The emergence of online platforms for professional services (e.g., cosmetic procedures) represents a natural progression of e-commerce from search and experience goods to credence goods. Due to the deeply consequential nature of professional services and the large information asymmetries between...

Professional service firms (PSFs) such as management consulting, law, accounting, investment banking, architecture, advertising and home-repair companies provide services for complicated turnkey projects. The firm bids for a project and, if successful in the bid, assigns employees to work on the...

"Occupational licensure, including regulation of the professions, dates back to the medieval period. While the guilds that performed this regulatory function have long since vanished, professional regulation continues to this day. For instance, in the United States, 22 percent of American...

"For a widely dreaded, mundane task, organizing one's possessions has taken a surprising hold on our cultural imagination. For those with enough means and/or desperation, there are people who can be hired to help declutter. Here Carrie M. Lane introduces us to the world of professional...

The regulation of occupations is widespread, extending beyond the liberal professions, such as lawyers and engineers, to a broader set of other economic activities. Competition authorities have long been active in improving competition in these markets, both through enforcement action and by...

This paper explores the origins and effects of occupational licensing regulation in late nineteenth and early twentieth century America. Was licensing regulation introduced to limit competition in the market for professional services at the expense of efficiency? Or was licensing adopted to...

With recent developments in digital disruptions, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has included digital policies which involve the use of digital financial services, transport services, tourism services and business services in the AfCFTA Protocol on Trade in Services. In the wake...

Professional services form an important part of the UK economy. Their role is even bigger if their contribution to other key sectors, such as financial services, is taken into consideration. This working paper focuses on the provision of professional services between the EU and the UK under the...

Problem Definition: We explore how to design professional services in markets that cater to customers with differential usage capabilities. Professional customers avail the service and tailor it to their use, whereas amateur customers, lacking the relevant expertise, obtain the service through a...

Firms have discretion over task allocations, which may dampen employees' career prospects, and, hence, motivation. Task assignments and worker motivation interact through the extent of labor market competition; that is, the possibility of moving to another firm. More competition enhances...

In recent decades, numerous professional service firms have gone ‘global’ in search of new markets and to support clients requiring services across nations. Whilst a lively debate has developed over the organizational implications of this phenomenon, the role of the firms in globalizing the...

The literature on organizational learning asserts that external learning is often limited geographically and technologically. We scrutinize to what extent organizations acquire external knowledge by accessing external knowledge repositories. We argue that professional service firms (PSFs) grant...

This article explores the work and career of law firm partners in the context of a financialised organisational regime, highlighting the effects of performance measures and metrics on the ways partners see themselves and their careers. The empirical analysis reveals a sense of fear and anxiety...

This paper shows that evidence form existing research results on positive trade effects of a more homogeneous professional regulation cannot be transferred without restrictions to intra-European trade with professional services in the sectors of accounting, architectural, engineering and legal...