The Novak Druce Centre for Professional Service Firms runs a Seminar Series at the Saïd Business School, inviting academics from international institutions to present and participate in workshops exploring current themes in professional service firms research.
The 2011-12 seminars will take place at 2.30pm in Seminar Room 13 at the Saïd Business School. Details are below:
5 March 2012: David Brock, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
'Understanding Professional Service firms: What's hot and what's not'
We will look back at some early models for understanding professional service firms, and follow the development of research over the past 50 years. Looking at theoretical models as well as empirical findings, we will note various phases and emphases over time: from the early emphasis on professional bureaucracy, partnership, archetypal approaches, knowledge intensively, globalization, to the current work within institutional theory.
We will also look at approaches to defining these firms, and trends in interest in different professional sectors. Finally, we will analyze characteristics of the 85 submissions to the recent Journal of Management Studies Special Issue on "Professions and Institutional Change" as an indication of the current state of the field as well as harbinger of future opportunities.
24 May 2012: Henry Chesbrough, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
'Open Services Innovation'
Abstract - Most of the leading economies around the world feature services as 50% or more of their economic activity. Yet we know more about innovation in products and technologies than we do about innovation in services. Recent academic scholarship has contributed important insights into services innovation, but little of this work has been translated into accessible language for managers. In his most recent book, Chesbrough (author of Open Innovation) seeks to draw from the academic scholarship on services innovation and frame important insights for alert managers seeking new sources of growth.
TBC: Erik Jones, Johns Hopkins
When European Financial Integration Worked Too Well -- Financial Services and the European Sovereign Debt Crisis
The European sovereign debt crisis was not caused by the inefficiency of governments; it was caused by the efficiency of financial services. Europe's economic and monetary union promised to strengthen financial market integration by eliminating the threat of exchange rate risk. The financial services industry took European politicians at their word. Sensing clear arbitrage possibilities, bond traders and bank treasurers set out to claim the rewards of nominal interest rate convergence across soon-to-be irrevocably fixed exchange rates. They used a combination of interest rate swaps and cross border deposits to move capital where it could find the highest rate of return within risk categories. And they sparked a huge expansion in economic activity across the periphery of the eurozone as a consequence. Then the music stopped with the rapid slowdown in economic activity during the global economic and financial crisis. Banks on the periphery of the eurozone experienced the consequences of adverse selection in their rapidly expanding asset portfolios even as banks in the core sought to recoup their cross-border investments. An initial round of recapitalization proved insufficient to stem the panic and efforts by governments to impose losses on the private sector only exacerbated the dilemma. Losses cascaded inward and the eurozone looked likely to implode. Meanwhile arguments that Europe should construct a fiscal union to pair with the single currency only fueled popular concern. Such symmetry in fiscal and monetary policy regimes is both unworkable and unnecessary. Only by channeling the energies of Europe's financial services industry can we address the origins of the current crisis and the most likely causes of the next.
Below are some of the previous topics discussed in Novak Druce seminars:
- Networking in Professional Service Firms
Claudia Jonczyk, ESCP Europe
- Governance of Professional Service Firms: A Configuration Theory
Markus Reihlen, Leuphana University of Luneburg
- 'Grasping risk: Models, materials and judgment in reinsurance trading' Paula Jarzabkowski, Aston Business School
- When do clients recommend consulting firms? A survey of medium-
sized firms
Thomas Armbreuster, Quadriga University, Berlin/ Munich Executive Institute
- Do outside owners induce professionals to cheat their clients? Ownership and ethics in securities brokerage
Andrew von Nordenflycht, Simon Fraser University
- Transnational Communities: Shaping Global Economic Governance
Marie-Laure Djelic, ESSEC
- Merit and Choice in the PSF: Guardians of Equality or Veils for Inequality
Savita Kumra, Brunel University