The Practice and spatiality of professionalization: Reproducing the role of executive search in elit

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The Practice and spatiality of professionalization
(Re)producing the role of executive search in
elite labour recruitment in Europe

• James Faulconbridge
• Lancaster University
• Sarah Hall Jonathan Beaverstock
• Nottingham University

Acknowledgement This paper is based on work
completed as part of the ESRC project
RES-000- 22-1498 The globalization of the
executive search industry in Europe''.
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Introduction headhunters and their globalization
Source The Executive Grapevine (2007)
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Source Beaverstock et al (2006)
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Source Beaverstock et al (2006)
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Conceptualising globalization

• Supply demand globalization
• The off-limits rule
• Market-making

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Outline

• Professionalization political and cultural
  strategies
• Empirical analysis professionalization in
  executive search
• Conclusions The importance of geographical
  sensitivity in professionalization strategise

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Professionalization I
Political-economy approaches (e.g. Abbott, 1988
MacDonald, 1995)
Legal closure (via the state)
Social closure
National professional associations
Universities
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Professionalization II

• Under scrutiny (Abbott, 1988 Johnson, 1972)
• Reinvented

Reproducing political-economic approaches
Reinvention Cultural-economy approaches
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Reproducing political-economy approaches
See Fincham, 2006 Hodgson, 2007 McKenna, 2006
A codified knowledge base
A complex knowledge base
Ethics trust
Technical business challenges
Risk reduction
PMBOK
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Reinvention cultural economy approaches

• From professionalization to performative
  discourses of professionalism (Evetts, 2003
  Fournier, 1999)
• Creation of an ideal-type professional citizen
  embodying
• Technical skills
• Professional persona
• commercialised professionalism (Hodgson, 2007)

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Reinvention cultural economy approaches
Professionalism and reproducing markets for PSFs
Normalise customer expectations
Inscribe models of work
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Professionalization take I political economy
the professional association

• Association of Executive Search Consultants
  (AESC) founded in 1959
• AESC mission
• is to promote the highest professional
  standards in retained executive search
  consulting, broaden public understanding of the
  executive search process, and serve as an
  advocate for the interests of its member firms

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Professionalization take I political economy
the professional association

• Creation of headhunting as a profession distinct
  from other labour market intermediaries
• the industry was suffering from a reputation
  and image. Clearly you dont have an article
  everyday of the week in the FT, you do once in a
  while, especially in Europe when a search has
  gone wrong. In trying to be visible and coming
  out of the closet, search was not transparent,
  done behind doors, members of the AESC were more
  belonging to a club, you know a mens club an old
  mens club.

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Professionalization take I political economy
the professional association

• AESC focuses on closure through regulatory
  devices
• Key principles of traditional
  professionalization rather than legal regulatory
  closure.

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1. Closure through registration

• Member firm accept AESC code of ethics and
  professional practice guidelines
• Client and candidate bills of rights
• Ethical rather than knowledge base form of
  closure
• But
• (i) Operates at firm rather than individual level
• We are part of the AESC and they have a code of
  conduct etc etc. I think their code of conduct is
  somewhat below what we would think ours would be
  so it is a very minimal requirement. I think that
  will be the same for most of the reputable search
  firms (London, 7)

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1. Closure through registration

• (ii) Ambivalence towards AESC membership
• All the big search firms except Egon Zehnder
  are members of the AESC, it is handy but not
  more than that, it is handy in the sense that
  they provide you with some inside information
  on the industry itself, there is information on
  how your competitors are doing, market
  intelligence, they help you in providing training
  programmes for researchers, it is easy to do
  that via the AESC but it is not more than that
  (Amsterdam 5)

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1. Closure through registration

• (iii) Exclusion of members rarely carried out
• I have heard of a case that happened last year
  where there was a consultant faked some
  references and the AESC was not aware of it at
  all I just heard of it through the firms and the
  result was that the consultant who was a women,
  she was well known in the market place was fired
  within 2 days.

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2. Closure through training and formalized
knowledge-base

• Not a simple task
• if you divorce that from the practical aspects
  of certification, lets say for argument that you
  cannot become a search consultant unless you have
  met the equivalent of an MBA, you have worked 10
  years in industry at general manager level, so if
  you tied it down very tightly and said that is
  the body of professionalism you need to
  demonstrate, would that be good for the business,
  I think it would be no question that it would be
  good but putting that all together and all
  agreeing this is what is needed is not where we
  are at the moment

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2. Closure through training and formalized
knowledge-base

• Fuzzy knowledge base
• Rely on work experience e.g. AESC Certified
  Researcher/Associate Program
• there are no qualifications, there is no
  regulation with headhunting you dont
  have any qualifications yourself as a headhunter.
  I dont know how youd do it, what the hell you
  would test somebody on, maybe it is interviewing
  skillsand I wouldnt mind it because it would
  separate the weak from the chaff well I have
  a business card, thats it there is no other
  qualification required for this job (Researcher,
  London).

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Professionalization and internationalization

• AESC focusses on Anglo-American approaches to
  professionalization despite the
  internationalization of headhunting
• Transnational rather than national regulatory
  body
• Variable geographical engagement with the AESC

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Professionalization take II cultural economy and
the firm

• Market-making and educating the client
• Two symbiotic discourses of professionalization
• Market-making and persuasion
• Producing the model headhunter

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1. Creating market legitimacy

• Selling an accepted form of labour market
  intermediation
• No longer poachers, but objective actors and
  scientifically rigorous
• Formalised search techniques databases, client
  profiling professional service
• Self-legitimization and place-specific marketers

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1. Creating market legitimacy

• But, more importantly on a search methodology
  called method x, which we stole from GE, with
  super sigma and the quality measures that they
  use for production in manufacturing and things
  like that and we basically have a number of
  quality audits that we can leverage globally
  (London, researcher 2).
• in Holland professional services are much
  more appreciated and paid for than in Belgium
  because it is smaller here it is not as
  professional here but in order to compete you
  have to become in your management processes more
  and more professional therefore the choices of
  people have to be made in a more professional way
  and you have to justify it to your board how you
  got this person, so it is all part of detaching
  from the local market and professionalizing your
  management processes (Brussels, consultant 4)

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2. Legitimising the model headhunter

• Professionalism used to (re)produce working
  practice manage distanciated offices
• Role-models and career progression
• Iconic or pioneering headhunters creating
  best practice for others to mimic
• Subtle educating of both the client and
  candidate
• Manipulation of the media

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2. Legitimising the model headhunter

• if you do multi-country search, you need to be
  able to rely on your partners a lot, you need to
  ensure that they provide the same quality as you
  do, it is very important to make sure if there is
  cross-border research or work referred to other
  countries, that you can be sure they conduct the
  research in a proper and professional way
  (Amsterdam, Consultant 5).
• When I started I was the personal assistant to
  Mr Russell Reynolds in New York who founded the
  headhunting firm Russell Reynolds he wanted to
  prove we were or we are a consulting business
  like every other in 25 years Ive never made a
  single phone call asking for business, but this
  is the pure training of Mr Reynolds who felt that
  in this business you dont need to ask for work
  otherwise you are doing something wrong (Paris,
  Consultant 1)

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Conclusions

• The political economy approach
• The cultural economy approach
• The in-betweeness between political and
  cultural economy
• Penetration into emerging markets??