IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/k9bd2.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Transnational Infrastructural Power of Professional Service Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Christensen, Rasmus Corlin

    (Copenhagen Business School)

Abstract

Recent work has emphasized how global professional service firms exercise power over and through transnational institutions to shape economic globalization. Responding to calls for further research on these dynamics, this paper argues that global professional service firms, in particular the Big Four (Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC), exercise power in the global economy by commanding transnational infrastructures of expertise that provide stability and order to globalization, and which form a critical resource that other actors – namely corporations and regulators – depend on to act. Through a combination of qualitative interviews, participant observation and career analysis, the paper studies how global professional service firms control the transnational domain of transfer pricing. I find that such control relies on command over key expert pathways and career experiences required for recognised transfer pricing actors and practices. This power in turn enables global professional service firms to resist political and professional challenges, providing professional discretion to entrench their preferred logics of economic globalization, and ultimately determine the levels and locations of corporate taxes.

Suggested Citation

  • Christensen, Rasmus Corlin, 2022. "Transnational Infrastructural Power of Professional Service Firms," SocArXiv k9bd2, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:k9bd2
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/k9bd2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/631b9d019a7d512e729029bc/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/k9bd2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lena Ajdacic & Eelke M. Heemskerk & Javier Garcia-Bernardo, 2021. "The Wealth Defence Industry: A Large-scale Study on Accountancy Firms as Profit Shifting Facilitators," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(4), pages 690-706, July.
    2. Morris, Timothy & Empson, Laura, 1998. "Organisation and expertise: An exploration of knowledge bases and the management of accounting and consulting firms," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 23(5-6), pages 609-624.
    3. Colbert, Gary J. & Spicer, Barry H., 1995. "A multi-case investigation of a theory of the transfer pricing process," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 423-456, August.
    4. Picciotto, Sol, 2017. "Taxing Multinational Enterprises as Unitary Firms," Working Papers 12851, Institute of Development Studies, International Centre for Tax and Development.
    5. Susan Addison & Frank Mueller, 2015. "The dark side of professions: the big four and tax avoidance," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(8), pages 1263-1290, October.
    6. Messaoud Mehafdi, 2000. "The Ethics of International Transfer Pricing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 365-381, December.
    7. Catherine Welch & Rebecca Piekkari & Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki & Eriikka Paavilainen-Mantymaki, 2011. "Theorising from case studies: Towards a pluralist future for international business research," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 42(5), pages 740-762, June.
    8. Cravens, Karen S., 1997. "Examining the role of transfer pricing as a strategy for multinational firms," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 127-145, April.
    9. Christian Plesner Rossing & Carsten Rohde, 2014. "Transfer pricing: aligning the research agenda to organizational reality," Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 10(3), pages 266-287, August.
    10. Daniel Muzio & David M. Brock & Roy Suddaby, 2013. "Professions and Institutional Change: Towards an Institutionalist Sociology of the Professions," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 699-721, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dan Li & Manuel Portugal Ferreira, 2008. "Internal and External Factors on Firms’ Transfer Pricing Decisions: Insights from Organization Studies," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 27, pages 23-38, June.
    2. Marcel Boyer, 2017. "Méthodes avancées d’évaluation d’investissements / Advanced Methods of Investment Evaluation - Tome 1," CIRANO Monographs, CIRANO, number 2017mo-03, January.
    3. Hemling, Lars & Plesner Rossing, Jacob Christian & Hoffjan, Andreas, 2022. "The use of information technology for international transfer pricing in multinational enterprises," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).
    4. Cools, Martine & Emmanuel, Clive & Jorissen, Ann, 2008. "Management control in the transfer pricing tax compliant multinational enterprise," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 603-628, August.
    5. Kumar, Satish & Pandey, Neeraj & Lim, Weng Marc & Chatterjee, Akash Nil & Pandey, Nitesh, 2021. "What do we know about transfer pricing? Insights from bibliometric analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 275-287.
    6. Andreea - Lavinia Cazacu (NEAMTU), 2017. "Transfer Prices - An International Problem," Junior Scientific Researcher, SC Research Publishing SRL, vol. 3(2), pages 19-25, November.
    7. Cazacu (NEAMTU), Andreea - Lavinia, 2017. "Transfer prices - an international problem," MPRA Paper 83661, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Asmund Rygh & Gabriel R. G. Benito, 2018. "Capital Structure of Foreign Direct Investments: A Transaction Cost Analysis," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 389-411, June.
    9. Yadong Luo & Huan Zhang & Juan Bu, 2019. "Developed country MNEs investing in developing economies: Progress and prospect," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(4), pages 633-667, June.
    10. Zhang, Hongjuan & Young, Michael N. & Tan, Justin & Sun, Weizheng, 2018. "How Chinese companies deal with a legitimacy imbalance when acquiring firms from developed economies," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 752-767.
    11. Päivi Jokela & Maria Elo, 2015. "Developing Innovative Business Models in Social Ventures," Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation, Fundacja Upowszechniająca Wiedzę i Naukę "Cognitione", vol. 11(1), pages 103-118.
    12. Reilly, Timothy M. & Jones, Raymond, 2017. "Mixed methodology in family business research: Past accomplishments and perspectives for the future," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 185-195.
    13. Biondi Yuri, 2017. "The Firm as an Enterprise Entity and the Tax Avoidance Conundrum: Perspectives from Accounting Theory and Policy," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-8, April.
    14. Yuliani Suseno & Ashly H. Pinnington, 2018. "Building social capital and human capital for internationalization: The role of network ties and knowledge resources," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 1081-1106, December.
    15. Anna Gerke & Herbert Woratschek & Geoff Dickson, 2020. "How is value co-created in a sportbusiness-to-business context?," Post-Print hal-02962015, HAL.
    16. Markard, Jochen & Erlinghagen, Sabine, 2017. "Technology users and standardization: Game changing strategies in the field of smart meter technology," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 226-235.
    17. Namrata Malhotra & Timothy Morris, 2009. "Heterogeneity in Professional Service Firms," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(6), pages 895-922, September.
    18. Maria Rumyantseva & Catherine Welch, 2023. "The born global and international new venture revisited: An alternative explanation for early and rapid internationalization," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 54(7), pages 1193-1221, September.
    19. Anders Haug & Aleksandra Magdalena Staskiewicz & Lars Hvam, 2023. "Strategies for Master Data Management: A Case Study of an International Hearing Healthcare Company," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 1903-1923, October.
    20. Tina C. Ambos & Katherine Tatarinov, 2022. "Building Responsible Innovation in International Organizations through Intrapreneurship," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(1), pages 92-125, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:k9bd2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.