consultancy services from consultants who had a professional legal background and in-depth knowledge of the UK market for legal services. The firm’s founder developed a 'processual' approach to strategy development – one that involved the client to a significant degree. The approach relied upon expert knowledge of relevant markets as well as specialist knowledge rooted in legal and financial disciplines. LegalCo, whilst very small was ideally placed at this time, by virtue of the particular approach it adopted, to offer an attractive service to leading UK law firms.

From 1995 onwards the firm began to expand from an original staff of 4. Two senior lawyers were appointed in 1995, and by the time of our study in 1998 there were 10 consultants, 2 research staff, and 7 support staff (including a chauffeur). The majority of consultants have a legal background and/or are qualified to PhD level in disciplines ranging across the social and political sciences and marketing. The client base has also expanded over time to include leading European and US based law firms. In eight years the firm has grown slowly but steadily and has been successful in terms of expanding its markets, and increasing turnover and profits to around £1.5 million. Considerable emphasis is placed on the development of innovative, bespoke solutions for clients that focus on the future strategic direction of client firms. The firm highlights this unique approach in its publicity material, describing itself as ‘highly creative in terms of techniques and implementation ideas – and innovative in their application’.

Work practices Consultants in LegalCo typically work on multiple client projects, often performing different roles in each. Junior consultants also play an active role in projects and the founder tends to be

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involved in most of the projects to some extent. Her knowledge of legal precedent and legal markets is considered vital across all projects. Client interviews, and interviews with the client’s clients, form the basis of the information and knowledge required for the first stage of project working. At least two consultants will be involved in anything up to forty interviews within the client firm and an additional fifteen or twenty interviews with clients of the client firm. From these interviews, and financial data provided by the firm, the team jointly develop an analysis (in the form of a written report with supporting ‘evidence’ from interviews) of the current strategic position of the client. In order to develop a future strategy for the client, a considerable amount of data and information is also sought from the researchers within the firm. This provides the foundations for any recommendations that the team develops.

These recommendations will be made, then, on the basis of legal knowledge, knowledge developed about the client and their competitors and the legal services markets both in the UK and Europe. Consultants also actively draw upon their personal networks - often other lawyers from large law firms - to acquire information and knowledge that might be relevant to current projects. Consultants in LegalCo are generally willing to share these external personal contacts with others in the firm. Formal project teams are established primarily as a way of managing the client interface. Consultants outside the project team will often contribute - sometimes quite significantly - to project work that is not strictly within their current remit.

The project work itself follows a predefined, multi-stage process. A consultancy assignment is sequenced into 4 distinctive phases: Phase 1 – analyze existing position within the firm; Phase 2 – agree current position and key issues; Phase 3 – agree future market position and implications;


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Phase 4 – agree critical factors for success. Whilst the process appears fairly rigid and standardized, there is considerable latitude with regard to how it is actually conducted. Different consultants are known to use very different approaches, not only in terms of interviewing, but also, for example, when conducting organizational reviews. A considerable amount of coordinated support is also required from researchers and support staff during the entire process.

Recent appointees are expected to read and absorb a considerable number of internal company reports and academic texts, together with vast quantities of project documentation when they first join the firm to familiarize themselves with client profiles and the type of work the firm conducts. This promotes the development of collective norms of behavior around project work and outcomes, which reflects actual legal working practices and the demands of legal clients.

Knowledge claims The defining features of the knowledge creation process and claims to knowledge within LegalCo are, firstly, the emphasis which is placed on interpretive activities, and secondly, the reliance on written evidence and documentation in developing and codifying such interpretations. Thus, project work is a highly recursive process through which information is acquired, processed and interpreted and the results made available for further interpretation. The first stage of the knowledge creation process is iterative as consultants and researchers work at developing and refining the analysis as more information is gathered from interviews and other secondary sources. Ultimately, the synthesis of all of these findings is based on interview analysis, in conjunction with individual consultants’ knowledge of the law, markets, sectors and future trends, in order to create new knowledge relevant to the specific issues facing the client.

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This interpretive activity is based on, mediated by, and produced as documentation. Thus, one of the major inputs to project work is client and project documentation. In addition, the process of research and analysis is itself grounded in written materials. Interviews are transcribed verbatim and consultants will, in addition, write a summary report of the main points from interviews. Where consultants choose to hand write their analytical work, this is also passed to support staff for word-processing. Likewise, all communication between clients and consultants is documented including even telephone conversations of which copies are always forwarded to the client. When problems arise, consultants will often be referred to previous project documentation and client information in much the same way as would occur when working on legal cases within a legal firm.

The report that is produced from the first phase of project work is usually at least 80-90 pages. A 3 to 4 hour presentation of this analysis will then be given to the senior partners within the client firm. Once agreement is reached among the partners regarding the current state of the client firm and future trends, the remaining three stages of the process will typically take a further two to three months to complete and will all be documented equally rigorously. The somewhat lengthy approach used in project working is considered necessary if a comprehensive analysis and future strategy of the firm is to be developed. As the founder stated: “The distinguishing feature about our process is that we rely on words. If you consider our clients - then lawyers are probably the brightest and what they want are words. They are very quick to grasp a concept, although it’s dangerous to assume that just because they have worked in the firm for a long time, they actually


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understand what is going on internally. You cannot assume that just because they have the intellect they are going to find it easy to implement strategic advice”

The outcome from project working is therefore a lengthy strategic report defining precisely how and why particular strategic recommendations are being proposed.

Social identity As with ScienceCo, a number of distinctive organizational arrangements that serve to promote a strong elite, professional identity are fostered by the founder in LegalCo. The recruitment and selection process is similarly subjective and dominated by rejection. At the beginning of 1998 for example, the firm advertised via an international recruitment agency to “explicitly see who was out there, who didn’t know us, who would be interesting” (founder). The advertisement generated 280 applications. 12 candidates were interviewed a number of times and one, a highly educated, multi-lingual consultant, was appointed. Surviving this lengthy process signals to consultants that they are part of the elite amongst their own professional community. Comments were made such as “ If we are going to tell other lawyers what to do then we have demonstrate that we actually do know more than them, not only in terms of strategy but in some cases the law too”.

Legal Co consultants bill their time– as would be expected by legal clients - but they too, are also afforded considerable personal freedom in terms of working hours, holidays etc.. This reinforces notions of elitism within a legal professional context. Symbolically, the founder also provides and nurtures a prestigious working environment in an attempt to foster notions of elitism. For

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example, despite the firm’s small size, the firm’s offices, are located in one of the most expensive areas of central London. Everything within these offices symbolizes wealth and prestige up to, and including the tea, coffee and biscuits consumed by consultants, which quite literally can only be purchased from the very best places e.g. Fortnum & Mason or Harrods Food Hall. All consultants have the use of a Mercedes car and chauffeur when travelling to and from airports. At least two company weekends are arranged each year to which everyone is invited (including the researcher!). These are held in extremely lavish settings and include expensive recreational activities such as riding, shooting and fishing, as well as formal strategic planning sessions and presentations. The costs of these events are significant, relative to the size of the firm and have an impact on bottom-line profitability. However, the founder considers these symbolic manifestations of prestige, wealth and success to be a necessary aspect of organizational life and the primary means of retaining the “very best people”.

Discussion

A summary account of the salient features of each case study is presented in Table 2. In this section we compare and analyze these features with respect to the three research questions posed earlier. In doing so, we highlight implications for future research and theory development on work practices and knowledge creation in professional service firms. A caveat here, of course, is that, given the undoubted heterogeneity among professional service firms, generalizations must be treated with care. (INSERT TABLE 2 HERE)


27

The first question posed was: "is there an observable relationship between the institutional context and the way in which knowledge is created in professional service firms?” In both cases, it could be seen how important organizational and structural factors (such as adhocracy, self-organization, an emphasis on egalitarianism, opportunities for face-to-face communication, and the opportunity to engage in activities that fostered redundancy) promoted knowledge creation (cf. Burns and Stalker, 1961; Nonaka, 1994; Starbuck, 1992). However, research on organizational knowledge tends to focus on the organization (cf. Blackler, 1995), and/or the individual within the organization (cf. Nonaka, 1994; Tsoukas and Vladimirou, 2001), as the unit of analysis. With certain exceptions (e.g. King et al, 1994; Sorensen & Levold, 1992), this work tends to lack reference to the institutional context in which knowledge creation processes are located.

In addressing this issue then, the first distinctive characteristic of working practices in LegalCo and ScienceCo seems to be the exceptionally high levels of personal autonomy afforded to individual consultants. Both firms were made up very largely of employed professionals educated at the highest level of their respective disciplines. As professionals, these employees expected to have autonomy in their work. For example, many consultants remained in ScienceCo, despite opportunities for more lucrative work elsewhere, precisely because of the high degree of autonomy they experienced. In addition, consultants in both firms behaved highly collaboratively, intensively networking and sharing knowledge. However, whilst other studies have noted tensions between autonomy and managerial control in professional service work (cf. Raelin, 199; Freidson, 1994; Armstrong, 1987), these tensions were far less evident here. This can be explained by considering the identity and role of management in these firms.

27

Management in both firms, who, significantly, also regarded themselves fundamentally as professionals, viewed the promotion of a professional ethos (that is, self-discipline, collegiality and professional standards of work) as essential, to knowledge creation. They recognized that these were tasks that they could not control directly (Causer and Jones, 1996; Kunda, 1992) and therefore relied upon professional norms to fundamentally shape behaviour around work tasks. Moreover, the boundaries between professional work and management were frequently blurred by the high reliance on project-based team working. For example, in both firms, projects were managed by consultants themselves (including junior consultants), with the team being selfselected on the basis of the expertise demanded by the particular project. This echoes an observation from another study of professional work that: ‘Responsibility for projects or aspects of projects means that facets of management become a part of the work of a large number of employees.’ (Causer and Jones, 1996: 116).

In answer to the first research question, therefore, in the arenas of autonomy and the importance of collegiality (manifest in inter-personal networking), we find work practices demonstrating an observable relationship between the institutional context and knowledge creation. However, while this observation is supported by similarities across the two cases, it is important to note that the nature of such knowledge creating activities – that is, the way in which autonomy and inter-personal networks were mobilized - varied significantly between our two firms. To explain this variation, we turn now to our second question, which is "how do the work practices in professional service firms reflect the features of their institutional context, and hence how does this shape the process of knowledge creation and legitimation in each setting?".


29

This issue requires a more detailed comparison of work practices and, in particular, the processes through which claims to knowledge were legitimated in each case. At ScienceCo, as we noted, the emphasis was placed on experimentation and inter-personal knowledge exchange. There was little use made of project documentation during project working.

Rather than turning to the

explicit knowledge base of, for example, chemistry or physics, or indeed past projects, consultants preferred to rely predominantly upon their personal scientific knowledge and on knowledge acquired via internal networking. This reliance on strong network ties for the sharing of complex knowledge has been noted elsewhere (Hansen, 1999; Orr, 1990).

This approach mirrors many of the routines for knowledge acquisition, retention and retrieval by engineers highlighted by Hargadon & Sutton (1997). In that case, experimentation occurred by taking apart products that were similar to ones that engineers were trying to further develop. Similarly, in that study little reliance was placed on project documentation as “much of the knowledge of potential solutions resides in the minds of the individual designers as products they had worked on, or technologies they had read, heard or talked about” (:735). This knowledge was shared face-to-face during intensive lengthy brainstorming sessions. This is not to imply that consultants in ScienceCo did not use explicit, codified material in creating knowledge – they frequently developed, for example, drawings, designs, charts and so forth. However, this material was used, not as reference documentation, but, rather, as a form of ‘live’ communication during face-to-face meetings, being produced (and reproduced) as each new project demanded. Project working was thus predominantly reliant upon the knowledge 'embrained' and 'embodied' in the consultants themselves (Collins, 1983; Blackler, 1995).

29

In sharp contrast, in LegalCo there was considerable reliance on ‘encoded’ knowledge (Blackler, 1995) for knowledge creation. Interpretation rather than experimentation was the major characteristic of project work, and this was mediated by and produced as documentation. Thus, previous project and client documentation would be constantly referenced, and there was continual emphasis on writing up any new information or insights. When creating knowledge, legal consultants relied upon their expertise in the interpretation of this codified knowledge, and this activity served to further develop their inductive capabilities.

These differences, we suggest are attributable to the epistemological bases of the professional knowledge domains in which these firms operated (Halliday, 1985), and the ir resulting and distinctive ‘epistemic cultures’. For example, in ScienceCo scientists conducted basic and applied scientific research in order to develop solutions to discrete problems. They met to share scientific findings - which had been validated through the scientific method of replication and inference - and, through those meetings, jointly created new scientific knowledge. This knowledge was embodied or manifested in tangible scientific products and processes. The knowledge was legitimated at the institutional level by the patent process that conferred IPR to the firm.

Sorensen and Levold (1992) argue that scientific claims to knowledge, once ‘proven’ experimentally (i.e. as facts or principles), are relatively easily transferable because they are not subject to numerous interpretations. In other words, once validated by the scientific community, scientific knowledge is usually interpreted in similar ways across contexts, including across


31

nations. This means that, once validated, scientific knowledge or facts can be communicated in summary form, without lengthy documentation to justify, for example, how the knowledge was arrived at, or in what context, or to explain exactly how it should be interpreted. The implications of this institutional context for knowledge creation are the emphasis it places on scientific methods – exemplified at ScienceCo by the reliance on experimentation – as the basis for legitimating knowledge. In broad terms, scientists seek to engage more or less directly with the natural world, with their discursive, social and material practices supporting that engagement. As such experimentally-based practices are strongly entrenched through scientific training. Whilst experimentation may take many different forms across scientific disciplines (KnorrCetina, 1999), there is far less reliance, compared to other disciplines, on the codification of knowledge and more reliance on the tacit application and synthesis of knowledge during processes of experimentation (Sorensen and Levold, 1992) .

Correspondingly, in ScienceCo we can observe an ‘epistemic culture’ in which experimentation is a highly valued feature of knowledge creating activitie s, and where inter-personal networks support the sharing of more tacit forms of knowledge . Knowledge claims were thus grounded in the application of scientific method and the acknowledged expertise and reputations of those individuals who were involved in the process. When this process was successful it led to the development of IPR - the tangible outcome of the knowledge creation process. In addition, the firm’s clients were not particularly interested in how IPR were developed because the patent process at the societal level effectively validated the knowledge claims embodied in the new product or process.

31

In sharp contrast, in LegalCo, we find a much greater emphasis on interpretive activities, linked to an emphasis on writing and documentation. Again, these features can be related to the very different epistemological base defined by the legal profession. While all institutionalized bodies of knowledge, including science (Collins, 1985), are subject to some degree of interpretation and contestation, this is amplified significantly in the legal profession. This is because the creation of legal knowledge is premised on legal precedent, which is value rather than fact-based, and can therefore only be subjectively interpreted within particular local contexts. Knowledge in the legal profession is therefore premised on a normative rather than a scientific epistemological base (Halliday, 1985). Given this, there are relatively fewer commonly accepted premises and many more opportunities for interpretation. For example, legal knowledge can change significantly over time as new legal precedents are established, and such precedents themselves differ across nations.

One of the principal implications of this institutional context for the legitimation of claims to knowledge is the need to make fully explicit the ways in which existing knowledge has been interpreted and used in the development of new legal precedents. Thus, far more reliance is placed upon the creation and maintenance of detailed text-based contemporary legal knowledge. Lawyers derive their knowledge about legal precedent from written transcriptions of previous cases and the judgements that are subsequently made. In turn, legal training reinforces the importance of communicating and codifying all legal knowledge so that its origins and claims are made explicit and widely available. In short, legal practice is not only reliant on the interpretative expertise and reputation of the lawyer, but also on the continual reference to a collective, codified legal knowledge base which serves to validate claims to knowledge.


33

The implications of this institutional context for knowledge creation at LegalCo can be related both to work practices and to the ‘epistemic culture’ in which such practices are embedded. On the one hand, we observed the primacy of interpretation in the process of knowledge creation – the need to recursively evolve an understanding of particular issues. On the other hand, at every stage these interpretive activities were heavily dependent on documentation. These findings may seem surprising in the light of LegalCo’s consultancy services. These involved advice on strategy rather than legal issues, and they drew on marketing as much as legal knowledge. However, this disparity between the firm’s immediate task environment and its preferred work practices, actually reinforces the importance of the legal institutional context in shaping the ‘epistemic culture’ here. The means by which knowledge was legitimated in LegalCo reflected both the training and expectations of its staff – the majority of whom were lawyers – and their clients. LegalCo staff were sensitive to the client’s requirements that the knowledge creation process be couched in a high level of supporting documentation.

In answer to our second research question, then, our findings suggest that the work practices and processes of knowledge creation in these two professional service firms did reflect features of their institutional context – specifically, the epistemological base of each profession and its associated cultural manifestations at workplace level. They also suggest that there may be far more variation in the work practices of professional service firms than is implied in the current literature, depending on the institutional context in which such practices are embedded. Exploring such differences through more extensive comparative studies in different professional contexts may be a fruitful area for further work. Interestingly, this finding also suggests that the

33

current vogue of employing multidisciplinary teams for knowledge creation tasks (as reflected in the research agendas of many government funding bodies) may be rather more problematic than is assumed (Gibbons et al, 1994). For example, where such teams span professional domains that have fundamentally different epistemological bases and thus different ‘epistemic cultures’ for legitimating knowledge then even reaching agreement on how to develop work practice may prove extremely problematic (Newell and Swan, 2001).

Whilst the analysis so far highlights institutional effects, it is important to remember that these effects are not deterministic. Our third question – “what role does social identity perform in processes of knowledge creation in professional service firms?” – attempts to address this. In each of the case firms cognitive and normative mechanisms associated with professionalism appeared to regulate the individual identity of consultants to some extent. Thus while individuals had chosen to join consultancy firms, they referred to themselves as 'scientific' or 'legal' consultants - their individual identities were firmly grounded in their professional disciplines. This evidently served to motivate individuals to behave as a ‘professional’ and hence to develop solutions for clients within time scales that were acceptable to the client, regardless of the high levels of autonomy they experienced.

Secondly, previous studies have highlighted the importance of social identity in consultancy or knowledge-intensive firm settings in promoting normative control (c.f. Alvesson, 1992, 2000; Kunda, 1992). Social identity is consequently seen as an equivocal but pivotal feature of such settings, with multiple influences operating to produce a range of competing identities (Alvesson, 2000; Robertson and Swan, forthcoming). In the cases studied here, employees will have


35

multiple identities as professionals and also as consultants and as organizational members. The ways in which these identities combine and/or compete does, we suggest, play an important mediating role in understanding the influences of the professional context on local work practices and knowledge creation practices.

The role of the organization’s leaders in shaping social identity is emphasized in the literature. For example, Alvesson (1996) notes that leaders of professional service firms can introduce particular symbolic cultural mechanisms which might serve to define (a socially constructed) reality for others. This managerial effect may run counter to the influence of the professional context (Whalley, 1986). Indeed, in knowledge intensive firms, such as LegalCo and ScienceCo, ‘management may act in order to safeguard the ‘right’ identity in order to attain loyalty, including disarming / neutralizing competing social identifications’ (Alvesson 2000: 1102).

At the same time, however, these competing influences do not preclude agency, or the ‘space for employees to act based on their own understanding.’ (Alvesson 2000: 1102). This may allow for the coalescing of competing or contradictory identities within the consultancy context (Derber et al, 1990). In relation to knowledge creation processes, for example, professional role expectations may be seen to influence individual incumbents’ attitudes and behaviors, without negating the influence of the organizational context.

Significantly, in both LegalCo and ScienceCo the leaders directed considerable efforts towards promoting a strong social identity premised on elitism (rather than professionalism per se), and this seemed to defuse any potential tensions that might exist between organizational and

35

professional norms (Raelin, 1991, Robertson and Swan, forthcoming). Although this identity naturally incorporated certain ingredients of the wider professional context – respect for specialist expertise for instance - significantly, it also served to differentiate individual these consultants from their professional peers in other organizations, thus promoting high retention rates within both firms. High retention rates are particularly important where firms rely heavily on collaborative working arrangements within and across projects as unique and valuable collective knowledge is generated over time around local work practices (Grant, 1996).

In both firms elitism was conveyed symbolically. High rejection rates for example, coupled with the opportunity for anyone to reject candidates – which was encouraged in both firms reinforced individuals' perceptions of themselves as belonging to a professional ‘aristocracy’. Professional identity was overlaid, therefore, with a strong organizational identity grounded in elitism in both firms. This appeared to promote a number of behaviours that were potentially important for knowledge creation and so advantageous for the firm – for example, enhanced support and commitment; intergroup cohesion; cooperation and altruism; loyalty and adherence to group values (Turner, 1982, 1984; Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Recent research has also found that high self-esteem coupled with a strong social identity is an important mediator of work performance - enhancing work performance in groups and individuals (Worschel et al, 1998; Pilegge & Holz, 1997). The analysis of the cases reported here, support these findings.

At the same time, by reinforcing individuals’ sense of self as expert professionals, not ‘just’ consultants, the elite professional identity acted as a catalyst for processes of knowledge creation within these firms. For example, despite the high levels of autonomy afforded to individuals,


37

professional, expert ‘norms’ and expectations shaped individual behaviour to meet project deadlines. Individuals’ subjective, professional expert identity self-disciplined them to expend enormous efforts to satisfy project requirements within pre-determined time scales. This meant that consultants regularly worked very long hours over extended periods, even though at other times they would take extended holidays.

It was also noticeable that competition between individuals did exist but that this was wholly self generated, being fostered by efforts to maintain an elite professional identity among peers. In addition however, elitism reinforced norms around co-operation and collaboration because the sharing of expertise amongst elite ‘equals’ was integral to the collective social identity. Significantly, a lack of career structure meant that there were really no further expectations or demands placed on consultant. Despite these organizational arrangements however, individuals’ subjective professional and expert norms meant that high standards of performance were selfimposed. Thus individuals were constantly striving to develop inventions and innovative solutions which would command respect internally with other consultants, again promoting knowledge creating activities.

The exceptional working facilities and resources made available, symbolically reflected this elite social identity and highlights the ways in which the leaders were able to ‘manage meaning’ (Alvesson, 1996; Lukes, 1974) in these professional contexts. Hence ScienceCo was recognized internally and externally as one of the best places to work if you were a scientist because of the autonomy and resources available to individuals. The hugely expensive firm-wide events that took place, the location of the firm and the calibre of the client base (leading law firms) in

37

LegalCo similarly served to promote a strong, elite identity. In short, by co-opting the professional ethos inculcated through the institutional context into an elitist self-perception promoted by the leaders the firm, the identities of individuals in our case firms transcended the conventional demarcations between professional and organizational affiliations. This may have defused some of the more chronic tensions created by such demarcations (Raelin, 1991), thereby allowing a liberalized form of self-regulation to pervade.

The importance of the professional orientation and a strong social identity is not simply to do with the regulation of behaviour, however. By intertwining the individual’s sense of self with the application of expertise, professionalism enshrines identity as an integral part of the knowledge creation process. This linkage has been observed in other studies (cf.Covaleski et al, 1998). Brown and Duguid (1991) see the creation of collective knowledge as intimately bound up with the creation of a shared identity. They state: “In telling these stories an individual rep (sic) contributes to the construction and development of his or her own identity as a rep and reciprocally to the construction and development of the community of reps in which he or she works” (Brown and Duguid, 1991: 68). Similarly, in our cases we observe the joint production of knowledge and identities by our consultants – defining themselves through the knowledge they generate. This process is perhaps all the more fraught, and all the more motivational where it takes place, as here, in a relatively unstructured organizational context. In such a context the usual organizational safety-nets (such as hierarchical rank etc.) dissolve - individual status is therefore always provisional and to some extent contested, being defined simply by individual performativity.


39

Conclusion

Our study has found an observable relationship between the professional institutional context and the way in which knowledge was created and legitimated in professional service consultancy firms. The comparison between our science-based and law-based consultancy practices highlights the differential impact of wider institutional forces upon knowledge creation , in terms of the key activities of knowledge creation and the preferred media of such activities, and also in terms of the recursive development and accumulation of knowledge over time. Our sciencebased consultants valued experimentation and the accumulation of personal and tacit knowledge over time, and appropriated the economic value of knowledge through patents. Law-based consultants, focussed their efforts on interpretation, which was worked through, and subsequently validated by a collectively-validated documentary record. Our analysis thus suggests that knowledge creation in science-based epistemic cultures may rely more on legitimation through scientific methods, and hence the application of more tacit forms of knowledge through experimentation. This supports and extends earlier work by Hargadon and Sutton (1997). In contrast, in legal fields where knowledge is highly interpretable and contested, knowledge creation is grounded within, and relies far more upon, an explicit knowledge base, articulated in text-based forms. Hence, work practices differed significantly across the two case firms in terms of their reliance on, and creation of, a codified knowledge base.

These institutional influences on firm-level practices are often seen as leading to conflict with managerial forms of control. Our cases, however, were characterized by relative compatibility between professional norms and practices and managerial control. This may partly reflect these

39

firm’s strategic commitment to innovation, and hence a greater willingness to accommodate the correlates of professional norms in terms of work autonomy and forms of knowledge legitimation. Senior managers in both firms saw the latter as conducive rather than harmful to knowledge creation. In addition, the acceptability of professional practices was reinforced by the client base which both firms sought to serve. Professionals from ScienceCo and LegalCo would frequently be interacting with professionals from similar backgrounds in other organizations, and this tended to support institutionally-based norms.

This is not to say that managers in these firms simply abdicated their roles in favour of such norms. Rather, they sought to accommodate professionalism within firm-specific arrangements which mobilized such norms for corporate ends. This was particularly apparent in management’s influence on social identity formation. Here we found that managers in ScienceCo and LegalCo alike focused on developing a collective social identity grounded in elitism and therefore in the identity of individual consultants, thus unlocking and leveraging individual creativity as an organizational resource. It could be argued, then, that the institutional context was actively exploited by these organizations to derive the greatest value from individuals. Elite identities drew on the institutional context as an important discursive resource, yet

also differentiated

individuals from rank-and-file occupational communities. In this way, professional and organizational demarcations were blurred and inherent tensions between ‘occupational and administrative principles’ (Barley, 1996) sublimated.


41

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45

Sources of evidence

ScienceCo

LegalCo

No. of interviews

18

17

Av. Length of interview

1-2 hours

2 hours

Meetings attended as

6

3 (inc. 2 day AGM)

20 days

11 days

Access to company data

Open*

Open

Access to information

Open

Open

None

Open

Open

Open

observer Site visits (non-participant observation)

systems Access to client documentation Access to project documentation

Table 1 Sources of data •

Open access indicates that the researcher was allowed to photocopy and take notes from the documentation provided

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ScienceCo Work Practices

•

• • •

Knowledge Claims

• • •

Social Identity

• • • •

LegalCo

Multi-disciplinary autonomous project team working within a flat organizational structure Extensive internal networking Reliance on informal face-to-face communication Highly collaborative

•

Self organized, autonomous teams of lawyers – coordinated centrally by founder

• •

Extensive internal and external networking Reliance on formal, written documentation

•

Highly collaborative

Legitimation through experimentation and patent process Problem-solving expertise (deduction) Outcome - IPR embodied in technical innovations

•

Legitimation through text, reference to codified knowledge • Interpretation expertise (induction) • Outcome- report incorporating interpretations of law and legal markets Grounded in both professionalism & elitism Elitism promoted symbolically in selection process and availability of resources Professionalism manifest in conduct during project working Elitism operating as a catalyst for knowledge creation

Table 2 ScienceCo and LegalCo – a comparison