Professions and Professional Service Firms

2 Professions and entrepreneurship in international perspective

Kevin T. Leicht

Introduction

Professional work and the professionals that do it have faced increasing pressure to submit to markets in order to reform overall service delivery and increase efficiency (see Hanlon 1999). The relatively new emphasis on market efficiency has occurred in tandem with several other cross-cutting developments – well-publicised financial scandals involving new entrepreneurial roles for professionals (exemplified by Enron and Parmalat) and the cultural shifts accompanying ‘the end of expertise’ (Nichols 2017) and its most recent manifestations, the Brexit vote and the election in the United States of Donald Trump. These trends are part of a wider trend towards ...