Territorial Battles and Tribal Disputes
| Published date | 01 November 1991 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1991.tb01851.x |
| Author | Yves Dezalay |
| Date | 01 November 1991 |
Territorial Battles and Tribal Disputes
Yves
Dewlay”
In
Europe, as
in
the United States, the resurgence of debate on the diversification
of professional practices coincides
with
an intensified internationalisation of trade.
It
is as
if
the lines of demarcation between the spheres of competence of different
forms of know-how are called into question as an indirect effect of
the
opening
up
of national frontiers. Nonetheless, even
if
the problem is basically similar,
it
is taken up very differently on either side of the Atlantic. Europeans pose the problem
in
terms of
tnulti-disciplinary partnerships (MDPs),
whereas North Americans seem
only
to
envisage the possibility of
luwjrm uflliutes.
Comparative analysis of these
debates illustrates Abbott’s theses’ on the contingent character of the domains over
which different kinds of know-how have ‘jurisdiction.
’
The impassioned nature of the confrontations over the question of multidisciplinarity
is
a result of the strategic position of the phenomenon
in
the competition between
different professions for a dominant position
within
the rapidly expanding international
consultancy market. This market, where the rules of the game are still
very
imprecise,
offers ample opportunities for different professions
to
challenge the distribution of
roles resulting from different national histories.2 The immense restructuring
process which affects industrial and commercial enterprises has its equivalent
in
the professional d~main.~ As
with
the discovery of colonies
in
earlier times, the
opening
up
of new markets gives rise to fearsome appetites for power.
In
this vast
game of musical chairs which affects the whole of the professional system,
it
was
the accountants who gave the starting signal, no doubt because they were ‘poor
relatives’
with
most
to
gain from the upheaval. The big audit firms were the instigators
of the ‘supermarket ~trategy,’~ by which elite accountants hoped
to
conquer part
of the market and some
of
the social presige that hitherto had been the privilege
of lawyers. As evidence for this ambition, which is one of the strongest motivating
forces of their drive
to
expand, one can cite a text written at the request of those
who see themselves as the ‘spearhead’ of the French accountancy profession and
whose practices operate on the Anglo-Saxon model.s The lawyers responded to
*
Centre de Recherchc lntcrdisciplitiaire dc Vaucrcsson, Paris. Translation from the French by Graham
Burchcll.
I
2
Abbot,
77ie
Sy.v~erri
oj
Profeusioris:
uri
Essay
011
rlie
Divisio,i
of
Experr
LctDor
(Chicago: University
of
Chicago Prcss.
1988).
Thus, according to a Parisian advocate, the interest of the Buropcan market for the audit conglomerates
is
iilso
that
it
allows them to brcak out of the division of labour which,
in
North America. restricts
thctii
to
narrowly defined and subordinate technical tasks. ‘When they landed here
.
. .
they realised
quickly that there was no-one opposing them. Then,
. . .
they occupied the terrain. Already they have
conqucred thc domain of the daily legal management of entcrprises. They have firm bridgcheads
in
taxation thanks to the consultancies they control, and thcy have their eyes on the more sophisticated
legal products.’
Dezalay. ‘Juristcs piirs et marchands de droit: division du travail et aggiornatncnto dans lc champ
tlu
droit’ (1990)
folirix
10-
I
I.
Noyelle and Dutka, ‘The economics of the world niarkct for business services’ (1986)
Uriiversiry
oj
Chicago
Legctl
Foriori.
Association technique dcs cabincts d’audit et de conseil (ATH),
L’erripire
des
chiffres:
1
‘irlforrtiariori
Jiriaricitre,
1
‘artdir
er
lri
cornpmbilird
(Paris: Fayard,
1985).
This is
a
text that audit professionals from
across the Channcl would doubtless not disown, at least not
in
its essentials since their hctter, longer
established placc
in
thc business community would incline them to he niorc inodcrate
in
their arguments
thiin
their French colleagues. who are not
so
well-off and
so
inorc vehement
in
the expression
of
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Tribal
Disputes
this offensive
with
varying degrees of determination and success according to their
status, and thus the resources they commanded,
within
the field of power.
However, this counter-offensive policy, presented by its promoters as an imperative
of survival, is far from having unanimous support. Partisans and opponents of the
strategy
of
diversification confront each other essentially on the terrain of profes-
sional ethics. Both camps propose a definition of professional excellence
in
con-
formity
with
their ambitions and interests: one places a premium on the quality of
service given to clients, and emphasises that bringing together several skills
within
a single organisation has the advantage of enabling it to resolve increasingly
complex problems; the other replies that this juxtaposition of skills within 'super-
markets for business services' corresponds above all to the logic
of
profit, and risks
speeding up the commercialisation of expertise that destroys the basis on which
the specificity and social value of the different professions have been formed.
These broad desires on the part of consulting firms to extend their sphere of
competence coincide
with
a generalised challenge to the traditional view of the
professional model
in
which efficiency and profitability take precedence over
collegiality. The policy of diversification is inscribed
in
a more general context of
competition exacerbated by internationalisation and deregulation. The principal sellers
of services throw themselves into a race for massive expansion
in
order to occupy
a dominant position
in
the world market and
in
doing
so
they radically reform their
mode
of
management and strategy of commercialisation both to gain market share
and to reap the profits likely to attract elite producers of services.
To
survive the
dismantling of national cartels, producers
of
expertise, just like
their
clients, must
acquire a critical size and utilise all the resources of the new technologies of marketing
and management. For these reformers, the experts
(les clercs)
must leave their
cloisters and become
businessmen.6
To these iconoclastic arguments, the temple
~ ~~
thcir dcmands.
In
fact, thesc profcssionals
of
numbers do not hide their desire to take advantage of
an
historical conjuncture favourable to the promotion of their ambitions, and
to
substitute 'The empire
of
numbers' for the 'republic
of
Icttcrs': 'the tide has turned
in
the immemorial battle between numbers
and letters' (p
31);
'Letters were honoured. numbers held
in
low esteem' (p
216);
'For a long time
. . .
the republic
of
letters seemed irreniovable.
It
can even be seen as one
of
the pillars of the State
sincc for most of the time thc State's commands were in the hands
of
this republic's citizens, the
forums occupied by its adepts
. .
,
at the top, the exercise of power was the preserve
of
advocates
who, especially when from the South, were fiercely subject to the royal-word
(vcrbe-mi)'
(p
24).
In
1950,
the expert-accountant had no social status whereas the advocate and the notary did.
Accounting cxpertisc wns regarded as a craft which provided practitioners with a derisory standard
of life. 'Today the occupation has changed completely.
It
is no longer the same. From being precarious
the standard
of
life has become comfortable. thus giving accounting professionals access to social
stiitus
at
thc sanic time' (p
217).
The 'shiny sleeved' accountant, object
of
ironic commiserations from
thc 'noble profcssions', has been replaced by 'multinationals providing the business community
with
all
kinds
of
scrvicc' (p
108),
and whose 'role henceforth
in
the establishment, and in the system
of
cconoiiiic. industrial and commercial politics, should not be underestimated' (p
140).
Thc award
of
the Nobel Prize,
in
1984,
to an academic specialising
in
research into public accounting, demonstrated
to accountants 'the strength and credibility
of
the empire
of
numbers' (p
33
and p
34).
But thcir principal
assci is the internationalisation
of
trade, since 'accountancy law is above States' (p
34),
and they
see
thenisclvcs as bcing
in
the best position to create the embryo
of
the new 'magistrature of number' (p
136)
that has been niadc necessary by econoniic developments which they welcome. For the Anglo-Saxon
situation see: Joncs.
Accoiortat~c~~
arrd
tlrc
British
Ecorrorr~y
(London: Batsford,
198
I);
Leyshon. Daniels
and Thrift,
Working Paper
011
Producer Serivkes
Vol
Two:
Lnrge
Accoro~tat~q Firiris irr the
UK:
Operutional Adaptation
atid
Spatial Developmerit,
and
Vol
Three:
Irrtcrriatiormliz~ttiorr
of
Professiorral
Prodrtccr
Services: 77ie
Case
of
Large
Accourrtmicy Firrrrs
(Lampeter: St David's University College;
Liverpool: University of Liverpool,
1987- 1988);
and Montagna,
CertiJierl Public Accoirr~rittg. A
S~iciolr)~ical View of
a
Professiott it1 Charige
(Houston: Scholars Book
Co,
1974).
'Allowing himself a little indulgence, Brandon Gough (Senior Partner at Coopers and Lybrand) explained
why Coopers has become a successful multidisciplinary practice. One reason, apparently. is that the
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