Common Threats and Managing Reputation in Executive Search Firms

Abstract

This paper provides important insights into how executive search firms can successfully manage their reputations to overcome major threats to their organizations. The paper focuses on three threats faced by executive search firms: the global financial crisis; questions around the sector's professional status; and the proliferation of social media for recruitment. Our data show that there was not a single coherent response from firms, but a piecemeal approach that focused on three forms of reputation management. First, diversifying service offerings; second, highlighting their symbolic capital; and third, connecting their firms to clients and candidates through partners. Building on our data and the theoretical literature, we provide a framework for understanding how professional service firms can manage their reputations in response to common threats, based on three categories from the English idiom 'keep up with the Joneses'. First, moving away from the Joneses; second, fencing out the Joneses; third, networking more than the Joneses. We provide theoretical and practical insights around how organizations can manage their reputations in response to threats which are common across sectors.

Opportunism in headhunter‐client relations: An agency theory perspective

“…These methods can provide effective ways for headhunters to reduce clients' opportunistic behaviors. Furthermore, while reputation is important to headhunters (Finlay & Coverdill, 2018;Harvey et al, 2018), our study demonstrates that reputation is important to client companies as well, as shown by recruitment-related outcomes in Figure 1. Client firms that are dependent on headhunters need to refrain from engaging in opportunistic behaviors.…”

Interviewing global elites

“…In addition, why do you want to speak to them and what might they benefit from the research. When I was contacting senior partners of Australian executive search firms, I explained to them that they might benefit from the insights of my research through understanding how different leaders were managing their organisational and individual reputations during the global financial crisis (see Harvey, Beaverstock & Li, 2019). Presumably, the reason why many of these elites were interested in and agreed to participate in the research project was because it was a difficult time for their firms in terms of their financial performance and reputation and they were keen to learn about the approaches of other leaders in a particularly secretive sector.…”

Managing Multiple and Conflicting Reputations in Global Organizations

“…In 2020, FireEye, the highly regarded cyber security firm that is used by companies and governments around the world to protect them from being hacked, was itself hacked by a sophisticated attack. This kind of incident represents a wider threat beyond reputation, known as a 'common threat', which is not exclusively about reputation or particular to one organization, but common to multiple sectors (Harvey, Beaverstock, & Li, 2019). Other examples include the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 and the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 and 2021.…”