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Johan Alvehus.

Johan Alvehus

Professor

Johan Alvehus.

Financialization as a strategy of workplace control in professional service firms

Author

  • Johan Alvehus
  • André Spicer

Summary, in English

Recently, there has been an increased focus on finance as a form of control in corporations. In this paper, we explore financialization as an employee control strategy in a Big Four accountancy firm, and more specifically how it affects the everyday lives of the professionals within the firm. We found financialization involved attempts to transform employees work- ing lives into an investment activity where work was experienced as ‘billable hours’ that are ‘invested’ in the hope of a high future pay-off. Employees sought to increase the value of their investment by skilful manipulation. If wisely managed, this investment could yield significant benefits in the future. We argue that financialization involves active employee participation and is a way of binding other forms of control together.

Department/s

  • Department of Service Studies

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Publication/Series

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

Volume

23

Issue

497-510

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • Professional control Financialization Performance management Professional service firm

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1045-2354