Professionals with borders

The relationship between mobility and transnationalism in global firms

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8945285
AutoresCrawford Spence (0000-0001-7290-244X, King's College London, autor de correspondencia), Andrew Sturdy (0000-0002-7130-6088, University of Bristol), Chris Carter (0000-0002-6391-362X)
Año2018
Volumen91
Páginas235-244
Fecha de publicación2018-03-21
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGeoforum (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0016-7185 • E-ISSN: 1872-9398
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.03.012
OpenAlexW2790051450
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas57

Recent claims assert that the transnational has displaced the national in importance vis-à-vis the governance of international professional organizations. Crucial to such claims are assumptions about rising geographical mobilityandtheemergenceofcosmopolitanprofessionalswhoareincreasinglydetachedfromnationalprofessional regimes and contexts. We interrogate claims about the importance of transnational spaces through a crossnational study of global professional service firms in 12 countries. Our study demonstrates how the imperatives of client service, the locally rooted nature of social capital and cultural barriers all contrive to limit the ability and necessity of professionals to move across borders in their work and the pursuit of successful careers. The vitality of transnational firms appears to depend on professionals who are, for the most part, locally groomed – professionals with borders - who may only experience one short period of limited geographical mobility, usually early in their careers. Where transnational mobility is in evidence, it tends to take a more virtual than physical form. These results temper arguments about the rise and, certainly, extent of, physical mobility among elite employees of global professional service firms and, in turn, about the extent to which the transnational has supplanted the national as the most important frame of reference for professional organization. Rather, they support views that see the transnational and local as co-existing and interconnected

Business · Capital (architecture · Corporate governance · Elite · Political science · Politics · Professional services · Public relations · Service (business · Sociology · Transnationalism · Vitality · Work (physics · International Student and Expatriate Challenges · Law · Marketing · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Social Capital and Networks