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Financialization as a strategy of workplace control in professional service firms

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  • Alvehus, Johan
  • Spicer, André

Abstract

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 working 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.

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  • Alvehus, Johan & Spicer, André, 2012. "Financialization as a strategy of workplace control in professional service firms," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(7), pages 497-510.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:23:y:2012:i:7:p:497-510
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2012.02.001
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    3. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15194 is not listed on IDEAS
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    5. Ashley, Louise & Empson, Laura, 2016. "Convenient fictions and inconvenient truths: Dilemmas of diversity at three leading accountancy firms," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 76-87.
    6. Morales, Jérémy & Sponem, Samuel, 2017. "You too can have a critical perspective! 25 years of Critical Perspectives on Accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 149-166.
    7. Siepel, Josh & Nightingale, Paul, 2014. "Anglo-Saxon governance: Similarities, difference and outcomes in a financialised world," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 27-35.
    8. Graaf, Johan & Kraus, Kalle & Strömsten, Torkel, 2022. "The problematics of financialization – On the important (but neglected) horizontal axis of organizational action," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    9. Scott M Allan & James R Faulconbridge & Pete Thomas, 2019. "The Fearful and Anxious Professional: Partner Experiences of Working in the Financialized Professional Services Firm," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(1), pages 112-130, February.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/14570 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Louise Ashley, 2022. "Organisational Social Mobility Programmes as Mechanisms of Power and Control," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(3), pages 427-444, June.
    12. Narayanan, Venkateshwaran & Baird, Kevin & Tay, Richard, 2021. "Investment decisions: The trade-off between economic and environmental objectives," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3).
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