Works
- "P2-form" strategic management: corporate practices in professional partnerships, Academy of Management Journal 33(4), 725 to 755, 1990
- Merging professional service firms, Organization Science 5(2), 239 to 257, 1994
- Sedimentation and transformation in organizational change: the case of Canadian law firms, Organization Studies 17(4), 623 to 647, 1996
- Understanding radical organizational change: bringing together the old and the new institutionalism, Academy of Management Review 21(4), 1022 to 1054, 1996
- The professional partnership: relic or exemplary form of governance?, Organization Studies 24(6), 909 to 933, 2003
- Ownership and performance of professional service firms, Organization Studies 28(2), 219 to 238, 2007
- The organizational design of transnational professional service firms, Organizational Dynamics 39(2), 173 to 183, 2010
- 25 years of the professional partnership (P2) form: time to foreground its social purpose and herald the P3?, Journal of Professions and Organization 4(2), 112 to 122 (July 2017), 2017
In Organizational Structures
Known for
The professional partnership and institutional change
Ideas
The P2 form. With Hinings and Brown, a study of the relationship between the corporate center and the principal business units in professional partnerships, under the name of the P2 form. Caveat: Greenwood, Hinings, and Prakash (2017) say the original paper missed the partnership's social purpose; Pinnington and Morris (2003) found managerial change around an untransformed core.
The partnership as efficient governance. Drawing on agency, tournament, and property rights theory, the professional partnership minimizes agency costs of both private and public corporations and has superior incentives for knowledge workers, within limiting conditions where the private corporation is preferred. Caveat: An argument from theory; von Nordenflycht (2014) found public corporations viable for large professional firms.
Ownership and performance. Among large management consultancies, private corporations and partnerships outperformed public corporations. Caveat: One profession; von Nordenflycht (2007) found the public ownership penalty only among small advertising agencies.
Radical change and institutions. With Hinings, Greenwood combined old and new institutionalism to explain radical organizational change. Caveat: Theory.
The multiplex form. With Morris, Fairclough, and Boussebaa, described transnational professional service firms differentiated on several axes at once. Caveat: Accounting firms are the main example.