Over the past three decades the Professional Service Firm (PSF) sector has emerged as one of the most rapidly growing, profitable, and significant in the global economy. In 2013 the accountancy, management consulting, legal, and architectural sectors alone generated revenues of US$ 1.6 trillion and employed 14 million people.

PSFs play an important role in developing human capital, creating innovative business services, reshaping government institutions, establishing and interpreting the rules of financial markets, and setting legal, accounting and other professional standards. The study of PSFs can offer insights into the contemporary challenges facing organizations within the knowledge economy, and deepen understanding of more conventional organizations. Despite their significance, however, PSFs have until recently remained very much in the shadows of organizational and management research.

The Oxford Handbook of Professional Service Firms marks the coming of age of PSF scholarship with a comprehensive and integrative exploration of current research and thinking on PSFs, featuring contributions from internationally renowned scholars in the fields of organizational and management studies. It is divided into three distinct sections - the professions, the firms, and the professionals that work within them - and covers subjects from governance and leadership to regulation, entrepreneurship, and diversity.

Bringing together a broad range of empirical and theoretical perspectives, the Handbook offers many potentially important insights into the contemporary challenges of organizations in the knowledge economy and suggests new lines of inquiry that may shed further light on the activities and performance of PSFs and the professionals who work within them.

About the Author:
Laura Empson is Professor in the Management of Professional Service Firms at Cass Business School, London, and Director of the Cass Centre for Professional Service Firms. Her current research focuses on leadership dynamics in PSFs and is funded by a major grant from the ESRC. Her previous ESRC-funded study was of changing forms of governance in PSFs. Her research into PSFs has also covered themes such as: mergers and acquisitions, professionalisation of management, organizational and individual identity, knowledge and diversity management. She is also an Independent Non-Executive of KPMG LLP. In 2013 she was selected to be the Financial Times Professor of the Week.

Joe Broschak is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management and Organizations and the Interim Executive Director of the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Arizona, Eller College of Management. He also holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Sociology. He has a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Texas at Austin. Joe's research revolves around two topics in organization theory. One is the structure of organizations and the other is the dynamics of markets. Joe's research has been published in a variety of management and sociology journals and he currently serves on the editorial boards of Administrative Science Quarterly and the Academy of Management Journal.

Bob Hinings has carried out research on professional organizations, health care organizations and the wine industry. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of the U.S. Academy of Management and an Honorary Member of the European Group for Organizational Studies. He has received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Organization and Management Theory Division of the U.S. Academy of Management and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Montreal. He is a Research Fellow at the Judge School of Business, University of Cambridge.

Daniel Muzio is Professor of Professions and Organization at Newcastle University. Before joining Newcastle University in 2013, Daniel held a Chair in Leadership and Organization in Manchester Business School. Previously he held academic positions at the Univeristy of Leeds and Lancaster University where he completed his ESRC funded PhD (and Post Doc) in Management in 2004. Daniel holds a law degree and an MA in Organizational Analysis and Behaviour, both from Lancaster University. Daniel holds visiting positions at Manchester Business School and Cass Business School, City Univeristy in London. He has also been a visiting professor at Luiss Guido Carli in Rome and the International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Onati, Spain. His research focuses on professions and knowledge workers, their work, management and organization. This is informed by a number of theoretical perspectives including: institutional theory, labour process theory, and neo-weberian perspectives.