
Johan Alvehus
Professor

Financialization as a strategy of workplace control in professional service firms
Författare
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.
Avdelning/ar
- Institutionen för tjänstevetenskap
Publiceringsår
2012
Språk
Engelska
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Critical Perspectives on Accounting
Volym
23
Issue
497-510
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Academic Press
Ämne
- Other Social Sciences
Nyckelord
- Professional control Financialization Performance management Professional service firm
Aktiv
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1045-2354