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...

Research on mergers and acquisitions focuses almost exclusively on manufacturing and retail services firms. Professional services firms (PSFs) have been largely ignored, yet they present a distinctive managerial challenge. In PSFs, the key value-creating resources (technical knowledge and client...

Accountants, lawyers, consultants and advertising agents have all been merging as their clients demand global and diversified services from their professional advisors. This article reports on a three-year study of three such mergers. Notwithstanding the widespread belief that business now moves...

This handbook discusses firms providing services in the traditional professions such as law, accounting, and architecture, as well as newer sectors such as management consulting, advertising, and engineering. It provides a critical overview of contemporary research on the professional service...