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Purpose – David Gordon (1996) contended that the size of the managerial/administrative class has expanded in recent decades and that this has contributed to growing earnings inequality. This argument, however, has received insufficient attention despite its potential to explain some of the growth of earnings inequality in recent decades. We assess whether managerial intensity contributes to earnings inequality in affluent democracies, and thus evaluate his argument and extend it with a comparative perspective.

Methodology/approach – Our analyses are based on panel analyses of 17 affluent democracies from 1973 to 2004. Utilizing random- and fixed-effects models, we include three different measures of earnings inequality and an original measure of managerial intensity.

Findings: We show that managerial intensity is positively associated with all three measures of earnings inequality in random-effects models. As well, managerial intensity is positively associated with earnings inequality in the fixed-effects models for the 90/50 ratio of earnings inequality, but is not significant for the other two measures.

Originality/value – This study provides one of the few tests of Gordon's argument. We demonstrate that growing managerial intensity has contributed to rising earnings inequality in affluent democracies. In contrast to previous research, we argue that much of the rise of earnings inequality is due to political/institutional factors rather than labor market and demographic change. One of the reasons for Europe's relatively lower level of and slower increase in earnings inequality is its lower managerial intensity.

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.

The social organization of work has become more entrepreneurial and less bureaucratic over the past 20 years. How is this development consistent with managerial control over the labor process? This paper develops a professional autonomy perspective to explain the acceptance of new management ideas in the United States, including the recent turn away from bureaucratic organizational forms. The focus on professional autonomy helps to create a theoretical link between past and current managerial practices, including the latest anti-bureaucratic phase that we label neoentrepreneurialism. We conclude by exploring future research implications of studying managerial practice from a professional autonomy perspective.

The paper aims to argue that US colleges and universities resemble a “leaning tower” with ever expanding layers of administrators and managers who control and dominate university life. This set of institutional changes has altered the way that college administrators are recruited.

The paper uses recent developments in institutional theories of organisations to explain the changing environment facing US colleges and universities and the role that college administrators play in this environment. The paper matches data from a sample of administrative positions advertised in the 2004‐2005 Careers section of the Chronicle of Higher Education with web‐based data on incumbents subsequently hired for each position. These data are supplemented with aggregate statistics provided by the Chronicle and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Results suggest that only a small number of administrative positions advertised involve academic appointments with tenure and that the educational qualifications advertised span a surprisingly wide spectrum of credentials other than academic PhD's. Ethnically underrepresented groups and women are most likely to hold jobs requiring PhD's while whites and men occupy most of the positions where qualifications are ambiguous or classic academic qualifications are not called for.

The paper is the first to discuss the growing distinctive labour market for college administrators while providing preliminary data on the diversity effects of this labour market.

Beginning in 1982, the majority of college students have been women and that majority has increased since. Explanations for the predominance of women in college enrollments and completion include a variety of labor-market factors that might now advantage men less than in the past. Avariety of labor-market analyses show that, while some recent developments may have reduced incentives for men to enroll in college, labor-market explanations alone cannot account for the predominance of women in college. Some of the reduced incentives for male college enrollment point to gender identities typical of young men and women as an important explanation for the predominance of women in college. Preliminary evidence for the gender identity explanation is offered. More controlled studies capable of testing and exploring the implications of the gender identity explanation are proposed.