Publications

Educators

During times of economic turbulence, consulting, law, and accounting firms often start offering services and taking on clients they really shouldn’t, just to keep the lights on. This path is perilous. If a firm’s practices have a diffuse mix of clients and unclear... View Details

October 2004 (Revised July 2006)
Background Note

Ownership Structure in Professional Service Firms: Partnership versus Public Corporation

By: Ashish Nanda

This case reviews the relative merits of partnership and public ownership structures in professional services firms. It also evaluates the various rationales for converting partnership professional services firms to publicly owned firms. Finally, the case highlights... View Details

Keywords: Private Ownership; Transition; Partners and Partnerships; Public Ownership; Service Industry

Educators

March 2011
Article

Accounting Scholarship That Advances Professional Knowledge and Practice

By: Robert S. Kaplan

Recent accounting scholarship has used statistical analysis on asset prices, financial reports and disclosures, laboratory experiments, and surveys of practice. The research has studied the interface among accounting information, capital markets, standard setters, and... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Disclosure; Asset Pricing; Risk Management; Surveys; Capital Markets; Measurement and Metrics; Valuation; Fair Value Accounting; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Financial Reporting

Article

Guarantees Come to Professional Service Firms

By: Leonard A. Schlesinger, Christopher L. Hart and Dan Maher

March 2005
Supplement

Staffing in Professional Service Firms (CW)

By: Ashish Nanda

November 1986
Supplement

Anaquest: The Professional Services Group, Video

2007
Other Unpublished Work

Professional Service Firms: A Breed Apart

By: John J. Gabarro, Thomas J. DeLong and Robert Lees

Keywords: Service Operations; Service Industry

09 Jun 2022
Video

Welcome to Career & Professional Development

2007
Book

When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance

By: Thomas J. DeLong, John J. Gabarro and Robert Lees

For too long, professional services firms (PSFs) have relied on the "producer-manager" model, which works well in uncomplicated business environments. However, today's managing directors must balance conflicting roles, more demanding clients, tougher competitors, and... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Management Practices and Processes; Service Operations; Performance Effectiveness; Strategy

01 Jun 2000
News

Business Suits You: Experimenting with Professional Identity

Role-playing is not just for the psychiatrist's couch or the acting student, according to new research by HBS professor Herminia M. Ibarra. In studying how junior professionals learn the skills required to move into senior roles, Ibarra... View Details

01 Jan 2009
Conference Presentation

The Current State of Professional Service Firms

By: Thomas J. DeLong

Keywords: Business Ventures

October 2020
Background Note

Developmental Relationships

By: Ting Zhang and Leslie A. Perlow

This background note introduces readers to a new framework--the ASCEND model--through which individuals can view their professional developmental relationships. View Details

Keywords: Professional Development; Relationships; Framework; Personal Development and Career

Educators

2013
Article

Inflated Applicants: Attribution Errors in Performance Evaluation by Professionals

By: S. A. Swift, D. Moore, Z. Sharek and F. Gino

When explaining others' behaviors, achievements, and failures, it is common for people to attribute too much influence to disposition and too little influence to structural and situational factors. We examine whether this tendency leads even experienced professionals... View Details

Keywords: Evaluations; Correspondence Bias; Selection Decisions; Attribution; Prejudice and Bias; Selection and Staffing; Decision Choices and Conditions; Performance Evaluation; Cognition and Thinking