Markets, Institutions, and the Crisis of Professional Practice

We identify three key areas of change in the context of professional services. First, is the increasing demographic diversity and growing income inequality within professions; second, is the emergence of neo-liberal ideologies that challenge traditional professional norms; third, is the emergence of management consulting as a distinct occupational group with professional aspirations. We argue that these trends have produced an environment in which the delivery of professional business services has become disembedded from its institutional context of professionalism. We speculate about the possibility of the re-emergence of professionalism as a distinct logic of authority and control for professional service organizations.