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Item Type:Journal Article
Title: New career models in UK professional service firms: from up-or-out to up-and-going-nowhere?
Author: Malhotra, Namrata
Author: Morris, Timothy
Author: Smets, Michael
Abstract: In this paper, we empirically examine how professional service firms are adapting their promotion and career models to new market and institutional pressures, without losing the benefits of the traditional up-or-out tournament. Based on an in-depth qualitative study of 10 large UK based law firms we find that most of these firms do not have a formal up-or-out policy but that the up-or-out rule operates in practice. We also find that most firms have introduced alternative roles and a novel career policy that offers a holistic learning and development deal to associates without any expectation that unsuccessful candidates for promotion to partner should quit the firm. While this policy and the new roles formally contradict the principle of up-or-out by creating permanent non-partner positions, in practice they coexist. We conclude that the motivational power of the up-or-out tournament remains intact, notwithstanding the changes to the internal labour market structure of these professional service firms.
URL http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585192.2010.488436#.UZ3_k5wQP8g
Volume 21
Issue 9
Pages 1396–1413
Publication The International Journal of Human Resource Management
Date 2010-00-00 2010