25 years of the professional partnership (P2) form: time to foreground its social purpose and herald the P3?

Abstract

All academic papers are a product of the intellectual context of their conception, and the P2 paper (Greenwood, Hinings & Brown,1990) was no exception. The overarching goal at the time was to develop a theory of 'organizations' and the P2 paper sought to recognize a form or type of organization that had been ignored – namely, the "professional partnership". Our aim in this essay is to reflect on the 25 years of Professional Service Firm (PSF) scholarship since that paper was published. The central point is that the original P2 paper missed an essential feature of these organizations – their social purpose. This third 'P', we argue, should be front and centre of future research en route to a P3 model of professional partnerships.

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