Professions and Professional Service Firms

7 Entrepreneurship and professional service firms

The team, the firm, the ecosystem and the field

Markus Reihlen, Andreas Werr and Christoph Seckler

Introduction

Although professional services have been among the fastest growing sectors in the past decades and described as ‘innovative by their nature’ (Hargadon and Bechky 2006; Nikolova 2012), research on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial renewal in professional service firms has been rather limited (see, for example, Reihlen and Werr 2012, 2015). Previous research on professional service firms indicates that these represent a unique and complex context for entrepreneurial activity. First, the motivational disposition of the professional, with its focus on interesting tasks and learning opportunities ...