Managing Autonomy: Employment Relations in Small Professional Service Firms

Abstract

D R. MONDER RAM IS PROFESSOR OF Small Business and Director of' the Enterprise Research Centre at the University of Central England Buisiness School, United Kingdom. An inicreasingly noted feature of the small business population is the rise of the small professional service firm, yet comparatively little is known of the niature of employment relations in such enterprises. This paper aims to explore the maniner in which work is regulated in such settings by examining the internal management processes of three firms engaged in the provision of business and 'professional' services. The study, which is based on an ethnographic investigation over a year-long period, examines three particular processes that are deemed to be distinctive in this sector: recruitment, performance and supervision. Much of the rhetoric associated with social relations in such firms, for example collegialitv, person-centredness, trust, was evident in the study. BuLt it was clear that emiployee autonomiv still had to bc imanaged' and this process xwas a contingent and fluid one that often- contained a harsher edge thaIn existing accouints suggest.