From Guardianship to Complicity: A Boundary Perspective on Professional Misconduct

Daniel Muzio

doi:10.7577/pp.6462

Authors

Daniel Muzio University of York https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1725-9011

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7577/pp.6462

Abstract

This article explains professional misconduct through a boundary-centred ecological perspective. Although professions have historically justified their status and labour market privileges through social trusteeship and public service claims, numerous scandals—from Enron and Parmalat to the financial crisis and the opioid epidemic—reveal systematic failures of professional gatekeepers. I argue that these failures arise when boundaries within and around the system of professions are poorly designed or managed, particularly by being too weak, too strong, or too uncertain. These conditions generate mechanisms such as capture, conflicts of interest, collective myopia, double deontology, and regulatory arbitrage, leading to an increased likelihood of professional failure and misconduct. Contemporary trends such as globalisation, commercialisation, and technological change further destabilise traditional arrangements. The article concludes by advocating a configurational approach to boundary design to strengthen contemporary professional regulation.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Abbott, A. (1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. University of Chicago Press.

Abbott, A. (1995). Boundaries of social work or social work of boundaries?. Social Service Review, 69(4), 545–562. https://doi.org/10.1086/604148

Abbott, A. (2005). Linked ecologies: States and universities as environments for professions. Sociological Theory, 23(3), 245–274. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0735-2751.2005.00253.x

Aglietta, M. (1979). A theory of capitalist revolution. Verso.

Arnold, P. J. (2005). Disciplining domestic regulation: The World Trade Organization and the market for professional services. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 30(4), 299–330. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2004.04.001

Bernstein, J. (2017). Secrecy world: Inside the Panama Papers investigation of illicit money networks and the global elite. Henry Holt & Co.

Brint, S. G. (1994). In an age of experts: The changing role of professionals in politics and public life. Princeton University Press.

Brock, D., Powell, M., & Hinings, C. R. (1999). Restructuring the professional organization: Accounting, healthcare and law. Routledge.

Broom, G., & Bandel, C. (2014, July 31). Swiss banks send U.S. client data before cascade of accords. Bloomberg Business.

Burrage, M., & Torstendahl, R. (Eds.). (1990). Professions in theory and history. Sage.

Christians, A. (2014). LuxLeaks, whistleblowing and international tax transparency. Tax Notes International, 76(12), 1115–1119.

Coffee, J. C. (1999). Privatization and corporate governance: The lessons from securities market failure. Journal of Corporation Law, 25, 1–39. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.190568

Coffee, J. C. (2011). Systemic risk after Dodd-Frank: Contingent capital and the need for regulatory strategies beyond oversight. Columbia Law Review, 111(4), 795–847.

Cooper, D., Lowe, A., Puxty, A., Robson, K., & Willmott, H. (1988, January). Regulating the UK accountancy profession: Episodes in the relation between the profession and the state [Conference presentation]. ESRC Corporatism Conference, Policy Studies Institute, London.

Crotty, J. (2009). Structural causes of the global financial crisis: A critical assessment of the “new financial architecture.” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 33(4), 563–580. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bep023

Dinovitzer, R., Gunz, H., & Gunz, S. (2014). Unpacking client capture: Evidence from corporate law firms. Journal of Professions and Organization, 1(2), 99–117. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/jou003

Dinovitzer, R, Gunz, H., & Gunz, S. (2015). Professional ethics: Origins, applications, and developments. In L. Empson et al. (eds), The Oxford handbook of professional service firms (pp.113–134). Oxford University Press.

Empson, L., Muzio, D., Broschak, J., & Hinings, B. (2015). Introduction. In L. Empson, D. Muzio, J. Broschak, & B. Hinings (Eds.), The handbook of professional services firms (pp. 1–18). Oxford University Press.

Etherington, L., & Lee, R. (2007). Ethical codes and cultural context: Ensuring legal ethics in the global law firm. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 14(1), 95–118. https://doi.org/10.2979/gls.2007.14.1.95

Faulconbridge, J., & Muzio, D. (2012). The rescaling of the professions: Towards a transnational sociology of the professions. International Sociology, 27(1), 109–125. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580911423059

Forbes Report. (2003). Final report of Neal Batson, court-appointed examiner. In re: Chapter 11 Case No. 01-16034 (AJG).

Freidson, E. (1972). Professionalization and the organization of middle-class labour in postindustrial society. The Sociological Review, 20(51), 47–59. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1972.tb03209.x

Gabbioneta, C., Greenwood, R., Mazzola, P., & Minoja, M. (2013). The influence of the institutional context on corporate illegality. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 38(6–7), 484–504. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2012.09.002

Gabbioneta, C., Prakash, R., & Greenwood, R. (2014). Sustained corporate corruption and processes of institutional ascription within professional networks. Journal of Professions and Organization, 1(1), 16–32. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/jot002

Dinovitzer, R, Gunz, H., & Gunz, S. (2015). Professional ethics: Origins, applications, and developments. In L. Empson et al. (eds), The Oxford handbook of professional service firms (pp.113–134). Oxford University Press.

Grey, C. (2003). The real world of Enron’s auditors. Organization, 10(3), 572–576. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505084030103015

Hanlon, G. (1998). Professionalism as enterprise: Service class politics and the redefinition of professionalism. Sociology, 32(1), 43–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038598032001004

Hunt, M. R. (2008). Ethics beyond borders: How health professionals experience ethics in humanitarian assistance and development work. Developing World Bioethics, 8(2), 59–69. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-8847.2006.00153.x

Johnson, T. J. (1972). Professions and power. Macmillan.

Keefe, P. (2017, October 30). The family that built an empire of pain. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain

Kershaw, D., & Moorhead, R. (2013). Consequential responsibility for client wrongs: Lehman Brothers and the regulation of the legal profession. The Modern Law Review, 76(1), 26–61. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12001

Kipping, M., Kirkpatrick, I., & Muzio, G. D. (2006). Overly controlled or out of control? Management consultants and the new corporate professionalism. In J. Clark (Ed.), Production values: Futures for professionalism (pp.153–168). DEMOS.

Kleiner, M. (2006). Licensing occupations: Ensuring quality or restricting competition? W. E. Upjohn Institute.

Krause, E. A. (1996). Death of the guilds. Yale University Press.

Larson, M. S. (1977). The rise of professionalism: A sociological analysis. University of California Press.

Lamont, M., & Molnár, V. (2002). The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 167–195. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141107

Langley, A., Lindberg, K., Mørk, B. E., Nicolini, D., Raviola, E., & Walter, L. (2019). Boundary work among groups, occupations, and organizations: From cartography to process. Academy of Management Annals, 13(2), 704–736. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2017.0089

Leicht, K., & Fennell, M. (2001). Professional work: A sociological approach. Blackwell.

Levitt, A. (2000, May 10). Renewing the covenant with investors. New York University, Center for Law and Business.

Macey, J. R., & Sale, H. A. (2003). Observations on the role of commodification, independence, and governance in the accounting industry. Villanova Law Review, 48(5), 1167–1187. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.474741

Muzio, D., Brock, D. M., & Suddaby, R. (2013). Professions and institutional change: Towards an institutionalist sociology of the professions. Journal of Management Studies, 50(5), 699–721. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12030

Muzio, D., Faulconbridge, J., Gabbioneta, C., & Greenwood, R. (2015). Bad apples, bad barrels and bad cellars: A “boundaries” perspective on professional misconduct. In D. Palmer et al. (Eds.), Organizational wrongdoing (pp.141–175). Cambridge University Press.

Nagel, M. T. (2007). Double deontology and the CCBE: Harmonizing the double trouble in Europe. Washington University Global Studies Law Review, 6(2), 455–481.

Nicolson, D., & Webb, J. S. (1999). Professional legal ethics: Critical interrogations. Oxford University Press.

Obermaier, F., & Obermayer, B. (2016). The Panama Papers: Breaking the stoagelnry of how the rich and powerful hide their money. One World Publications.

Palmer, D. (2012). Normal organizational wrongdoing: A critical analysis of theories of misconduct in and by organizations. Oxford University Press.

Parkin, F. (1979). The Marxist theory of class: A bourgeois critique. Tavistock.

Perkin, H. (2003). The rise of professional society: England since 1880 (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Quinones, S. (2015). Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic. Bloomsbury Press.

Sako, M. (2015). Outsourcing and offshoring of professional services. In L. Empson et al. (Eds.), The handbook of professional services firms (pp.327–348.). Oxford University Press.

Sikka, P., & Hampton, M. P. (2005). The role of accountancy firms in tax avoidance: Some evidence and issues. Accounting Forum, 29(3), 325–343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accfor.2005.03.008

Sikka, P., & Willmott, H. (1995). The power of “independence”: Defending and extending the jurisdiction of accounting in the United Kingdom. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 20(6), 547–581. https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-3682(94)00027-S

Singh, J., & Jayanti, R. K. (2013). When institutional work backfires: Organizational control of professional work in the pharmaceutical industry. Journal of Management Studies, 50(5), 900–929. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12022

Suddaby, R., Cooper, D. J., & Greenwood, R. (2007). Transnational regulation of professional services: Governance dynamics of field-level organizational change. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 32(4–5), 333–362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2006.08.002

Suddaby, R., & Muzio, D. (2015). Theoretical perspective on the professions. In L. Empson et al. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of professional services firms (pp.25–47). Oxford University Press.

Tett, G. (2009). Fool’s gold: How unrestrained greed corrupted a dream, shattered global markets and unleashed a catastrophe. Abacus.

Toffler, J. R. (2003). Final accounting: Ambition, greed and the fall of Arthur Andersen. Broadway Books.

Widdows, K. (2011). Legal professional privilege for in-house lawyers: The European Court of Justice decision in Akzo Nobel. European Competition Law Review, 32(4), 177–183.

Wilensky, H. L. (1964). The professionalization of everyone? American Journal of Sociology, 70(2), 137–158. https://doi.org/10.1086/223790