Archetype Change in Professional Organizations: Survey Evidence from Large Law Firms
通过对197家英国大型律师事务所的调查，检验了专业合伙制向商业化管理的转变，发现市场导向变化与治理连续性并存，挑战了原型彻底转型或沉积的观点。
This paper examines the proposition that the traditional archetype of the professional partnership is said to have changed into a more ‘business‐like’ entity, the managed professional business. It broadens the restricted case sample base on which much of the evidence has been adduced, by developing a survey questionnaire through which 197 large British law firms were sampled. Change, consistent with the notion of a more commercially oriented and consciously managed organization, is concentrated in the market‐facing area of the firm but coexists with areas of continuity in the governance of the firm and its strategic management. The findings reveal a more managerial form of organization in which the core elements of the traditional form of professional organization have not been transformed. These results contest the assertion of either transformational or sedimented change found in other, case‐based research and suggest that archetype change needs theoretically to be distinguished from the general phenomenon of greater managerialism within the professional service firm.