Professional Firms Research Articles

Typewriting architects: projects and research from the AUA studio and the role of Manfredo Tafuri

This paper considers the formative years of Manfredo Tafuri in Rome, first as a member of the student group ASeA, then as a founder of the AUA studio. Rome at that time was a place of dense debate. Discussions were conducted mostly outside the retrograde School of Architecture but in the context of the network of associations and professional firms in the area. In this fervid cultural climate, Tafuri emerged first as both a designer and scholar, then as an extraordinary architectural critic, until in 1964, he decided to abandon designing altogether and dedicate himself entirely to history. Manfredo Tafuri’s Roman years have been analysed through his writings and projects carried out as a member of research groups — along with the accounts of some of his colleagues and traveling companions. The aim is to delve into the organisation of the AUA office, Tafuri’s role within it, and the reasons for his ultimate refusal to practice architecture.

A dynamic model of professional legitimacy: Linking professional logics and jurisdictional threats in the corporate credit rating industry

Abstract Research on the professions argues that inference and routinization are key components of professional practice associated with professional legitimacy. However, the literature fails to provide a mechanism linking these practices to legitimacy. The logic of professionalism literature successfully links professional practices to legitimacy via guiding logics, but ignores the importance of routinized practices in the legitimation process. Furthermore, in explaining the prevalence of routinization versus inference in professional occupations, the organizational literature ignores their contributions to legitimacy and exclusively focuses on their contributions to efficiency and effectiveness in the production process. In this article, I propose to resolve all three issues first by interpreting the professional processes of inference and routinization as deriving from distinct professional logics. As such, they provide professionals with unique ideological rationales for legitimacy buffering them from two specific jurisdictional threats. With data from the corporate credit rating industry, I demonstrate that professional firms shift the degree to which they emphasize inference versus routinization in their production process in response to these jurisdictional threats. Finally, I present a model explaining how professional industries rely on a dynamic combination of inference and routinization to maintain a delicate balance over their claimed jurisdictions. This model links the practices of inference and routinization to professional legitimacy via institutional logics, brings greater attention to the importance that routinization plays in the logic of professionalism, and provides a more comprehensive explanation as to why the relative salience of inference and routinization varies within and between professional industries over time.

Uncover the thriving supply - demand relationship between professional firms and white-collar criminals in 21st century: perspective from international financial crime

Uncover the thriving supply - demand relationship between professional firms and white-collar criminals in 21st century: perspective from international financial crime

The Root Causes of Steel Construction Shortage in Afghanistan and its Impact on Infrastructural Development: A Comprehensive Study

The construction industry plays a critical role in a country's development, impacting both its aesthetics and economic growth. This industry in Afghanistan has been experiencing a shortage of steel construction that has hindered infrastructural development. The current study aims to identify the root causes of this shortage, its negative impact on infrastructural development, and potential solutions to promote steel construction within the country. A qualitative approach has been adopted through questionnaires and interviews with over 100 licensed-structural engineers and steel manufacturers in major provinces of the country. The findings reveal that the lack of government attention towards the construction industry, the absence of professional firms and engineers, and the dominance of concrete in the construction industry of Afghanistan contribute to the shortage of steel construction. This has had adverse effects on the country's economy and environment. However, promoting steel construction can improve infrastructural development due to its strength, cost effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, versatility, safety, and speed that invite the engineers to create innovative structural designs. The study contributes to the understanding of the challenges faced by the construction industry in Afghanistan and offers practical recommendations for promoting steel construction, which can significantly impact infrastructural development and economic growth. Moreover, the research provides insights into potential policy changes, investment strategies, and educational initiatives that can address the shortage of steel construction and promote sustainable development in the country.

Searching for desirable bodies: How recruiters value physically exertive extracurricular activities for graduate hiring at elite professional firms in China.

The field of research in evaluating and applying Bourdieu's theories has seen growing interests in studying how the formation and effect of cultural capital vary in different contexts and fields. While existing studies have increasingly focussed on evaluating the role of cultural capital in creating educational inequalities in the Chinese context, little is known about how activities and taste are valued in the Chinese labour market. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 73 recruiters in elite professional firms in China, this article presents a study on how recruiters interpret physically exertive extracurricular activities (ECAs) for graduate hiring. It shows that these ECAs were valorised for assessing individual qualities and competences in job interviews, while other cultural activities, leisure or tastes carried little value. The notion of the body appeared central to this valorisation, conferring symbolic value onto physical exertive ECAs. The value of these activities was twofold, serving to convey candidates' possession of physical and embodied capital, which resonated to the normative dimension of elite professional firms. Recruiters thus used these activities to seek new professional bodies consumable for demanding professional work and resonating with the normative discourses of professionalism. This study provides more nuanced understandings of cultural capital in a non-Western context and the role of ECAs in elite hiring. It also contributes to the development of physical and embodied capital by integrating perspective that links the body with labour process and professional control.

Tax Compliance Costs for SMEs: A Survey of Tax Professionals in Ghana on External Cost of Compliance

The study sought to ascertain the magnitude of the external tax compliance costs incurred by SMEs in Ghana from the perspective of the tax professionals who provide the service. Tax professional firms were selected from the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Chartered Institute of Taxation for the study. The study distinguished between the average annual costs for small, medium and larger firms to compute and file returns, deal with tax authorities, implement changes in tax laws, and maintain records for tax purposes on behalf of their clients. The cost was found to be regressive in nature, indicating that the burden was relatively higher for small businesses.

Making Way for Men: The Gendered Processes of Graduate Hiring in Elite Professional Service Firms in China

Extensive research has been conducted on the reproduction of gender inequalities in professional hiring, despite the claim of meritocracy and commitment to equality in professional sectors. While the existing literature highlights the significance of understanding gender inequalities in the context of globalisation of professional firms and their practices, it has predominantly focused on the Anglo-Saxon context. There remains a gap in the literature regarding how gender inequalities are produced in professional hiring in the context of China. Drawing on qualitative material, this study explores the gendered processes of graduate hiring in elite professional firms in China. By applying the perspective of gender practices, this article elucidates how Chinese recruiters construct male favouritism and rig the selection process. The analysis sheds light on the processes that produce gender inequalities and hinder the progress of women in the context of growing competition and lack of support for women’s participation in professional work.

Cartel issues in plain sight

In some product markets suppliers interact with one another only as sellers of one product. In other product markets suppliers are linked beyond one particular product market. Collusion is likely to be more profitable, more stable, and more frequent when a set of collusion-minded firms are linked in various ways.1 Links can be forged by multi-product, multi-national firms in competition across product markets and geographic markets. Links can be forged by the acquisition, assertion, and licensing of patents.2 Links can be forged by professional firms that advise cartel members.3 And links can be forged with contracts that connect prices in one small aspect of a market to prices that impact much larger aspects of that market or even related markets.4 Even though these links can be in plain sight of cartel enforcers, they get insufficient attention. In this article, we explore market linkage and multi-market cartels and suggest reforms to enforcement practices that account for linkage.

The quality of cost accounting systems in manufacturing firms: A literature review

The objective of this research is to review and synthesize the existing literature on the quality of Cost Accounting Systems (CAS) by manufacturing firms. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach was used by adopting (170) articles in this field published from (2015) to (2023) and obtained from the Scopus database. The research found that traditional CAS is the main determinant of manufacturing firms. Therefore, the current research focuses on the quality of CAS, the benefits of the modern quality of CAS, and the challenges and methods of practicing the quality of CAS in manufacturing firms. This review comes to the idea that implementing CAS will enhance the performance of manufacturing firms and will assist with the preparation of various financial statements and decision-making. The results of the research shed light on the importance of the skills that accountants must possess in the current era and what is the role assigned. Thus, the contribution of this research is to provide integrated knowledge about the effects of recent technology innovations on the accountant’s job and skills. Professional firms and regulators consider the findings when reporting on the adaptation of guidelines, policies, and laws for the new environment.

Demystifying learning culture and innovation performance of professional firms in Nigeria

Demystifying learning culture and innovation performance of professional firms in Nigeria

Demystifying learning culture and innovation performance of professional firms in Nigeria

Demystifying learning culture and innovation performance of professional firms in Nigeria

Management of fortuity: Workplace chance events and the career projections of up-or-out professionals

How much control do people have over their career? We explore this question in the context of professional service firms, long thought of as providing predictable, agentic careers in the up-or-out model. Specifically, we seek to understand how chance events in immediate work circumstances are experienced in this context, and the responses they elicit in terms of career construction. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 68 pre-partnership professionals from three large professional firms using the up-or-out promotion system, we find that chance developments in proximate work conditions, especially with respect to key relationships and project allocation, shape the possibilities that professionals see for their careers going forward and the actions they take in response. Even in this seemingly predictable career, being continuously attuned to fortuitous turns of events informs how people enact career agency. It also prompts a heightened awareness of the fragile nature of the up-or-out career path, triggering a gradual reconsideration of career possibilities that includes career confirmation, ambivalence, pivot, and fading. Our study contributes to better understanding the interdependence between context and agency in contemporary careers, highlighting the widespread and consequential role of proximate chance events in people's career construction process.

Educational Success in Transitional China: The Gaokao and Learning Capital in Elite Professional Service Firms

AbstractDespite fruitful findings on the reasons underlying the desire for educational success and scarce credentials among students and families, there is little research on the meaning of educational success in the marketplace. As higher education in China has expanded to aid better-quality growth and the transition to a knowledge-based economy, educational success has become increasingly critical in the allocation of socioeconomic rewards. As such, insights into how educational success and concomitant credentials are valorized are empirically and theoretically significant. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 73 recruiters for elite professional service firms, this study analyses the meanings underlying the process of valorizing educational success and elite credentials. It shows that success in the gaokao, or entry to higher education, was qualitatively salient in excluding candidates, while information about subject domains and marks/class rank carried relatively less weight. Recruiters based the value of educational success on the notion of “learning ability,” which reflected their shared understandings about Chinese educational selection/institutions and wider conditions of elite professional firms. On this basis, this paper argues for the development of learning capital as a new theoretical lens for approaching educational success and credentials in transitional China.

PIPELINE SURVEILLANCE CONTRACTS AND THE EMERGING OIL-RELATED CONFLICTS IN RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA

The award of pipeline surveillance contracts (PSCs) to ex-militant commanders has set the basis for a new wave of on-going conflicts in Rivers State. These lucrative PSCs constitute a new arena of ‘do or die’ struggles between and among ex-militant, cult, gang, vigilante groups, violence business people, community organizations, state actors and politicians. This article examined the effects of these PSCs by Transnational Oil Corporations and government agencies on recurring oil-related conflicts in Rivers State from 2009 – 2021. The Marxian political economy approach was employed to guide data collection and analysis. It relied on secondary data collected from libraries, national/international agencies and internet resources. The contents of the secondary data collected were analyzed to describe how the PSCs to ex-militant leaders have generated on-going armed struggles between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries over the control of oil pipelines in Rivers State. It was observed that the lack of local communities’ partnership in Nigeria’s oil industry necessitated the existence of PSCs to ex-militants as ‘payments for peace’ and to prevent oil sabotage and theft. However, instead of achieving this purpose, existing PSCs have ensued conflicts, pipeline vandalism and oil theft. It was accordingly recommended that, among others: local communities should be involved in pipeline surveillance – they should be given at least 45 % of the PSCs and 55% to professional competent firms. A standing ‘Community-Security Consultative Committee’ comprising all stakeholders should be set up to amicably address and resolve issues.

An Assessment of Exhibited Drivers of Mentoring in Construction Professional Firms: A Case of Nigerian Quantity Surveying Firms

The article assessed the exhibited drivers of mentoring practices in construction professional firms in Nigeria intending to improve how mentoring schemes are implemented in respective construction firms. A survey design was utilised in assessing the level of knowledge, mentoring concept adoption and the exhibited drivers of mentoring relationships in these firms. Quantity surveying firms in Abuja, Nigeria were sampled with a structured questionnaire. Percentage, mean, one-sample t-test and factor analyses were undertaken for the analysis of the data. The study reveals there is a good level of knowledge of mentoring concept but not so much with the adoption in individual firms. This connotes that there is a problem with the adoption of mentoring concept in construction professional firms despite knowledge of the concept by the professionals. Also, the study revealed the exhibited drivers of mentoring practices in construction professional firms. The findings show the exhibited drivers of mentoring practices in construction professional firms and recommendations were proposed to further the adoption and implementation of these drivers to ensure the success of mentoring practices in construction professional firms. This paper reveals the exhibited drivers of mentoring practices in Nigerian construction professional firms and provides areas that require attention for the successful implementation of mentoring schemes in construction firms.

The implications of rating systems on workforce performance

Enhancing workforce performance is the key to success for professional firms. Firms often evaluate workers based on their performance compared with their peers or against an objective standard. Which of these rating systems leads to higher workforce performance? To answer this question, we construct game-theoretic models of two performance rating systems: (i) a Relative rating system where workers compete with each other for a constrained number of high ratings, and (ii) an Absolute rating system where workers are awarded high ratings by performing at or above a standard threshold. We derive the workers’ equilibrium performance as a function of their ability and the characteristics of the rating pool. From a firm’s perspective, we find that an Absolute rating system can lead to higher performance than a Relative rating system when the rating pool size is small or the workers’ cost of effort relative to their efficiency rate is low, and the reverse holds true otherwise. When considering the workers’ perspective, we find that higher ability workers prefer an Absolute system due to its predictable nature, while lower ability workers prefer a Relative system as it provides them an opportunity to outperform other workers.

Appraisal of Awareness and Implementation Levels of Energy Efficiency Design Strategies for Office Buildings in Abuja, Nigeria

Energy efficient buildings are buildings that consume less energy while also maintaining or improving the comfort conditions for their occupants, compared to the normal building type. Such buildings result not only in less negative impact on the environment, but are economically sustainable and resilient. This study investigated the extent to which building professional firms in Abuja, Nigeria are aware and implement the different energy efficiency design strategies available for deployment in office buildings, in order to ascertain the current level of knowledge and implementation of the strategies within the building industry in the study area. A structured questionnaire was used to gather data from 80 professionals drawn from architectural and engineering firms involved in the design of office buildings in the study area. The data were analysed by descriptive statistics and the results indicate that both the awareness and implementation levels of energy efficiency design strategies by the firms are high. Whereas most (78%) of the respondents are aware of the various energy efficiency design strategies employed in office building designs, few (22%) of them have little or no knowledge of the strategies investigated. On the implementation level, majority (69%) of the participants recorded a high rate, while few (31%) recorded a low rate. The study also found that the strategies the firms are mostly aware of are site planning, natural ventilation and building orientation. Whereas, the three most adopted strategies among the strategies investigated are: building plan and space organisation; site planning and building orientation. Among the recommendations of the study is that relevant stakeholders of the building industry in the country, should provide platforms from time to time for promoting the benefits of energy efficiency design strategies in the country, in order to maintain the high level of understanding and deployment of the strategies by the building professionals that currently exist in the study area. This is envisaged to ultimately lead to curtailing the adverse effects of global warming on the environment in the long run.

Computation and Learning Partnerships: Lessons from Wood Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Integration

Examining an interdisciplinary university course for architecture, wood science, and engineering students, this paper studies how the students’ ability to master digital workflows influenced their success in learning collaborative design skills. It highlights potential challenges and opportunities posed by the introduction of new digital tools to support emerging integrated building design in both education and professional practice. The particular course focuses on the wood industry, which is rapidly changing from a very traditional to a highly innovative sector and increasingly embracing the latest technological developments in computational design, simulation, and digital fabrication. This study explores the influence of parametric design on collaboration dynamics and workflow within an interdisciplinary group of students embodying the roles of manufacturer, engineer, and architect. Student-generated data of the first three years of the class is analyzed thematically to find correlations with productive collaborations. Focusing on a stage of an evolving teaching and learning process, this analysis allows identifications of common themes and patterns, suggesting implications for practice and future research. The course highlights the need to integrate data interoperability, collaboration skill-building, and material awareness in contemporary digitally enabled architecture, engineering, and construction education. The lessons learned in this course can be of value to academic programs and professional firms involved in incorporating digital design and interdisciplinary collaboration.

The Influence of Professional Human Resource and Firm Infrastructure towards Supply Chain Performance

The Influence of Professional Human Resource and Firm Infrastructure towards Supply Chain Performance

The National Council of Acoustical Consultants—A community held to high standards with gratitude to Bill Cavanaugh

The National Council of Acoustical Consultants (NCAC), founded in 1962, is an international organization of professional firms that specialize in acoustical consulting based upon education, references, and proven experience. All members must adhere to a strong Canon of Ethics supporting the highest standards of business practice, technical consulting, and client service. This presentation will quickly explore some of its history, discuss its recent activities supporting and promoting the profession, and share its outlook. Bill Cavanaugh was vital to its founding, growth, and prestige. His contributions will be discussed.