Managing knowledge integration: Balancing professional and managerial logics in an engineering consulting firm
Journal article, 2015

Integrating professional expertise in professional service firms (PSFs) is a key strategic challenge in the contemporary economy and individual firms. Previous research has pointed out that the governance of key aspects of PSFs, including knowledge integration, is shifting from a professional to a managerial logic, a shift that is often pictured as conflict laden based on the incompatibility of the two logics. Based on a study of knowledge integration in an engineering consulting firm, the current paper shows how managerial and professional logics interplay in shaping knowledge integration practices. We identify both aspects in which the logics reinforce each other in enabling knowledge integration and tensions that threaten knowledge integration. We conclude that the professional logic is a key driver of knowledge integration, but that the managerial logic, including its formal HR practices, may support knowledge integration through secondary effects if applied in a thoughtful way.

Knowledge integration

Knowledge management

Professional services

Institutional logics

HR practices

Author

Susanne Ollila

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Entrepreneurship and Strategy

Alexander Styhre

University of Gothenburg

Andreas Werr

School of Business, Economics and Law

Zeitschrift für Personalforschung

0179-6437 (ISSN)

Vol. 29 2 131-148

Driving Forces

Innovation and entrepreneurship

Subject Categories

Business Administration

DOI

10.1688/ZfP-2015-02-Ollila

More information

Created

10/7/2017