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Little attention has been given in the literature to operating decisions in professional service organisations. A better understanding of the power relationships within a professional service organisation provides insight into the way these decisions are made. A model is proposed which categorises professional service organisations according to the relative power of the major stakeholders: professionals within the organisation; clients; and top management. The major factors which affect each of these are discussed.

The aim of this study is to empirically explore and analyze the concrete tasks of output measurement and the inherent challenges related to these tasks in a traditional and autonomous professional public work setting – the judicial system.

The analysis of the tasks is based on a categorization of general performance measurement motives (control-motivate-learn) and main stakeholder levels (society-organization-professionals). The analysis is exploratory and conducted as an empirical content analysis on materials and reports produced in two performance improvement projects conducted in European justice organizations.

The identified main tasks in the different categories are related to managing resources, controlling performance deviations, and encouraging improvement and development of performance. Based on the results, key improvement areas connected to output measurement in professional public organizations are connected to the improvement of objectivity and fairness in budgeting and work allocation practices, improvement of output measures' versatility and informativeness to highlight motivational and learning purposes, improvement of professional self-management in setting output targets and producing outputs, as well as improvement of organizational learning from the output measurement.

The paper presents empirically founded practical examples of challenges and improvement opportunities related to the tasks of output measurement in professional public organization.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how general performance management motives realize as concrete tasks of output measurement in justice organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the structure of effective knowledge sharing networks in professional organizations.

A literature review is performed to achieve the purpose. This article integrates two streams of literature: related to knowledge network structure and related to professional complex systems, to gain insight into the structure of effective knowledge sharing networks in professional complex systems. This preliminary theoretical framework is then used to put forth strategies for knowledge management and collective learning in professional organizations.

An analysis of knowledge networks and complex systems literatures suggests that effective knowledge sharing networks in complex systems may be richer in density compared to brokerage. However, integrating this analysis with the literature on professional organizations, including “subgoals” theory, suggests that the reverse may be true in professional complex systems, i.e. that effective knowledge sharing networks in professional complex systems may be richer in brokerage and hierarchy, rather than in density.

The paper provides a foundation for future research avenues in the professional organizational context. For instance the framework could be used to explore effective knowledge sharing structures across professional subgroups and hierarchical levels in a hospital context; and across faculty, staff, and administrators in a college/university context.

A key implication is that, in order to enable collective learning in professional organizations, senior executives must make proactive and unceasing efforts to: coordinate knowledge exchange across professional subgroups; create cognitive linkages between subgroup actions and organizational outcomes; and connect professional subgroups with the changing external environment.

The theoretical framework lays a foundation for addressing the gap in the literature related to knowledge creation and collective learning in professional organizations.

The knowledge of inhibitors of internal customer knowledge transfer in b‐to‐b professional service organizations is still in its infancy. Previous literature on professional service organizations has focused on knowledge processes on a general level without paying closer attention to inhibitors of internal knowledge transfer. This study aims to contribute by increasing the knowledge of various inhibitors of customer‐related knowledge transfer and their influence on customer‐related knowledge utilization in collaborative customer relationships.

The present empirical article is based on a case study of two professional service organizations in the field of business‐to‐business education and consultancy services. An in‐depth analysis of organizations developing collaborative relationships was conducted.

This paper shows that internal fragmentation seems to be inherent in this type of organization, and may cause many problems in customer‐related knowledge transfer among individuals, collegial groups and hierarchical levels in a professional service organization. All these problems in collective knowledge utilization influence both the service offering creation and general relationship coordination in the collaborative relationship.

This paper provides managerial suggestions for how to deal with the inhibitors of customer knowledge transfer. This includes developing unified goals, strengthening cultural cohesion and cooperation in the organization, building forums of dialogue between individuals and subgroups, and structuring relationship coordination systems (i.e. key account management systems), keeping customer‐related knowledge transfer in mind.

This study aims, first, to explore and analyze if and how organizational members’ professions or occupations influence perceptions of internal crisis communication. The second, related, aim is to discuss the role of internal communication in creating a strong organizational identity during a prolonged crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study is mainly conceptual but uses quantitative data from a survey conducted in a health-care organization in late 2020 to illustrate the theoretical reasoning.

The results show that the administrative groups perceive factors in the internal crisis communication more favorably than the professional groups. The study suggests that organizational members perceive internal crisis communication differently depending on which intra-organizational group they belong to. This further points to the absence of a “rally-around-the-flag” effect and highlights the importance of working proactively with professionals and in internal crisis communication.

This study highlights the role of professionals in crisis communication, which is an aspect that so far has been ignored. The internal professionalization processes and an intriguing power struggle between professions have obvious consequences for crisis communication. As shown in the overview of earlier research on internal communication, leadership and professional organizations, the prerequisites for creating an increased organizational unity among coworkers are challenging. The idea that a crisis may, as in certain political situations in society, create a “rally-around-the-flag” effect is still relevant, even if the case study is an example of how this did not happen.

The management of professional organizations, such as management consultancies, audit companies, legal firms, training, educational and research institutes, automation consultancies, organizations in health care, and professional staff departments in organizations, can encounter several problems when it wants to organize the quality management of the professional services better and more systematically. Distinguishes four problems and discusses (1) determining quality norms; (2) developing a quality management methodology which fits the specific character of the professional organization; (3) demonstrating quality; (4) developing organizational quality management next to the individual professional quality management which usually already exists. Discusses the concepts of quality management, professional services, quality and professional quality. Works out the four quality management problems and suggests solutions.

This paper seeks to develop a mid-range theory of how change recipient sensemaking processes affect the realization of strategic flexibility during simultaneous change in professional service firms.

The research presented is based on an exploratory embedded case study adopting a qualitative interpretive methodology, conducted at a professional service organization. A sensemaking lens was adopted in order to study organizational change processes. Data was collected through semi-structured open-ended in-depth interviews, and analyzed using first and second order analysis, inspired by the methodology used by Corley and Gioia (2004).

We identified four determinants of change recipient sensemaking: professional identification, dominant organizational discourse, equivocality of expectations, and cross-understanding between thought worlds. Case findings indicate that cognitive and affective dimensions of change recipient sensemaking are strongly interwoven in their effect on realizing strategic flexibility.

We contribute to the competence-based strategic management literature by introducing the concept of change recipient sensemaking in understanding the realization of strategic flexibility; by identifying four major determinants in a context of simultaneous change in a professional service organization; and by highlighting the interwoven and mutually reinforcing cognitive and affective dimensions of professional’s process of constructing meaning.

This purpose of this study is to understand how the spread of audit culture and the related public sector reforms have affected Finnish universities’ organization principles, performance measurement (PM) criteria and ultimately their reason for being.

Applying extensive qualitative data by combining interview data with document materials, this study takes a longitudinal perspective toward the changing Finnish higher education field.

The analysis suggests the reforms have altered universities’ administrative structures, planning and control systems, coordination mechanisms and the role of staff units, as well as the allocation of power and thus challenged their reason for being. Power has become concentrated into the hands of formal managers, while operational core professionals have been distanced from decision making. Efficiency in terms of financial and performance indicators has become a coordinating principle of university organizations, and PM practices are used to steer the work of professionals. Because of the reforms, universities have moved away from the ideal type of professional bureaucracy and begun resembling the new, emerging ideal type of competitive bureaucracy.

This study builds on rich, real-life, longitudinal empirical material and details a chronological description of the changes in Finland’s university sector. Moreover, it illustrates how the spread of audit culture and the related legislative changes have transformed the ideal type of university organization and challenged universities’ reason for being. These changes entail significant consequences regarding universities as organizations and their role in society.

The problems of One‐Man‐Bands (OMBs) began to be taken seriously in the early 1980s when the Aslib OMB group was formed. The group received considerable attention in the professional press, and became the object of a study by Judith Collins and Janet Shuter who identified them as “information professionals working in isolation”. Many of the problems identified in the Collins/Shuter study remain — not least of these being the further education and training needs of OMBs. These needs are studied in this report. The author has firstly done an extensive survey of the literature to find what has been written about this branch of the profession. Then by means of a questionnaire sent to the Aslib OMB group and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (INVOG), training and education needs have been pinpointed. Some of these needs have then been explored in greater detail by means of case studies. The author found that the most common deterrents to continuing education and training were time, cost, location, finding suitable courses to cover the large variety of skills needed and lastly, lack of encouragement from employers. The author has concluded by recommending areas where further research is needed, and suggesting some solutions to the problems discussed.

An extensive literature has been devoted to defining and analysing the unique qualities of professional occupations. Professionals are usually thought of, both by themselves and the general public, as independent practitioners working in private practice and therefore following different patterns of work and different values or standards from those of people employed by organisations.